him. “And you make a very sexy man.”
Rising from my seat, I shot her a look laden with threat. “Stop flirting with my husband.”
She took a step back, obviously unnerved by the fire in my eyes. “Wait, so you two are actually married?”
“Of course.” Damiel spoke like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“But you’re also soldiers.”
Damiel gave her an enigmatic smile. “Oh?”
“Don’t bullshit me. I saw how easily you threw balls into those holes, even the ones that were hardly larger than the balls themselves,” she said. “You’re obviously well-trained. And have magic. No normal person has reflexes like yours.”
“No normal person abducts innocent strangers,” I countered.
“Everyone worships the Magic Collective. They call them gods. But they steal our friends, our family, and they take them away. We never see them again. The Magic Collective isn’t a group of deities. They are people who happened to be born with a little magic, and now they’re hoarding all that magic for themselves.”
Grant set his hand on her shoulder. “Zara.”
She brushed him off. “No, Grant. You always tell us to be calm, but we just can’t be. No one will even listen to us. We need to get people’s attention. That’s the only way we can ever hope to banish these false gods.”
“And you figured destroying local tourism was the best way to get noticed.”
“It was either that, or blowing up stuff,” Zara told me. “I think we made the right choice.”
“We do set the tourists free eventually,” Grant added.
“I do not appreciate being taken hostage,” I told them.
“You have magic,” said Zara. “So let’s be honest. You allowed yourself to be taken.”
“And you lured us to the springs,” Damiel shot back. “Why?”
“Because we need your help.”
I folded my arms over my chest; it put my hands close to the tiny knives hidden inside my decorative armlets. “When you want a favor from someone, you typically don’t open by cuffing their hands and throwing stinky old sacks over their heads.”
Damiel cocked a single brow at me. “To be fair, Princess, that is exactly how angels secure favors. We don’t ask for them. We demand them.”
Zara gaped at us, her eyes wide. “You two are angels.”
“So you’ve heard of angels,” I said.
“Just stories from passing travelers. We don’t have any angels here,” Grant told us. “Angels are supposed to be beings of great beauty and infinite magic.”
“That’s basically the gist of it.” Damiel’s laugh was a smooth, silky purr, wrapped in a crisp, arrogant crust.
“Is magic so common on your world?” Zara asked us.
“Not exactly common, but those of us who possess magic aren’t hunted down and hidden away from everyone else,” I told her.
“Here, the hunters take away all the people with any sign of magic.” Zara glanced at Grant. “If you don’t report your magic, they find you eventually.”
“The Magic Collective’s hunters seek out magic, using special tools to track it to its source,” he said. “Those people with magic are labeled ‘chosen’ and then you never see them again. They are taken away to the fortresses.”
“What is going on inside those fortresses?” I asked the question that had been bothering me since I first saw that pillar of light shooting out of the fortress, high up into the sky.
Grant shook his head. “We’ve been trying to figure that out for years.”
“Have you tried to get into one of these fortresses?” Damiel asked him.
A wrinkle formed between Grant’s thick brows. “Why do you ask?”
“The Magic Collective’s soldiers have stolen something from another world, a magic artifact,” I told him. “We intend to get it back.”
“So the Collective has stolen magic artifacts as well as magic people.” Grant slammed his fist down on the table. The teapot and all the cups rattled. “All to run that blasted spell.”
“What is that spell all the fortresses are shooting out?” Damiel asked.
“No one knows.” Grant shrugged. “The Collective has been brewing that spell for as long as anyone can remember, but no one knows what it is. All we do know is that they constantly need more magic people, more magic artifacts, to power it. That spell is the source of the Magic Collective’s power. It is what makes their magic so strong. It’s what gives them control—dominion—over everyone and everything.”
16
Wrong Turns
“Have you tried to break into any of the fortresses?” Damiel asked the rebel leader.
“My sister Naida was taken when the Collective learned of her magic.” Grant pointed to the picture of a teenage girl with big, blue eyes and a