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Crystal rose from her seat. “We don’t take kindly to being manipulated, little demons.”

She clapped her hands. The cabin, the spirit, and the eidolon blurred out like paint dissolving into water. Then Grace and Ava were back home, inside their castle.

Ava looked at Grace. “To me, their non-interference line just sounds like an excuse to hide away and take no responsibility for anything.”

“Yeah,” Grace agreed. “But the threat of the Guardians is no line.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s true. I could feel it,” Ava said. “Well, if they won’t help us, we must come up with a plan to defeat the Guardians ourselves.”

“All right, but just the two of us, Ava. We can’t involve Sonja. Too often, she only does what’s best for her and for her alone.”

* * *

I saw a conference table.On one side of the table sat Faris and Zarion. I sat on the other side, right beside Grace. I knew it was Grace, not Ava, but I couldn’t say how I knew. Grace appeared to be fully-grown now, so this memory must have occurred many years after the last one.

Zarion folded his hands together on the table, his many garish rings clinking together. “Ava, I do hope you’re not just wasting our time.”

Ava. So I must have been inside Ava’s body this time.

I wonder if the body you’re in is determined by the person who most drove the memory, who had the most influence on the situation,Nero commented.

That made sense.

“Not at all, Zarion,” Ava replied to the god. “But perhaps we should take a short recess from these negotiations, just to give your mind a chance to catch up with everything we’ve discussed.”

Fury flashed in Zarion’s eyes. He rose quickly from his chair, but Faris caught his arm.

“Sit down,” Faris said coldly. His gaze shifted to the demon sisters. “We shall take a one-hour recess.”

“Agreed.” Grace looked at Zarion. “And when we return, we expect more civilized conversation.”

Ava and Grace rose fluidly from their seats and exited the room. They said nothing until they’d reached what looked like a very opulent hotel suite. A gentle sea shone bright and blue beyond the numerous windows, each one framed by a set of red velvet curtains. The walls were gold and the floors marble. The ceiling was painted with cloudy blue skies and lots of angels.

Now alone, Ava turned to Grace. “He has a thing for you.”

“Zarion?” Grace’s face crinkled up in disgust. “He’s so…godly.” She said the word like it was the worst thing imaginable.

“Not Zarion. Faris,” Ava told her. “Didn’t you see the way he was looking at you? He’s enticed by you. It must have something to do with your magic. I’m clearly the pretty one.”

Grace snorted. “You think we can use this to our advantage.”

“I do.”

“How?” Grace asked her.

“That spirit and that eidolon warned us about the Guardians’ plans. Centuries later, the Guardians have finally made their first move. Nearly as soon as our war with the gods reached Earth, they arrived there too. We hadn’t seen or heard from the Guardians in ages, and then they were suddenly there. They made themselves a hiding place on Earth, out of our reach in their so-called Sanctuary.”

“The Sanctuary is slightly offset from our realm,” Grace said. “It occupies the same space as the plains of monsters.”

Ava frowned. “What I want to know is how the plains of monsters came to be.”

“They were born from the clash of our dark magic with the gods’ light magic,” Grace said.

“Grace, demons and gods have fought many times on many worlds, and this has never happened before. Only on Earth have we lost control over our beasts. Only on Earth has the magic gone so wild that these so-called plains of monsters formed.”

“There’s something special about Earth,” Grace suggested. “It’s a place of change. Of opportunity. All kinds of magic are all mixed up there. The Immortals did something to the place.”

“But what?”