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“I’m sorry, Leda. I can’t help you.”

“Oh, I see how it is,” I said, frowning. “You’re one of them now. A council member. And now all you care about is keeping your precious secrets and protecting whatever power you’ve collected.”

“It’s not like that,” she replied, squeezing her hands a little too tightly. “I would tell you, but I just can’t. This secret is too big. Too important. If it got out…”

“How’s it going to get out?” I demanded. “It’s not like I’m going to shout it from the rooftops. I just need the facts, so I can connect the dots. I won’t tell anyone.”

Saphira shook her head. “Sorry, but discretion isn’t really your forte, Leda. Focus your efforts on the rogue deities?—”

“Wait, did you just say rogue deities,” I cut in. “As in, there’s more than one of them?”

She ignored me. “—and how to stop them from usurping any more of our worlds. The fate of the gods, the demons, the universe…it all lies in the balance.”

“Well, isn’t that completely cryptic?” I snapped. “And completely unhelpful.”

“I am helping,” she told me. “Trust me on that.”

“If you really wanted to help, you would tell me everything you know about these rogue deities,” I argued. “Then maybe I’d actually have a chance in hell of stopping them.”

“I’m sorry, Leda.”

I was getting really tired of hearing her say that.

“Yeah, I’m sorry too,” I told her. “Sorry that you don’t trust me enough to let me help you.”

Then I turned and stormed out of the room.

Lady Coralia was waiting for me at the doors to Saphira’s wing.

“I must speak with you at once,” she said.

Coralia wanted to speak with me? That alone was enough to make me suspicious. I knew all about Coralia. She was the other goddess, the goddess Saphira had defeated to ascend to the gods’ council. And I was glad Saphira had won. Coralia was an anti-angel, anti-human goddess who believed the universe and everyone in it existed solely to serve the gods.

“I know you seek answers about Solarian,” she said, rushing to keep up with me when I didn’t slow down. “And the Nectar that Ava stole. The council is guarding those secrets closely, even from the rest of us.”

“So you’re saying you don’t know anything,” I replied.

“I know everything.” She caught my arm, pulling me to a stop. “I have a knack for digging up secrets.”

So she probably had spies everywhere.

“The council won’t give you the answers you seek,” she said. “But I will.”

My supernatural senses were tingling—all of them. “What do you want?”

Coralia would never help me simply out of the goodness of her heart. Or even for the greater good. She hated angels.

“With Zarion dead, a seat on the council is available,” she said.

“And you want it.”

That much was obvious. Last time a seat had been available on the gods’ council, Coralia had lost it to Saphira. She was practically frothing at the mouth at the prospect of a second chance.

“The council needs some fresh blood,” she said. “With fresh ideas.”

“You want to hunt down and murder every angel on Earth. I’d hardly call that the kind of ‘fresh idea’ the world needs.”

Coralia set her hand over her heart, like I’d wounded her. “Leda Pandora, I would never do such a thing.”