“This… fringe group.” Slowly, I stood. “The one the Wizard told me about, the one you mentioned had made it onto the Pack’s radar but wasn’t considered a real threat. It is.” I eased the ruffled clothes into a neat pile. “They want you blaming the Night Stalkers. They want us all fighting.”
Shanley’s forehead crinkled. “Why?”
“Because it’s easier to cast their influence,” Mau said, her tone distant.
“Exactly.” I opened my closest, dug through a tight row of jackets, and pulled out my thickest wool sweater. “Their ideals are extreme.”
“Fanatical,” Shanley chirped.
“But radical,” Mau added. “Realm-changing. And in a world that’s been abandoned and left to govern itself—when the angels created it by rebelling against their own laws and mating with humans to create the Nephilim in the first place…”
“It could attract the right person.” Even with the heat from the summer day stuffing up my room, a chill crawled up my spine. “A person tired of being second to mortals, of being the so-called lesser species.’”
“A person tired of being collateral,” Mau finished.
“Ivan.” Shanley winced, and it pained me to see the hurt flash over her face. “I guess there were signs.”
“A superiority complex is not a sign of treason.” Mau flipped her jet-black bob, the tiny amethysts on her nails sparkling in the light. “He was the patriarch of the wolves. An alpha we could trust. And he played us for fools.”
“Even the strongest leaders can be led astray,” Shanley muttered.
“Even archangels.” I dipped my chin.
They looked at me expectantly.
“Akosua.” I placed the sweater next to my duffel.
“River…” Shanley started. “How do you know the others aren’t in on it, too?”
“Gaia and Fei?” My throat tightened on their names. “I know this sounds weird… but I could hear them when I was struggling outside of the cave, and I could almost feel them when I was inside.”
Mau’s dark stare softened. “Even though Akosua cut off your connection?”
“Yeah.” I nodded, pulling out the paper with the coordinates once more. “I hadn’t heard their voices for over six weeks—not since Grad Night, or around then.” The paper shook in my hand. “Telepathy aside, there were plenty of other ways to reach me.”
Shanley pursed her lips. “Do they have cell service in Empyrea?”
“We don’t even get service in the redwoods!” Mau threw up her hands.
“I was thinking more along the lines of a portal disguised as a lighthouse?” I shook my head, a ghost of a smile on my lips.
“Oh, yeah, that would work, too.” Shanley grinned. Mau rolled her eyes playfully.
“These structures connect Mortal Earth with Empyrea. I assumed it was a me thing, but with the growing threat of Chthonia, what if the western watchtower is inaccessible to all of us?”
“Locked as a safety precaution?” Mau said.
I nodded. “The Watchers’ Source is strongest when there are four. Four elements, four angels, four watchtowers, four cardinal points.”
The carpeted floor creaked beneath my pacing feet. A drying wetsuit hung on the back of my open bathroom door. I snatched it off the hanger and rolled it up.
“There’s no Angel of Water,” I continued, “The Angel of Fire has dipped and joined the enemy, and so the wards are hardly stable as it is. It’s not safe for Earth or Air, which is why I need to go to them. The tower in the vision, the one still pulled up on my maps”—I gestured to my phone, sitting unlocked on top of the bed—“is the northernmost one. Gaia’s.”
Mau steepled her fingers. “First of all, I think we need to work on this negative self-talk. You are the Angel of Water.” A flush heated my cheeks, but she didn’t bat an eye, pressing on. “Secondly, it can’t be safe for you, either. After what we’ve seen, nowhere is.”
“Then it looks like I’m a target anywhere I am. Here.” I rolled my neck. “Iceland. Might as well go somewhere I can find help.”
Reaching under my bed, I pulled out an old backpack I’d used on camping trips with my dad. Dust particles danced in the light.
