He gave me a hard, penetrating look, as though he could see right through me.

Control your thoughts, Leda, Nero chided me silently.

Sorry.

The gods were telepathic. I had to refrain from internal commentary in their presence.

“My apologies, Lord Ronan. She is new to our ways. I take full responsibility for any offense she has caused,” Nero said smoothly.

He’d also apologized to Nyx about me during my first meeting with her. I really needed to get my thoughts under control.

“The time has come, Nero,” Ronan said.

His voice was so normal. I’d always imagined a god’s voice would rumble more. Maybe shake the walls a little.

“I can do that too,” he told me.

Crap. I was thinking too loudly again.

Ronan looked at my friends. “Leave us.” When he spoke this time, his voice boomed like thunder, shaking the floors and walls of the airship.

They jumped to their feet and bolted out of the room. They’d never moved that fast during training. They hadn’t even moved that fast when beasts and baddies were chasing them on the battlefield.

When Nero and I were alone with Ronan, the Lord of the Legion glanced down at our hands. “You’re injured.” He waved his hand in front of us.

A warm, tingly feeling permeated my body, and my wounds sealed before my eyes. I wiggled my fingers. Even my broken pinky finger was back to normal.

“If you are going to fail, let it be said that you failed fairly,” declared Ronan.

I blinked at him and shrugged with all my will to keep my mind blank.

Ronan turned and began to walk toward the stairs. “Come with me.”

Nero took my hand, and we followed Ronan as he ascended the stairs up to the observation deck. Up top, there weren’t any walls or windows. It was open space. The warm wind blew in my face, rustling my hair all around me.

“Your soldiers must return to New York now, Colonel Windstriker,” Ronan said. “It is just you. And your companion.” He looked me over closely. I had the distinct impression that he was dissecting me with his eyes. “Are you sure you want her to be your second? She is so…young. So frail.”

“Yes.” Nero didn’t even hesitate, and I loved him for it. “She’s stronger than she looks.” He squeezed my hand.

“So Nyx says,” replied Ronan. “Very well. Then let us waste no time. What do you know of the City of Ashes?”

“It is a city that sits at the western edge of the Western Wilderness,” said Nero. “It once sat on the right side of civilization. But a few years after the walls went up to separate humanity from the monsters, the Magitech barrier protecting the City of Ashes failed, and the city fell. The wild lands swallowed it up, and it has been lost to us ever since.”

“The gods have decided it is time humanity reclaimed the city,” Ronan told us. “The magic barrier suffered from a magic failure, but the structure of the wall is still mainly intact. Your mission is to journey into the City of Ashes and repair the Magitech barrier. Once it’s back up, a magic wave will sweep through the city and every monster inside its borders will be instantly annihilated. Simple, no?”

From the way he was looking at us, he actually seemed to believe that. I wondered if he even knew what the word simple meant.

“I do,” he assured me.

I shot Nero an apologetic glance for thinking in front of a god—again. Well, maybe I was only half-sorry. It wasn’t my fault I liked to think.

Ronan’s gaze shifted to me, his eyes a storm of black, silver, and gold. “In your short time at the Legion, you have acquired quite the reputation.”

“For causing trouble?”

“Yes. And for fixing trouble.”

“I will endeavor to do that here. Uh, fix trouble. Not cause it.” I smiled at him.

“I know you will.”

I wasn’t sure if his words were a compliment or a threat. I did know that his stormy eyes made every hair on my body stand up in terror, so I redirected my gaze elsewhere. I looked over the bronze-accented edge of the airship, down to the lands below.

The Western Wilderness was hot, scorched. A wild city sat on the forsaken desert. That must have been the City of Ashes. It looked centuries old. The desert’s red sands had rolled over the city, burying parts of it. At the city’s edge, empty building husks howled a forlorn song from a forgotten era. But the wall around the city did, in fact, seem to be intact. No, not just intact. It looked brand-spanking new. It was as though it were immune to the passage of time. There wasn’t a single hole in it. That was weird.

There was no moon out tonight, only thick clouds that hung over the city like a blanket of ash. A shrill, feral howl sang on the wind. It sounded like a werewolf, but worse. It was something much, much scarier—the savage scream of a monstrous beast that ate civilization for breakfast. A chorus of similar howls, just as savage, answered its call, adding their cries to the wind. There had to be dozens of them down there, each one probably as big as a house. And as mean as a hound of hell.

Nero had told me that the monsters hadn’t been pretty to begin with, back in the days when they’d first attacked the Earth. And they’d only gotten worse since. They’d become twisted and corrupted by the wild magic here, interbreeding to create even more terrifying beasts. Down there, in the City of Ashes, the nightmarish monsters reigned supreme. Thousands of tiny lights shone out from the shadows. The city had no power, no magic illumination. Those tiny lights were the eyes of the beasts who lived there.

Simple? That’s what Ronan had said. I didn’t buy it. Nero’s trials would be as simple as wrestling a dinosaur with our bare hands. Or riding a shark naked. Or… I stopped the next ridiculous image before it formed in my head. I was supposed to be masking my thoughts better.

“Call me when the job is done,” Ronan told Nero.

The statement was loaded with meaning. He was letting us know that we weren’t leaving the City of Ashes until the Magitech barrier was back up. And if we failed—if we died here—the sands would roll over our bodies, burying us in the wilderness.

A small box appeared in Ronan’s hands, as though it had materialized out of thin air. Hell, it probably had. He opened the lid. Inside lay two small vials filled with inky liquid.

“This is the potion that will mute your magic,” Ronan explained. “It will silence your most recent gift from the gods. Then it will take a power from you every few minutes until you have no magic left.”

I looked at the two vials in Ronan’s hands. The liquid was moving, oozing, glistening in an eerie way, like it was alive. But that was ridiculous. It certainly was not alive. I was letting my fear—fear of what that potion would do to me—get the better of me. Yes, I was afraid. I could admit that. I hadn’t had my magic for very long, but it had become a part of me. The thought of it being stripped away, of losing a piece of who I was, even if it was just for a short while, was downright terrifying. I might as well have been going into battle naked.

“You are supposed to be afraid,” Ronan said, responding to my turbulent thoughts. “And vulnerable. These trials test what kind of angel you are inside, without your magic.” He looked at me as he spoke, those godly eyes changing, shimmering like pure gold.

“I am not an angel,” I said.

“Nyx has high hopes for you.” His gaze shifted to Nero. “For both of you. So don’t screw it up.” He handed us the vials.

My heart thumped even as I held my vial, staring into its swirling, silvery depths. I knew it was cowardly to fear the loss of my magic. I just didn’t want to be weak again. I wanted to run away, to protect my magic with everything I had.

But I had to be brave. I had to be there for Nero when he needed me, just like he’d always been there for me. There was no fear on his face. I didn’t even feel it through our bond. He was so strong. I owed it to him to be strong too. He’d chosen me to help him in this important test, picked me over stronger, more experienced soldiers. I refused to be the weak link. I refused to let him down.