He thrust it at her. “Now tell me where she is.”
She accepted the black feather, and its profile glowed gold. Her lilac eyes widened with wonder. “Incredible …”
Cassiel pressed a fist to his chest as more of Dyna’s fear seized him. “Cast the spell!”
The witch tucked her new prize inside her bag. “It’s done. Follow the trail. It’s only visible to you, and it will disappear once you find her. Now go. You best hurry.”
Then she vanished out of sight.
Follow the trail? What trail? He didn’t understand what she meant until he spotted it. Down the alley appeared a path outlined in translucent purple flames—the tracking spell she promised. He sprinted down the illuminated path. The sound of his footsteps echoed off the brick walls. It led him around a turn into a wide alley centered between endless rows of tall buildings.
Cassiel didn’t want to think of what he would tell Zev if he failed to find Dyna. None of this would have happened if he had kept Dyna with him.
The witch was right. He was a fool.
He skidded around another turn but then the tracking spell faded. Ahead of him at the far end of the alley was Dyna. But his relief was short-lived.
She shrieked and kicked, thrashing helplessly against a man in a black coat. He gripped both her wrists in his hand, ignoring her as he spoke to another hidden beneath a gray-blue cloak. The group of men accompanying them laughed at her efforts.
Cassiel clenched his fists, rage blazing through him as he sprinted for them. “Dyna!”
All eyes fell on him.
“Cassiel!” At the sight of him, she fought harder against her captor. “Let me go, Von!”
She freed an arm and swung it back into his groin. He doubled over in a gasping grunt. That freed her for only a second when a man with dark skin snatched a handful of her red locks. Her painful cry twisted through Cassiel. Filling him with fury, helplessness, and desperation to reach her.
Dyna raked her nails across the man’s face. He shouted a curse, releasing his grasp. She darted away, but Von recovered and whipped an arm around her waist. She punched and kicked, using the back of her heels to bash Von’s shins, doing everything she could to escape. But he held onto her well this time.
Cassiel halted as the other men formed a wall between them. They armed themselves with daggers and swords.
“Release her!” he snarled at Von. Whoever the man was, he was leading this brigade.
Von looked at him over the heads of his men with an unreadable expression. “I leave this to you, Abenon.”
The man with bloody scratches on his cheek grinned. “With pleasure, Commander.”
“No!” Dyna wailed.
Von hoisted her onto his shoulder and shoved the youngest of them toward the man in the cloak who was already leaving. “Go with Bouvier, lad.”
“No, I’m with you,” the boy said firmly. They ran together down an opposite alley with her screaming Cassiel’s name.
“I’m coming for you!” he shouted after her. “I swear it!”
He had to say it for her and himself. Hewillget her back.
Dyna’s cry soon faded. He had the frantic urge to fly after her, but he couldn’t do so without revealing himself and the existence of Celestials to more humans. And he hated himself for it.
Cassiel grit his teeth as he faced off with the men. “Who are you? What do you want?”
They only laughed as they circled him. He turned in place to keep them all in his sights. Whoever they were, they undoubtedly planned to kill him.
His mind raced as he staked his surroundings. The alleyway was wide enough for combat but not too wide to ambush him all at once. There were too many. The chances of surviving were slim unless Zev joined him soon.
Lord Jophiel had trained him well but in all the years Cassiel had traveled alone between the Celestial Realms, not once was he faced with the dilemma of taking lives for the sake of his own. He steeled his resolve with his uncle’s voice.“The moment your life is in danger, there are only two choices to make: you fight or you die. I have prepared you for both, but I’ll tell you one thing—dying is easy.”
It went against the law of the Heavens to kill humans. There would be no redemption for this, but he had made his choice.
