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“And from the Legion of Angels.” Nero held up a battle helmet. “Whoever this collector is, he’s stockpiling magical objects. There are a lot of very powerful artifacts here. I have to wonder what he was planning to do with them.”

“It no longer matters,” Faris said. “It’s not his anymore. It’s mine.”

Grace snatched the bangle from his hand. “I think you meant ‘ours’. We shall of course return the treasures to their rightful owners.”

To both gods and demons, an object’s ‘rightful owner’ loosely translated to he-or-she-who-was-mighty-enough-to-claim-it. One could argue that the teleporting thief had fit that definition quite well, but I wasn’t up to arguing that point right now. The thief was dead, my daughter was tired, and it was time to go home.

Naturally, there would be some infighting between the gods and the demons over the artifacts, particularly those which multiple deities had once owned. It could take years to sort this all out, and I really wasn’t looking forward to the paperwork.

Nor did I believe that we had heard the last of this mysterious collector, the villain who’d frightened the djinn so much that he’d taken his own life.

PART FIVE

THE QUEEN OF MAGIC

The Queen of Magicis set thirteen years after Gods’ Battleground (Book 12) in the Legion of Angels series, starring Sierra Pandora Windstriker.

CHAPTER 1

SWEET TALK

Usually, I had lunch with my Aunt Bella every Tuesday, but she’d missed the last three weeks. She’d been pretty busy.

“What do you think?” Bella asked me as we sat outside the Sweet Talk cafe in New York City, sipping pink lemonade and basking in the warm summer sun.

I looked at the baby in her arms. My newborn cousin was a red-faced, roly-poly sort of creature with drool oozing out of his mouth. We’d only been sitting here for five minutes, and he’d already kicked off his socks twice. He’d also spat up all over his expensive outfit and pulled Bella’s hair out of her pretty braid. Given all the trouble babies caused, I couldn’t understand why any sane person would choose to have one.

“He’s…lively,” I told my aunt.

Her laugh was light and polished. Even though she looked like a mess—thanks to the little demon in her arms—she carried herself with such confidence and grace, as though she were a princess at a ball, not a tired mother with dark circles under her eyes and broken fingernails.

At least her outfit looked good. She was wearing an elegant wine-red business suit. The jacket had three-quarter lengthsleeves. It tucked in to a tight waist, then flared out a little on the hips. The skirt stopped just above the knees, showing off my aunt’s long legs. She looked good for a woman who’d had three kids, each only a year apart.

“I hope our food comes soon,” I said. “I’m starving.”

“It’s that angel metabolism of yours, Sierra,” Bella replied. “Magic burns a lot of calories. And so does growing. You’re still growing, right?”

“No, I’m not growing anymore, Aunt Bella. I’m sixteen.”

“Already?” She frowned. “I must have lost track of time.”

“Going senile in your old age?” I teased her.

She laughed. “That must be it.”

Actually, Bella looked exactly the same as she always had, minus the sleepy circles around her eyes. But those would fade by themselves with time, and if they didn’t, well, she’d just whip up a potion to erase them. My Aunt Bella was a talented witch. She was even a department head at the New York University of Witchcraft. I couldn’t imagine how she got so much work done with three rug rats distracting her all the time.

“So are you planning on having any more children?” I asked her.

“Only if you promise to babysit.” Her eyes twinkled at me.

I cringed. “I think I’d rather join one of my dad’s training sessions at the Legion.”

“That’s not saying much. You’ve been joining in your dad’s training sessions since you could walk. Fighting comes second nature to you by now.”

“Physicalandverbal fighting, yes,” I agreed.

“You get your verbal sparring skills from your mom. Your dad prefers to keep the chit-chat to a bare minimum.”