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Nyx shot me an agitated look, like it was all my fault that random people kept trying to blow up any airship I was on.
Another plane was crashing down toward the airship’s deck. Stash blasted it with magic, destroying it before it hit.
“More planes are coming, Leda,” Stash called back to me. “A lot more.”
“Man, you must have really pissed off the Guardians,” I commented to Indira, then I rushed toward the outdoor deck.
Indira ran at my side, her scythe ready. “The Guardians are afraid of what I know. And of what you can accomplish with my help.”
I joined with Stash and the others in shooting down any plane that got too close. Indira cut through any ninja who jumped out of a plane to reach us.
There were still a lot of ninja planes out there, but the fleet turned away at the sight of four angels in the sky. Nero, along with Damiel, Colonel Fireswift, and Colonel Dragonblood. The four angels shot at the fast-retreating fleet, blowing up a few of the planes at the rear. Then the angels looped around the airship and landed gracefully on the deck.
I stepped forward to greet Nero, but his gaze snapped to Indira. Gold flashed in his eyes. “Don’t make any deals with that beast.”
I looked at Indira, then at him. “What do you mean?”
“She’s the one,” he said, his words dripping with menace. “The one responsible for killing so many angels, soldiers, and countless others on countless worlds. We finally tracked her down.”
There was a flash of magic, and then suddenly another of the octuplets was standing in front of me. This was getting ridiculous.
“You’re late,” Indira said to the new arrival.
“You’re welcome, sister,” the teleporter replied.
Her voice. This was the woman in the purple cloak, the one who’d gotten the weapons of heaven and hell out of the Lost City for Grace. That’s how she’d gotten the artifacts; she’d teleported them out of the gateway. I knew it was this djinn. Though the sisters all spoke pretty much alike, there were minor differences in intonation between them. Unlike their faces, their personalities weren’t all identical.
“I was luring those planes away from you.”
“Luring them where?” Indira asked.
The teleporter laughed. “Through a portal that led to a cozy, totally uninhabited moon.”
Indira laughed too. “Nice.”
“Welcome to the circus, Number Four,” I said to the djinn.
“Actually, my name is Rosette,” she told me.
“And whose mother, surrogate mother, or grandmother are you supposed to be?” I said flippantly.
I was joking, so I was pretty surprised when Rosette answered, “Hers.” She looked at Tessa. “I’m her mother.”
Tessa’s eyes went wide. It was Gin’s turn to squeeze and comfort her. Or maybe my sisters were squeezing and comforting each other.
“So Gin and Tessa are cousins?” Zane asked.
“Cousins. Or sisters,” Gertrude said. “Depends on how you see it. We are all identical, you know. Except for our powers.”
“And who would want to create eight identical people, each with one of the eight passive magic powers?” Bella asked.
Inali nodded. “That is a very good question.”
“But not one we’re at liberty to discuss,” Indira said. “The deal we made was, specifically, that I’d tell you how to break in to the Guardians’ Sanctuary.”
“Leda, don’t listen to them.” Nero indicated the phoenix and the teleporting djinn. “The two of them killed all those people. They killed Legion soldiers. And Legion angels.”
“It was a necessary evil committed for the greater good,” Indira said.
