Holyfire said. “They are obviously working together. Dragonsire is one of only three people who could have removed her security necklace. The other soldiers’ whereabouts are accounted for. Dragonsire’s are not.”
“That’s ridiculous. General Dragonsire isn’t working with Eva Doren. He and I were the ones to capture her twenty years ago.”
He braided his fingers together. “Are you so sure about that?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I was there.”
“General Dragonsire is an accomplished manipulator.”
“I know him.”
“Either you don’t know him at all, and he fooled you.” His eyebrows furrowed. “Or you know him for exactly what he is, and you’re in league with him. Which is it, Colonel?”
“I choose sanity over this rampant paranoia and madness. General Dragonsire is not a traitor. And neither am I.”
He rose to his feet. “Maybe I’ll just bring you in for questioning, just to be sure.”
“No, you will not.” My father serenely set down his teacup.
He gave a telekinetic flick of his hand to snap an exterior door open, followed by an immediate second telekinetic flick to eject Colonel Holyfire through the opening and over the edge of the airship.
As the door closed again, I could only gawk at him. “You just pushed Colonel Holyfire overboard.”
“He’ll live.” My father picked up his teacup again and took a small sip, as though he—literally—threw people off his ship all the time. “He’s an angel. He can fly. But perhaps he will learn from his misstep and next time not have the audacity to speak with such disrespect to an archangel. He might be the Master Interrogator now, but I still outrank him. When his head clears, he will remember that.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I doubt he’s that sensible.”
“Perhaps not, but then the First Angel will remind him of his place. And of mine. I will make sure of it.” He stroked his chin. “But this is about more than Colonel Holyfire’s ego. The situation is even worse than I thought. Eva Doren escaped at the same time as Dragonsire did. That gives Colonel Holyfire all the ammunition he needs. The timing is too suspicious; it implicates your husband. But that is not even our biggest problem. No, our biggest problem is the person that connects Dragonsire and Eva Doren: you. This investigation isn’t just about one treacherous angel now. It runs deeper. Much deeper. Colonel Holyfire is investigating you, Cadence.”
“This is all nothing but circumstantial…well, I can’t even call it evidence.” I threw my hands up in the air. “It’s just paranoia.”
“Yes, it is,” my father agreed. “But paranoia is a powerful force, a force that is currently reigning supreme at the Legion of Angels. Colonel Holyfire will not rest until Dragonsire is taken in—and you too, if he has his way. He’s going to dig and dig until he finds a way to condemn you. The worst is yet to come.”
“There has to be a way out of this. An escape.”
“You want to run away?”
A heavy breath rocked my ribcage. “Sometimes retreat is the only path left.”
“Not this time. You can’t run away, Cadence. If you do, you will be branded a traitor, just like Dragonsire.”
“I don’t care what they call me. I know the truth.”
“It might not matter to you what the Legion thinks, but it does matter to Nero. If you run off, he will be the son of two treacherous angels. He’ll be an outcast. The path to being an angel will be forever barred from him.”
I scowled at him. “Do you honestly think that after all the Legion has done, how it has betrayed us, that I’d want my son to join its ranks?”
“But Nero must join the Legion. And he must become an angel. You know that, Cadence. Nero needs the gods’ Nectar to gain the powers to defend himself from the magic hunters who are still tracking down and murdering the Immortals’ descendants. And he needs that Nectar to change his magic, to mask it from those hunters.”
Those same hunters had killed my mother, one of the few Immortals who’d managed to survive the mass annihilation of her kind.
“But if you run off with Dragonsire, you too will be branded a traitor,” my father said. “You will share in his disgrace. And so will Nero. We cannot allow that to happen. Nero must become an angel.”
“This isn’t just about the hunters,” I realized. “You know something. Something about Nero.”
“I do.”
“Tell me.”
“That wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“We are long past all the good ideas, Dad. All that’s left are the bad ones,” I