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“And what about the Divine Gate itself, hm?” he prodded. “How would they pass through that sheet of magic? It keeps Divine Cities from being clearly visible from the Demonic Territory and vice versa. But it also keeps anyone from crossing illegally.”
We trekked up a hill and turned west toward the Hudson. The school was still a few blocks away. “Magic has to be maintained, doesn’t it?”
“Of course.”
“So, if the barrier is combined energy from Divine and Demonic magic, then that has to be restored every once in a while. What if there are weaknesses? What if you can break it down before it naturally would?”
“Without alerting the guards,” he reminded me. “Touch the Gate, and you lose.”
I hummed, considering. “Maybe the smallest wearing down would be enough to pass below the radar. Gentle enough to just barely brush.”
He shook his head and picked up the pace. “You really are an amateur.”
I gaped as his long legs ate up the pavement at double my speed. “It’s a thought experiment, Razai. Sorry I’m not an expert villain. And will you slow down?”
“You should be an expert villain,” he said over his shoulder, definitely not slowing down. “If you want to catch one in the school, you have to think like one.”
“Fine! Then how would you get across the Gate?” Jogging seemed to work, thank gods. But I shouldn’t have to trot to keep up, so I grabbed his sleeve and slowed him myself.
He relented with a quiet laugh. “Fine. If I were a vampire and wanted to cross, I’d offer favors.”
We paused at a light and waited for the cars to peel past us, then crossed in a hurry.
“I see,” I said. “So you’d go for the political side of things.”
“Of course! Politics means power, and power means money. The people with the means and the resources to get me, a lowly vampire, across the Gate wouldn’t care about money. They’d care about leverage. How to use someone. I’d sneak to the Underground and make friends, give a dangerous and powerful person a favor, then voila! I’m across.”
My stare was as flat as a dollar bill. “And you say I’m an amateur.”
His face fell into a woeful pout. “You don’t like my idea?”
“You’d have to find the Underground to use it, and the Underground doesn’t exist. It’s just an urban legend. Any secret place connecting Divine and Demonic Territories would get destroyed. There’s no way.” The two sides did not mess around with protecting the boundaries between their lands.
And when they had to, things became bloody.
Barbaric.
Savage.
It had been four years since the last skirmish, and half of Manhattan and Staten Island flooded as a result of the elemental battles. Over two hundred Divine Warriors were killed, and trade was completely halted for three months. It had been a mess.
“Of course it exists,” he scoffed. “Powerful people can do anything they want in this world. Including lying to the public, staging wars and battles, fearmongering, warmongering, and being total hypocrites on the side.”
“So, every powerful person is like that?” I snapped, bristling unexpectedly. Dad wasn’t one of those people.
He had fallen in love with my mother, a demon woman. But he’d met her during a treaty conference. Not in some fictional Underground. Another strange thought bloomed in my mind. “You’re an archangel.”
His brow lifted, communicating a clear, way to state the obvious, Gray Wilder.
I went on, “Archangels are powerful. Why are you talking about ‘powerful people’ like you aren’t one of them?”
He didn’t act anything like Dad told me angels did. Was Dad just over-exaggerating to keep me cautious?
Razai stopped suddenly and gripped me by the shoulder. “Gray, if you ever learn one thing, it’s to not make assumptions about people you don’t know. I am but a lowly professor, sworn to tend to the needs of the youth. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“So humble,” I muttered, glaring at his hand on my shoulder. “Remove that.”
He gave me a questioning look. “You aren’t convinced?”
