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“Pandora?” His brows peaked.

“Yes?” I asked, wetting my lips.

“You were rambling,” he reminded me.

“Right. I guess I should get back to that,” I said. “So this is what we know so far: we’ve traveled back in time, to before I had magic. Which is really inconvenient, by the way. I never thought I’d be annoyed to be human, but here I am. You once told me that the Legion changes people, that magic changes people. I guess I’ve changed more than I ever realized.”

“Not in the ways that matter,” he assured me. “Mostly, magic just made you harder to kill.”

“And more fun in bed?” I smirked at him.

His brows shot up even higher. “I don’t have a comparison point. But if you’d like?—”

“Oh, I’d definitelylike,” I informed him without delay.

His lips curled slowly.

“Hey, what’s gotten you so frisky, Windstriker?” I asked, twining our fingers together.

“You mean, besides the joy of seeing that you’re all right? Well, if memory serves, last night was the night Basanti dragged me out ‘for fun’.” He humphed. “There was a lot of Nectar involved, so that’s still in my system.”

“Oh, right. Basanti mentioned something about losing a Nectar-drinking contest with you,” I laughed.

“Yes, that was shortly before she abandoned me to proposition the bartender.”

I laughed again. “It’s so weird to be back here. For Basanti to not be with Leila. And to watch Alec Morrows flirt with me without being totally terrified that you’ll smite him.”

Nero stiffened. “I would be more than happy to drive fear into his heart.”

“You can’t do that,” I said, catching his hand as he turned toward the door.

“Of course I can,” he replied silkily. “I am quite adept at terrifying people.”

“No one here knows we’re married, Nero. In fact, we aren’t even married in this time. If you start threatening any man who comes near me—a woman you supposedly just met—what will people think?”

“That I have good taste,” he countered.

Score another point for the smooth angel.

“Ok, so it’s just the two of us here, out of time,” I said, trying to get us back on track. “How did we get here?”

“The pen,” he said immediately. He’d obviously already thought this through. “We were holding it, talking about this day. And then we appeared here.”

“So the pen is magical?” I wondered.

He frowned. “It wasn’t magical before. I held on to that pen for years, Pandora, and it never did anything remotely magical.”

“So maybe it gained magic recently?” I suggested.

Comprehension dawned on his face. “I had it with me at Storm Castle.”

“When all that wonky interdimensional magic was going on,” I said, latching on to the idea. “So maybe the pen absorbed it somehow.”

“Or perhaps this isn’t mere chance. Perhaps someonewantedthe pen to absorb that magic,” Nero said, “so they could send us here.”

“But why?” I asked. “Why send us into the past? What possible reason could anyone have for doing that?”

Nero shook his head. “I don’t know. But figuring that out is the next step toward getting us home.”