Page 55 of Princess of Bael

She returned the nod, perhaps agreeing or saying the same thing back.

I wasn’t sure, and it didn’t really matter. We’d shown up here today as a team, our purposes uniting for the greater good. And together, we would embrace this new path to right the sins of our past.

We turned as one toward my estate, leading everyone back to my home, where we would feast in Kristina’s honor. She’d loved to cook, marking this as the best way to celebrate her long life.

Afterward, everyone would go their separate ways.

And then Kayla and I would begin our hunt.

Kay

Kristina’s funeraland the brunch that followed had been oddly peaceful. I felt as though I’d paid my respects properly and could focus on righting the wrong I’d created. Maybe not entirely, as I couldn’t bring her back from the dead, but I could find out who’d done this.

Shortly after brunch, my father had attempted to talk to me about my “misconception” of his games.

“I didn’t use you to hurt Ezra. He did that to himself,” he’d insisted. “If you consider the greater picture, you’ll see that, too.”

“Some part of you took glee in his pain, Father,” I’d replied, arching a brow that had dared him to argue.

“Of course I did,” he’d admitted with a smile. “But I never delight in your pain, Kay.”

I’d wanted to believe him, but it was hard to trust anyone in my life when all I’d ever known was betrayal. Instead, I’d just nodded. That’d been enough to satisfy him, allowing him to disappear back to Hell with Johanna.

“When you’re done with all this, let me know if you still want that blade, Princess,” Alastor had said before grabbing Lucía and following my father’s lead in returning to the underworld.

Ezra had grunted in response, then gone to work cleaning up the kitchen while I’d returned to his office.

We’d spent the rest of the day and all of the next reviewing my notes and the maps, deciding on our action plan. We still wanted to meet with Lord Zebulon’s Nephilim contact, just to cover our bases. However, we had a decent list of suspects.

No matter what tracking enchantment Ezra did, he couldn’t find any traces for Kristina’s essence, which confirmed we were dealing with either a Nephilim or a being who could conceal auras.

Or someone working with another skilled in concealment—we weren’t discounting that possibility, which, unfortunately, painted a rather long list of suspects and left the very likely possibility that we’d overlooked a candidate.

“We need to consider this from a political standpoint,” Ezra said, his arms folded across his chest. He wore another of his sweaters and jeans with no shoes. His wings were artfully tucked into his back as he held the plumes effortlessly off the floor while he studied the board we’d created.

“You mean we need to decide who has a motive to take Kristina’s power. Someone who would want the veil to fall.”

He nodded. “Exactly.”

“That’s hard to do when we don’t know the majority of the candidates on the board.”

“Agreed.” His golden irises flickered as he met my gaze. “We need to do some old-fashioned spying.”

My lips twisted as I considered how to pull that off. “We’ll have to split the list.”

He shook his head. “Most of them are in the same general area because of the Dark Provenance.”

He pulled out our map and started shading areas of known Nephilim. I already had a similar one somewhere, but his quick drawing was faster than searching.

When he finished, he pinned it to our growing board and stepped back to evaluate it against our list of names.

While the Nephilim were mostly in North America, they were still scattered all over the United States and Canada. “It’ll take us weeks to cover all that together.”

“Yes,” he agreed, glancing at me. “So, instead, we’ll ask Zebulon’s contact to arrange an official gathering.”

“Like a follow-up to the interviews Evangeline did with the Dark Provenance members for Prince Ashmedai?”

He shook his head again. “No. A gathering scheduled for me to meet them as the Archangel of Justice. You would attend as my mate, but what you’ll be doing is reconnaissance with your magic bracelet.” He concluded with a wave at my wrist.