“Well, that was anticlimatic,” commented Lieutenant Lawrence.

“I haven’t heard you offer any idea,” I told her.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” she said with a derisive smile. “The text says you need the moon and the sun. We need sunlight and moonlight together in a single stream.”

“You mean an eclipse,” I said.

“You know, you’re only half as dumb as you look.”

I ignored the jab. “Ok, dazzle us. Save the day. Show us the spell that creates an eclipse.”

The smile wilted from her lips. Ha! I had her there.

“I take it from your extended silence, that you don’t have that kind of magic.” I said sweetly at her. “You know, you’re only half as powerful as you look.”

She stepped forward, but she was cut off from me when the crowd parted, making way for Colonel Fireswift and his team.

“I see we’ve found the gateway,” he said, glancing at the angel symbol on the house. His gaze shifted to Lieutenant Lawrence. “And one of you had the brains to figure out the key to opening it.”

“Leda was the one who told us the puzzle that will allow us to open it,” Drake said.

Colonel Fireswift shot me a sardonic smile. “Congratulations, you can repeat back something you were told without understanding what it means. You must be so proud.”

I calculated how many strikes I could get in before Colonel Fireswift hit back. I decided the answer was one, if I was lucky. Which meant it wasn’t worth the risk. I needed to get faster and stronger, and I didn’t care how long I had to train to make that happen. Colonel Fireswift looked down on everyone like they were the muck beneath his boots, and one day I would wipe that superior look off his face. That I swore on everything that was holy and unholy.

“Lieutenant Lawrence had a good idea with the eclipse,” Colonel Fireswift said, walking toward the symbol. “Let’s explore that.”

“He never praises anyone,” Claudia whispered to me. “He’s only praising her because he’s figured out that you two are mortal enemies.”

“The whole mortal enemy thing is all on her end,” I replied in a whisper.

Colonel Fireswift was so busy listening to himself speak that he hadn’t even heard us.

Claudia snickered. “He’ll sure be vexed when he realizes that her obsession with Colonel Windstriker is the reason you too don’t get along.”

Magic rumbled overhead. The rocks of the ceiling began to rearrange themselves. I glanced at Colonel Fireswift, who was directing their movements, shifting the hole in the ceiling so that the moonlight hit the angel symbol directly. Squinting, I watched a blinding light flash to life in front of the moon, as bright as sunlight. The tiny sun spun in the air like a disco ball, moving in front of the moon. I gaped at Colonel Fireswift. He’d just summon his very own personal sun.

The combined light of the moon and sun streamed down in a single beam, shining against the angel symbol on the wall. The house rumbled and groaned in the light of the potent magic spell, but no doorway opened up.

The underground city began to rumble and quake, the walls of the buildings exploding under the weight of the falling ceiling. Colonel Fireswift issued a sharp order to retreat, and we all ran as fast as our supernatural powers could carry us. We managed to get out without anyone getting killed, but the entire sunken city section was now buried under several hundred tons of rock.

Colonel Fireswift glanced down at the collapsed entrance, then shot me an irked look. “What have you done? What game are you playing at?”

I wanted to point out that it was his haphazard reorganization of the ceiling that had brought down the roof, but before I could get myself into trouble by talking back, Claudia called out.

“It’s Wardbreaker!” she said, pointing up at the cloaked shadow running along the rooftops.

“Get him!” Colonel Fireswift snapped and, we all scrambled up the bridges and buildings that would bring us to the Lost City’s upper levels.

But by the time we got there, Wardbreaker was gone, as though he’d vanished into thin air. Colonel Fireswift pushed us aside, dark crimson wings spreading from his back. I’d been right. His feathers were the color of blood. The colonel flew over the city for over an hour, but he didn’t find any sign of the rogue angel. Finally, he called off the search, summoning us down to street level.

“Telekinetic magic will be required to clear the way,” he said, looking at the collapsed entrance. “Of all of you, besides me, only Captain Somerset possesses that kind of magic.” He gave us all a hard look, as though it was our fault we didn’t have enough magic to make his plan work. “We will return with reinforcements.”

12

Siren’s Song

Legion soldiers level six and above, those with telekinetic magic, were hard to come by. By the time our train arrived back in New York, Colonel Fireswift had called every Legion office on this side of the Atlantic—and even a few beyond. By tomorrow morning, the Colonel would have his dream team to clear the way to the Treasury of the Lost City. Between all these hotshots and geniuses, surely they’d figure a way past the angel ward.

In the meantime, Colonel Fireswift had called all of us into Hall One because his office was too small to comfortably fit twenty-five people. Not that he cared about our comfort. Quite the contrary, in fact. He’d brought us to this particular hall because the blood hadn’t yet been cleaned up from the training group who’d just finished. This was a psychological game. He wanted us to stand amongst the pools of blood. I was one hundred percent certain of that.