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“They’re all immortal artifacts,” Cadence said, her eyes stretching wide. “Hundreds of immortal artifacts.”

“Well, now we know where all the immortal artifacts that the hunters stole ended up,” said Damiel.

“In Zarion’s secret stash.” I moved closer to one of the pedestals. “But how has he managed to collect so many super-powerful immortal artifacts without anyone finding out?” I stretched out my fingers to the sparkling tiara set atop the pedestal, surrounded by a sea of silk.

Nero caught my hand. “Don’t touch anything. We don’t know what these artifacts do.”

“The demon-killing artifact must be here somewhere. Spread out and try to find it,” Damiel instructed us.

“How are we supposed to find this artifact if you can’t even tell us what it looks like?” I asked.

“We’ll know it when we feel it,” Cadence told me.

I hoped she was right.

I followed the aisle to the next cluster of artifacts. The collection consisted of two vases, a ring, four matching gold cups, two shiny daggers, and an antique lantern adorned with dragons. The artifacts were all pretty—and probably pretty powerful—but none of them screamed ‘demon-killer’ to me. So I moved on.

The next cluster contained ten identical rings. They were thick and large, about the size of a steering wheel and made of metal, silver in color. And when I stopped to look at one of them, that silver metal started to glow. Runes appeared along the ring’s rim.

Before I could say ‘angel’, Nero was by my side. “You touched it, didn’t you?” His gaze panned over the glowing ring, its light reflected in his irises.

“I didn’t touch it. I swear,” I added when his eyes narrowed. “Not even a pinky.” I wiggled my little finger.

Nero sighed.

The ring began to vibrate. And those vibrations pulsed out from it. It felt like a jet engine was blasting my body, rippling across my skin.

Then there was a loud pop, and the ring split into two pieces. There were now two matching bangles, thick with magic, glowing with those same ancient runes.

“See?” I looked at Nero, holding up my hands. “That wasn’t me.”

Cadence came to stand by my other side. “I don’t think that’s true.”

“Wow, thanks, Cadence.” I piled on the sarcasm.

“You don’t have to touch an artifact for it to react to your presence.” She pointed at the bangles, which had begun to bounce in the air in front of me, like they were trying to get my attention.

“See?” said Cadence.

“Awww, I think they like me!”

“It’s likely they’re reacting to the mixture of god and demon blood in you,” she told me.

“Well, whatever it is, they look like they really want to come home with me.” The bangles were now nudging me in the arm. “Do you think I should adopt them?”

Cadence folded her hands together, closely considering the twin immortal artifacts. “Zarion wouldn’t like that.”

“We broke into his castle stronghold. I’m pretty sure that at this point, we’ve already thoroughly pissed him off,” I pointed out.

“Things can always get worse,” Nero pointed out.

Yeah, that was kind of our family motto.

“Leave the bangles,” Cadence told me, turning away from them. “Our objective is to retrieve the Demon Killer.”

“Demon Killer? So that’s really what we’re calling it now?” I called after her as she walked off to continue her search.

She didn’t answer.