the Interchange via the magic mirror my father had taken. The Diamond Tear dagger could get me there faster, but Leila had it. She was supposed to be here for Nero’s wedding, which started in under an hour. Until then, I had some unfinished business to attend to.
Nero watched me, not saying a word. Two hundred years of lost time hung heavy in the air between us.
We were standing alone in the grand ballroom of the Legion’s new office in Purgatory. Everything was set for his wedding to Leda. Bunches of glittering gold roses sprouted out of decorative vases as tall as I was. Straight as an arrow, a red-carpeted aisle cut through two perfect grids of white chairs. A bright and big bow was tied to the back of each and every chair.
“I didn’t want to leave you,” I told my son.
My need to help my father right now was tempered by my need to see my son, if only for a few minutes. To talk to him. To make him not hate me.
I held back a heavy sigh. I wasn’t the perfect angel I was supposed to be. But I’d lost all chance of being perfect the day I’d become a mother. I’d done a lot of things to keep Nero safe from the hunters, none of them perfect. I’d be terrible and treacherous. I’d left Nero behind—to save him.
“Colonel Holyfire put you in a difficult situation,” he replied with all the pragmatism of his father.
He pretended that none of this bothered him, but I wasn’t fooled for a moment.
“I didn’t want to lie to you either, to make you believe we were dead.”
“Damiel tried to take credit for the lie, but eventually I managed to persuade him to tell me the truth. He admitted that the whole thing was my grandfather’s idea.”
Nero called his father Damiel. That told me two things.
Firstly, he didn’t want to think of Damiel as his father. I suppose that was understandable given that he’d spent nearly two centuries believing his father had died in disgrace.
Secondly, his words told me that not all hope was lost for Damiel and Nero to reconcile their differences. If Nero were completely pushing him away, he would have referred to him by his angel name ‘Dragonsire’. By saying ‘Damiel’, Nero was remaining on personal terms with his father. And that gave me hope.
“It was your grandfather’s idea,” I confirmed. “But each of us is responsible for our own actions. I’m sorry I lied to you.”
“Are you?”
“Of course.” I took his hands, squeezing them gently. “Not a day went by that I didn’t regret leaving you behind.”
“So you believe you made a mistake? And given the chance, you would make a different choice?”
His face was devoid of emotion, as hard as granite.
“I…” I shook my head. “No. I did what I had to do.”
“If you would make the same choice again, you cannot regret it.”
Sighing, I met his eyes. “I see your grandfather has tutored you well in the art of rhetorical warfare.”
“He likes to say that all angels are at least as strong as I am.”
“So you can only beat them by being smarter than they are,” I finished for him.
Nero dipped his chin in a very dignified, very angelic nod.
“Given time, maybe we could have thought of a better solution than faking our deaths and running away. But we didn’t have any time. The Legion had branded your father a traitor. If they’d caught him, they’d have killed him. They thought I’d helped him escape. So they ordered me to hunt him down to prove my loyalty to the Legion. If I’d refused, they would have labeled me a traitor too. And as the son of two traitors, the path into the Legion of Angels would have been forever barred to you.”
“I know all of this already.” A hint of impatience bled into his words. “You and Damiel could have taken me and run away to some distant world, far from the Legion, far from the gods and demons. Instead, you left me behind so I could someday join an organization you’d both left and no longer trusted.”
“I realize it doesn’t make sense on the surface—”
“It doesn’t make sense on any level,” he cut me off. Hot, gold anger flashed in his green eyes. “There’s no point digging up the past. You made your choice. And because of that choice, your life went one way and mine went another.”
My eyes heavy with unshed tears, I reached