She’d missed Honor’s little “demonstration.” Immediately afterward, the meeting had ended before it had even begun, as everyone fled to their respective chambers to whisper and conjecture. Except for Jack, who’d nervously over-served Lumina the infamous vodka while she stared in numb silence at the wall, and Hawk, who stood watching Lumina from one corner of the room with a face as stormy as a hurricane. As for himself, he’d made good use of the heavy bag he’d found in an abandoned gym on one long-ago search trip, and dragged all the way back to the colony so he had something to do with his fists other than beat them against the walls.

He used to do that a lot.

Morgan said, “Oh. That.”

“Well?”

She stared back at him, defiant. “Well what?”

“Did you know?”

There followed a weighted silence. Finally Morgan relented. “I suspected. We suspected; Xander was there, too, when Caesar was killed. It was during an Assembly meeting.” She released a soft breath, and some of her defiance went with it. “Everyone else who was at that meeting was lost.”

Lost meant one of two things: killed in the battle that followed the Flash, or captured, as the Queen had been. Magnus had been a mere eleven years old that day. He’d lost his entire family, had watched both his parents fall from gunfire as the hidden enemy shot from the trees. Leander had been shot, too, and badly wounded, and Jenna had had to make the most terrible choice a wife and mother could make.

Who to save: Her husband? Or her children?

Magnus knew this part of the story because he’d seen it with his own eyes. Crouched low in the underbrush, terrified and not knowing whether to run or pick up a weapon and fight, he’d seen Jenna give one of her babies to Morgan, who, protected by Xander, ran. Then Jenna Shifted to an enormous white dragon, picked up her other baby gently in her teeth by its little onesie, and flew away, leaving Leander lying motionless on the ground.

Magnus had no idea how much time passed, but the dragon returned and took shape again as a woman. She crouched on the ground by her husband, cradling his head, crying, whispering something into his ear that Magnus couldn’t hear.

Before Jenna could turn to dragon again and spirit Leander away, she, too, was shot. Then a knot of booted, armed men had collared them both, and dragged them into the trees.

Chaos, never ending. The jungle burned, gunfire rang out, the stench of smoke and gasoline permeated the air in fuming clouds that choked him. Hundreds of military aircraft had been plucked from the sky and lay in broken pieces between the trees, their ragged metal guts spilling out a gruesome slew of bodies.

There had been a ground assault, too. A very effective one: Corpses had lain bent and broken everywhere, festooning the earth and trees like hideous ornaments.

“What did you see? What happened at the meeting?” Magnus stepped even closer, staring down into her face, his heart pounding inside his chest.

“What did I see?” she repeated softly. Her gaze turned distant. “I saw two infant girls end the life of a madman. From firsthand experience, I know that insanity runs in Caesar’s family; all the men of his Bloodline were touched by it. But he was born with something far more sinister than a garden-variety crazy streak. Something that made him invincible. Untouchable. Something that made any wound heal, no matter how it was caused.” Her voice darkened. “He’d died a hundred times before the final time in that jungle. And the only difference was the girls.”

Her faraway look cleared, and she gazed at Magnus with a burning intensity in her eyes. “That’s why Jenna was able to let Hope and Honor go; she knew they’d be all right. She knew they could take care of themselves. Even though they were just little babies, their mother knew those children would never be in any real danger.”

All the hair on Magnus’s nape rose. He whispered, “Because she knew they couldn’t die.”

Morgan nodded. “They stole Caesar’s Gift. Then they lit him on fire without even touching him, and he burned to death, right before my eyes. He’d come to kill us all, and the only reason he wasn’t able to was Hope and Honor. They saved my life, Magnus. And the life of my husband. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be standing in front of you right now.”

Stunned, Magnus whispered, “Stole it from him? How?”

From beneath the load in her arms, Morgan slipped free a hand, and held it aloft.

Understanding hit Magnus like a ton of bricks; that was really why Lumina had asked him for the gloves. But, no—Honor never wore gloves. And why . . .

“So Honor’s known, all these years? She knows she’s . . .” He could barely bring himself to say the word, it sounded so impossible. “Immortal?”

“We never spoke of it. But from what I understand about what happened between her and Lumina yesterday, there wasn’t a doubt in Honor’s mind that plunging that sword through her sister’s back would cause no permanent harm. So she must know. And I suspect that has a great deal to do with her attitude, as well.”

His brows pulled to a frown, and Morgan’s expression softened.

“How would you feel, Magnus, knowing you were going to outlive every single person you loved . . . over and over again? Knowing that to get close only guaranteed you pain? Knowing that even if you someday tired of life, if you’d lived a thousand years and couldn’t stand a single minute any longer, there was nothing you could do about it?”

The enormity of it stole his breath. He stood there in the dim corridor with the sound of dripping water like cannon fire in his ears as he thought about—really thought about—what it would be like.

Morgan said, “I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t like it. In fact, I think I’d feel cursed. The thing that makes life so precious is that it’s fleeting. Take that away, and life becomes like visiting your in-laws; just one more irritating obligation you really wish you could get out of, but can’t.”

“You’re right,” he admitted. “That’s got to be the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Remember that the next time you’re tempted to snarl at Honor,” Morgan gently admonished.

“Snarl? I don’t snarl!” His shout echoed down the corridor, and Morgan lifted an eyebrow, smiling.

Magnus said, “Okay. Conversation over. A man can only stand being wrong so many times in a one-minute span.” He turned and began to walk away.

Morgan’s laugh followed him. “Now you know how my husband feels!”

Magnus felt a deep wave of sympathy for Xander, which was quickly overtaken by a pressing need to get horizontal; Lumina’s hangover had given him a respite for a few minutes while he talked with Morgan, but judging by the pounding in his temples, and the strange noises emitting from his stomach, his time was up.

He strode through the shifting shadows toward his cave, his mind a tangle, his stomach in knots, his head feeling as if it weighed a thousand pounds, completely unaware of the blinking red glow that had begun to emanate from Beckett’s darkened lab on the other side of the colony.

FOURTEEN

The bath was sublime. Cold, but sublime.

Morgan had taken Lu to a breathtakingly lovely pool, fed by a fast-running stream that dropped into a waterfall. The water was so clear she could see the silver glint of minnows swimming near the rocky bottom, and after Morgan left her so she could have some privacy, Lu floated on her back, staring up at the constellation of stalactites on the shadowy ceiling high above, pondering all that had happened in the last few days.