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Yeah, angel mind games. I should have known. So that’s where this sudden burst of supposed sympathy had come from. It wasn’t sympathy at all; it was strategy. Nyx wasn’t letting out her softer side tonight after all.

The front door flung open. Tessa and Gin rushed inside, holding Zane between them. He was bleeding. Calli brought up the rear. She closed the door after her, then holstered her guns.

Tessa and Gin set Zane down on the sofa, and I immediately started healing him.

“What happened?” I asked them.

“We were attacked outside of the potions shop. Zane was shot,” Calli told me.

“More ninjas?” I asked.

“Two people, dressed in black, yes.”

I poured more healing magic into Zane. “I did not just get back my brother only to lose him again.”

“The bullet only grazed me. I’m fine, Leda.”

“But the people who did this to you won’t be.” I’d finished healing his wound. I rose to my feet. “What happened to the ninjas?” I asked Calli.

She frowned. “They got away.”

“Leda, I don’t think this is about Bella and the grimoire we’re looking for,” Tessa said.

“What do you mean?”

“Zane was there with us last night, right next to Bella when the shot went off. She pushed him out of harm’s way. I think the ninjas were aiming for Zane, not Bella.”

“Someone is after Zane.” I clenched my fists. “The Guardians are after him. She was telling the truth.”

“Who was telling the truth?” Harker asked.

“The rogue Guardian. River. She said Zane was important to helping me, that he was important to my success in defeating them. Now that he’s out of the Sanctuary, the Guardians are trying to kill him.”

“You may bring your family with you,” Nyx told me.

“Am I going somewhere?” I asked.

Nyx didn’t answer my question. Instead, she looked at Cadence and Damiel. “You didn’t tell them?”

“We were leading up to it,” Damiel said.

“What could telling us that Cadence is pregnant possibly be a lead up to?” I smirked at him. “Unless you’re going to tell me that you’re moving in with us, so we can all be one big, happy family.”

“There’s been an incident.” Nyx’s voice was hard and sharp, like a crack of lightning. “Two angels were killed.”

My smirk faded. My chest tightened. “Who?”

“General Spellsmiter and Colonel Silvertongue.”

The angels General Kiros Spellsmiter and Colonel Desiree Silvertongue were brother and sister. They commanded the territories of West Australia and East Australia respectively, dividing up all of the continent between them. General Spellsmiter was also the Head of the Vanguard, an elite squad of Legion warriors.

“How were Spellsmiter and Silvertongue killed?” Nero asked Nyx.

“I sent them to the Sienna Sea.”

I’d never been to the Sienna Sea, but I knew of its reputation. Located in Australia, it was a vast expanse of red rock and no trees. And monsters. Lots of monsters. Some of the most ferocious ones in the world, in fact.

Nyx continued, “It all started when a Legion team found something unsettling during a mission on the Sienna Sea: the ruins of Darkstorm’s fortress had disappeared.”