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Wow, she must have been really high on parenthood too. I hadn’t seen her in such a good mood in a long time.

“Leda, your daughter is the love child of order and chaos.” Alec looked very pleased. “It’s going to be fun to watch her grow up.”

Spirits were high all around today. Naturally. We had the Guardians on the run, and the Earth was whole once more. It had been a good day.

“Don’t celebrate too soon,” Jiro warned me.

“Jiro, your doom-and-gloom attitude is really killing the mood,” I told him.

“You accomplished a lot today, Leda. No one can take that away from you,” he said. “But you must know that there’s a whole give-and-take balance to magic. Nothing comes for free. There must be something that fuels any magic performed.”

“Yes, we know. The phoenix Indira told us all about that,” I said breezily.

“She told you about the balance between life and death, as a phoenix would see things,” Jiro said. “But it’s more complicated than that.”

Speaking of passive magic…

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you and Eva something,” I said to him. “When Grace was young, she and her sisters came across some beings who called themselves eidolons and spirits. They claimed to be the deities of light and dark passive magic, respectively.”

“They are,” Jiro confirmed.

“So what more can you say about them?” I asked him.

“A lot. Just as I can say a lot about a lot of things,” he said with enough smugness to make even an angel blush. “The universe is a big place, full of wonders and horrors. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Leda. When you played with the laws of magic—when you ripped open the Sanctuary and pulled it into this realm—you opened up the door to other realms.”

Eva came to stand beside him. “Realms where magic doesn’t work in the way you’ve come to expect. Realms where countless threats lie in wait, ready to strangle you.”

“There is great magic out there, magic the Guardians can use against you. That’s why you must find them quickly, before they acquire powerful weapons against you,” Jiro told me.

“What happened to your oath of non-interference?” I said, allowing my brows to lift.

Because their shifting double standards totally deserved a good eyebrow lift.

“As you once said, plans change,” he replied.

At that moment, I liked Jiro more than I ever had.

“You might have chased the Guardians away from the Earth, but they aren’t done with you yet,” Eva said. “And they aren’t done with your family, Leda. Not by a long shot.”

I looked around the room, at all the friends and family gathered here. “And we aren’t done with the Guardians. Nor are we done with Ava, Sonja, and anyone else who has manipulated our entire lives.” I looked up at the sky. “You hear that, Guardians, gods, and demons? We’ve had enough, and now we’re coming for you.”