My expression tightens. “Let’s just say unpacking my biases is why I could counteract that plague spell but Evram couldn’t.”
When I start climbing my grove tree—wand still in hand, because I’m not riskingthatmuch—rather than asking me what I’m doing he calls after me, “What do you mean about the plague spell?”
I shake my head and keep climbing. “Your turn. You know all the most important things about me already. Tell me who you are.”
Nathaniel doesn’t answer immediately, but that’s okay. I still have things to do, and while I’m not on quite the clock I was before since I broke Evram’s wand—he won’t be able to trackme through it anymore, and since I have my own magic source I don’t have to worry he can cut me off—the faster I can move the better.
Once he has a wand again, there are lots of problems he can create for me, and I don’t have enough magic to stop him.
Yet.
I crawl out onto a low branch and break off a stick a little shorter than my arm. It hums with energy, and my chest is tight at the thought of what I’m doing.
This is how it begins. I hope.
I tuck it away in my back pocket without keying it to me.
I’ve located two more well-shaped sticks before Nathaniel speaks again.
“Those aren’t for you, are they?” There’s a note of wonder in his voice.
“I already told you my goal,” I remind him.
Bringing back magic for everyone.
That means I’m not the only one who gets a wand.
Seated on a branch, I turn and say pointedly, “I’m still waiting on yours.”
He holds my gaze.
And then to my absolute surprise, he answers me, and it’s not anything I could have guessed.
“My name is Nariel,” he says matter-of-factly, “and I was there when the other angels decided to steal all the magic from Dark Earth. I disagreed, and I’ve been exiled from Bright Earth since.”
My mouth actually falls open. But I mean—
Holyfuck, he’s a literal fallen angel.
This, I was not prepared for.
”Iknewit,“ I breathed. “Goddammit. Did they just want more power, or less competition?”
When I stopped believing that High Earth stole Low Earth’s magic for anything but their own gain, I’d wondered if the angels they’d learned it from had also been as “selfless.”
“You believe me, just like that.” Nariel’s tone is part suspicion, part bemusement.
“Look, the two stories I’ve heard about why Dark Earth lacks magic are that it doesn’t have the capacity for it—which, given what I’ve learned about Low Earth, seems extremely suspect; or, that the angels took away Dark Earth’s access to magic for the good of humans, to protect us from demonic power. Bright Earth’s motivations not being pure, or at least not unassailable, makes too much sense.”
“And so you’re naturally skeptical of angels, but not of a demon who comes bearing tidings that fit neatly with your worldview?”
Sweet of him, to try to talk me out of falling in with a stranger’s interests so easily, but I am still not actually stupid. And while I may be new to inter-world politics, I don’t need that kind of coddling.
I will think the worst of whomeverIchoose, and I can also thinkwellof whomever I choose, and on my own head be it.
I fix him with alook. “Did you not conveniently intervene at just the right moment in my battle specifically so that I’d be favorably disposed toward your point of view, or at least hearing you out? It will be much easier for me to help with whatever you want if you actually tell me—oh, of course. Fuck. You want to restore magic to Dark Earth too?”
In a blur of shadows, his face is next to mine in an instant.
