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I met her stare. “As I recall, I had to turn the Lords’ Gala upside down to save you.”

“Indeed. And for that I owe you a great debt.” Her shoulders relaxed. “Come, Leda. Tell me what’s on your mind.” She waved me over.

We sat down opposite each other, on matching white sofas. Saphira folded her hands primly in her lap and waited for me to speak.

“Over the past several weeks, the gods have lost contact with some of their outer worlds.” I watched her closely for any reaction.

She didn’t give one.

“Well, it turns out very strange things are happening on those worlds,” I continued. “The gods’ subjects switched their allegiance. They now worship a new god.”

“You are well-informed,” Saphira said after a long pause. “I myself have lost two worlds to this plague of treachery.”

So some of Saphira’s worlds had been hit too. That meant this phenomenon went beyond Faris and Ronan, the gods with the biggest armies. But why? What was the point of picking off a few of the gods’ outer worlds?

“How many of the gods has this situation affected?” I asked Saphira.

The goddess’s perfect facade wavered. “Too many.”

“If this problem is so widespread, then why aren’t the gods doing anything against it?”

“You think we haven’t tried to stop it?” Her laugh was a hiss.

“You’re each fighting it alone. You need to tackle the problem together, as a team.”

“I thought you knew by now, Leda Pandora, that gods are not team players.”

“Yeah, that’s why you’re losing.”

Saphira sighed. “In order to work together, we’d each first have to admit to the others that we’ve lost those worlds.”

“Wait, so none of you even know that the other gods are all having the exact same problem?”

“Of course we all know.” Her interlaced fingers squeezed together in her lap. “We do all spy on one another, you know.”

Yeah, I knew. The gods were just as suspicious toward their own kind as they were toward demons.

“But knowing is one thing,” Saphira said. “Admitting it openly is another matter altogether. No god wishes to appear weak in front of the others.”

Paranoia and pride: the perfect storm. It was no wonder the gods never got anything done. I guess it was time for the Angel of Chaos to dig in and get her hands dirty.

“The demons have lost worlds as well,” I mentioned.

She nodded. “I am aware.”

Of course she was. The gods didn’t just spy on one another. They spied on the demons too.

“If I had a list of all the worlds affected, if I mapped them out, maybe I could figure out what they have in common,” I told Saphira. “Maybe I could figure out why they were targeted.”

“There’s no need,” she replied. “From the list of worlds I’ve collected, I’ve already figured out what they have in common. And why no god would ever admit to losing any of these worlds. The shame would be…unbearable.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“No.”

I sighed.

“But I fear I must.” She tucked her dark hair behind her ears. “For the good of us all.” Her gaze danced around the room, looking at everything else but me—until it finally snapped to me. “Every one of the worlds we’ve lost is an important storage facility.”