Page 75 of Light Magic

“All right, so, you believed him and sent angels to hunt me.”

“At Rhodes's insistence, Adona ordered us to send angels to Earth to capture you. You were to be brought back for questioning.”

I scoffed. “Questioning, my ass. Rhodes wants me dead.”

She nodded. “I know that. He said … by the light, he has gone crazy. In the last few months, he has been babbling about a reform, how we need to change the structure of our hierarchy, and then he asked me to join him. To take over Elysium and purge the world of all evil. Including evil angels. There are no evil angels!” She shuddered. “It was horrible.”

A reform? That sounded as bad as I had imagined. “You said no and he attacked you?”

“Exactly! Many of the archangels are on his side, along with other angels.” A sob escaped her throat. “He has been working on this for years, and I had no idea. How could I have been this blind?” She inhaled deeply. “I gathered a few angels who were on my side and we fled but most of them died during the escape. The remaining ones and I decided to spread out and look for you. We know that you’re an important piece of this puzzle, or he wouldn’t be so desperate to find you.”

“He's not after me.” I shook my head. “He wants something I have.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

I pressed my lips tight. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her, but I didn’t want to talk about it here, out in the open.

“We should go.” I gestured to the car. “We can talk more when we’re away from here.”

“Good idea.”

We moved the disabled supernaturals out of the way, hopped in the car, and exited the garage.

At first, I drove around, toward the nearest interstate, though I was going with the flow and heading out of the city.

After a few tense minutes, I glanced at Ylena. She didn’t look like the powerful archangel I'd admired my entire life. She looked like a smaller, dimmer version of herself. Whatever Rhodes had done to her, he had scared her.

“We need a plan,” I said. “We need to gather the angels who came with you and hash out a plan to take Rhodes and his allies down.”

“Agreed.”

“But first …” I gripped the wheel tight. “You might not know this but I lost my magic about six months ago.”

She gasped. “What? How?”

I told her a sixty-second version of the events. “I just got it back, but … it’s unstable. We can plan, but before we do anything, I need some help.”

“You want to train.”

I nodded. “Yes. I think that one or two days of training will be enough. I’m sure it’s like muscle memory. I just need to exercise it.”

“Are you asking me to train you, Ariella?”

“Can you?”

“It would be my pleasure.” She offered me a smile. “I can contact the other angels and ask them to meet us. Where?”

I handed her my phone. “Find a motel or inn along the road, away from the city, and tell them to meet us there.”

She grabbed the phone as if it was a ticking bomb. “I don’t know how to operate these very well.”

I almost chuckled. “You can do it.”

I gave her instructions and she followed them. She found a motel thirty minutes from here, then she pressed her fingers to her temples and used one of her archangel powers: being able to send mind messages to other angels when linked before a mission.

That was smart of her. If it had been me, I would have forgotten to do that.

“One of them is only three hours from here,” she said. “But the others are farther away.”

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