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TEAM EVIL

Igaped at Vertigo, standing there so comfortably next to Kia and Regin. “Why?” I asked her. “Why would you helpthem? They represent everything you despise: the whole old-world thinking that led to your enslavement.”

“That is where you are wrong,” Vertigo told me, her voice so eerily chilled, so unlike her usual fiery, manic self. Had that whole insanity thing been nothing more than an act? “I am my own person. I have always been my own person.”

Something about her words—no, not her words exactly, but rather her tone and the look in her eyes when she spoke—well, it all reminded me of someone else entirely.

“You aren’t Vertigo at all, are you?” I said quietly. “It’s you.” My mind was churning. It was both rejecting and accepting this idea at the very same time. “The Night Prince.”

“I am indeed,” replied Vertigo-who-was-not-Vertigo.

“But this doesn’t make any sense.” I shook my head. “How are you the Night Prince?”

Kia smiled at the Night Prince. “It’s amusing to watch her squirm as her puny mind struggles to comprehend what’s happening. It’s right in front of her, and yet she cannot see it.”

“Yes, it’s a wonder she ever defeated you,” Regin added.

And that’s when I got this sickening, bone-cracking, gut-clenching feeling that he wasn’t referring to the incident last week at Midnight Castle.

But it couldn’t be.

“You are a Guardian,” Nero told the Night Prince.

As soon as he said it, as soon as I realized he’d reached the same conclusion as I had, I knew it was true. And then that tightness in my stomach squeezed harder. It felt like I’d swallowed a stone. How the hell had a Guardian taken over a supernatural’s body? Their power was supposed to nullify all magic.

The Night Prince strode forward, toward us, like a bird of prey shooting over the water’s surface, talons extended, searching for fish in the depths beneath. “Yes, the Night Prince is a persona, a role I played, a means to an end. Just like this shell.” He indicated Vertigo’s body, the body he was wearing like a new outfit. “I am indeed a Guardian, but not just any Guardian. They call me Mordon.”

He said the name like we were supposed to have heard of him.

Mordon continued, “I am the one who took charge, the leader who rose from the ashes of our defeat by the villain Leda Pandora. I am the one who put everything that you shattered back together. I am the one who rebuilt the Guardians’ empire.”

“If your empire is so intact, then why are you cowering in defeat inside the Veil with Kia and Regin?” Nero countered.

“Cowering?” Mordon spat the word. “Guardians do not cower.”

“You cowered for thousands of years inside your hidden Sanctuary,” Nero said coolly.

I knew what Nero was doing. He was getting Mordon all riled up so he’d reveal his grand evil scheme.

So I decided to help him. “Yeah, you were cowering all right. Up until I popped your Sanctuary bubble and you all went scrambling for cover like rats.” I shrugged at Mordon. “Oops.”

Mordon glowered at me. “Yessss.” He stretched out thes, long and slithery. “You ruined everything, Leda Pandora. Millenia of planning gone in an instant.” His voice hardened. Each word he spoke now was sharp, staccato. “And all because of some foolish girl.”

“And now you’re wandering the Veil, helpless and hopeless, so desperate for allies that you team up with all the other losers we defeated.” I laughed. “That’s just sad.”

Mordon’s lips pressed into a thin line. He was clenching his teeth so hard, it sounded like he had gravel rolling around inside his mouth.

“Don’t listen to her,” Kia told him. “She’s just trying to incite you.”

“She excels at that,” Regin added, throwing a derisive look my way.

I shrugged. “Hey, I’m just trying to slice right through the bullshit and cut straight to the chase. Let me spell it out for you, nice and simple, Sparky,” I told Mordon.

He wasverysparkly in Vertigo’s body. Was that glitter all over his skin? Or some kind of magic powder? Whatever the case, he was clearly overcompensating for his whole life up to this point. Guardians didn’t get to sparkle. Wherever they went, they killed the sparkles. That was one of the consequences of being a magic-nullifying entity.

“You spent millennia brewing your last plan of universal domination inside that cozy little Sanctuary of yours,” I continued, “and I blew it all up just like that.” I snapped my fingers. “And now you think this half-baked new plan that you’ve spent all of five minutes on will be the ultimate solution to all your problems?” I laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, this is what you don’t understand,” Mordon said, leaning in closer as the barbarian soldiers grabbed me and held me in place. “No one cares what you think, Leda Pandora.”