Because Vivek, too, was hunter-born, the hunt in his blood.

That he hadn’t gone mad long ago was a testament to his incredible resolve. Elena had used him as backup on two recent jobs where he could situate himself on a rooftop and cover her using a sniper’s rifle. A number of other hunters had pulled him in the same way. For now, that seemed to be enough to take the edge off. “You, too,” she said with a nod at his control center. “Say hi to your man-crush for me.”

A raised middle finger before he turned back to the screens that flowed with data. “Come back when you’re ready to get massacred on the Scrabble board.”

Leaving the Tower’s tech hub with a final “You made up that word!”—to which Vivek called out, “Illiterate Luddite!”—she read the details of the job on her way to her and Raphael’s Tower suite. All she had on her were knives, and she liked to take a weapon with distance reach when on a retrieval.

Droplet of immortal strength or not, arrogance was a good way to get dead.

Just last week, Ransom had barely escaped being disemboweled by an aggressive vampire’s disgusting dirty claws. Some people had no sense of good hygiene. As it was, Ransom’s treasured leather jacket hadn’t escaped the attempted mauling unscathed.

He’d still be sulking over it if his wife hadn’t managed to source a near-identical jacket from who-knew-where: Librarians obviously had stellar research skills. And librarians married to guild hunters had nerves of steel. Per Ransom, his wife had told him to hose himself clean of the vampire blood before he set foot in their home.

Demarco had snorted when Ransom relayed that story, the shaggy blond of his hair in serious need of a cut. “I wouldn’t obey my wife’s orders like that—you gotta be the man in the relationship, wear the pants.”

“Sure,” Ransom had drawled, unperturbed. “I’ll pass your words of wisdom on to Nyree the next time she talks about inviting your sorry ass over for dinner. Enjoy the moldy bread in your fridge.”

Laughing at the memory of how Demarco had clutched at his heart and fallen off his chair, Elena entered the suite. She grabbed her crossbow first and strapped it to her left thigh. Lightweight, with the extra bolts carried in a new flat quiver she would strap to her other thigh, she treasured and babied it like it was “her precious.”

Ransom’s words.

Also true.

She decided against a gun; she kept up her training, but the crossbow combined with blades was more her thing. Today, she slid a long blade into the sheath that ran down her back. The near-white of her hair was already in a tight braid, and she had her chunky hunting knife in her boot, so all that was left for her to do was check that the knives she wore in her forearm sheaths were all snugly slotted in and she was done.

Striding across the thick carpet of the living area, she opened the doors that led out to a railingless balcony and stepped into the crisp white of a winter’s day.

The cold slapped her. Hard.

She gritted her teeth, grateful for her long-sleeved thermal black top. It had been designed especially for her, to provide a measure of protection at high altitudes. She had nowhere near ordinary angelic levels of cold toleration. The squadron with whom Raphael had gone out in the pre-dawn darkness were probably in sleeveless tunics.

Her teeth threatened to chatter.

“Screw looking tough,” she said to the disinterested pigeon that had stopped on the balcony. “I’d rather be warm.” Going back inside, she pulled on a form-fitted black jacket designed with slits for her wings, and fancy straps that held it tight to her body. Then she tugged on gloves for good measure—after first moving the forearm knife sheaths to on top of the jacket sleeves.

“Okay, now I’m ready.”

Shutting the balcony doors behind herself, because she had no desire to return to an arctic environment, she took a moment to enjoy the glittering spectacle of New York gearing up for the day after a long, cold night, then fell off the edge of the balcony, her wings spreading behind her in a snap of strength. Those wings were an extraordinary blend of colors, beginning as pure black on the inner curve, then flowing into indigo, deepest blue and the whispered shade of dawn.

Her primaries were a shimmering white-gold.

Beautiful wings, but they could’ve been dishwater brown and she’d have loved them as much, for they took her to the skies.

The air was razored glass in her lungs, it was so cold, but a cool yellow sun rode the sky today. The distant star wasn’t strong enough to melt the snow that blanketed the city, but it made that snow ignite with light and turned the ice that dripped off the edges of buildings into iridescent diamonds.

Beneath her, the Legion building lay draped in pristine white.

The greenery that covered its outsides in spring and summer slept under winter’s kiss, but Elena knew that should she fly inside, she’d be met with a blast of heat and the rich, earthy humidity of growing things. Green was the color of the Legion building on the inside—living green.

The beings who’d risen from the sea in response to the turbulence of the Cascade, their age unknown and their origins lost in time, had worked with two of the Tower engineers to create a method of heating for their building that didn’t put undue pressure on the city’s systems, but that kept their plants alive through the coldest months. At least ten of the Legion sat with gargoyle-perfect immobility on the roof, their bat-like wings folded to their backs.

Snow had collected on their motionless bodies, a coat they didn’t shrug off and never seemed to feel.

Elena. Elena. Elena.

No movement from the gargoyles, but their whispers echoed inside her head, the Legion’s voice both singular and a multitude.

Waving a quick hello, she carried on toward the Hudson River. It had begun to freeze at the edges, shards of ice spearing across its surface in a jagged painting, but that ice was an illusion. It wouldn’t hold if she landed on it—a frigid truth two younger angels had learned yesterday.

Regardless, the beauty of it stole her breath.

Maybe that was why it took her a second to notice the sparrows.

2

Elena wasn’t strong enough to hold a proper hover, but she could do a short approximation using delicate wing movements. What she saw had her throat going dry. Raphael? It was instinct to reach out to her archangel even though she knew he was probably out of range—after completing a set of training maneuvers with the squadron, he’d left to meet with a senior angel in another state.

But the wind and the salt-lashed rain, it crashed into her mind in a welcome storm. Hunter-mine.

The birds are being weird again.

Describe it for me.

Elena swept around to watch the hypnotic mass movement again. They’re dancing all together. Thousands and thousands of them. This giant spiral that moves and sways and sweeps like a choreographed chorus line.

Storm winds in her mind, the scent of ozone sharp and unmistakable, Raphael’s presence powerful even at so far a distance. You are witnessing a murmuration. Are you close enough to recognize the birds?

Elena went to say “sparrows” then realized she was wrong. Starlings. She slapped a hand on her forehead. A starling murmuration. Unusual but a natural phenomenon. Blowing out a breath, she said, Go back to flying to your meeting. My paranoia and I are going to continue heading to the Enclave to track a rogue vamp—and if you tell anyone I nearly lost my mind over a bunch of birds doing bird things, I will spike your cognac with chili peppers.

His laughter was a feeling more than a sound. I will see you tonight, hbeebti.

Shaking her head at her jumpiness this morning—next, she’d start imagining heavily armed enemy angels in the sky—she reached the other side of the perfectly normal-colored Hudson River to sweep over her and Raphael’s home. No footsteps broke up the glimmering layer of fresh snow that had fallen after she left, but she knew that, inside, the house would be humming with quiet efficiency.

Montgomery, butler beyond compare, would permit nothing less.

Angling inward from the cliffs and trying not to listen to her yet-elevated heartbeat, she flew deeper into the exclusive neighborhood populated almost entirely with angelic homes. The only exceptions were a rare few old vampires—and Janvier. The comparatively young Cajun vampire had been given the house by an angel in thanks for a task where Janvier had gone above and beyond.

He’d never lived in it until Ashwini and he became a pair.

No mortal called the Enclave home, and as an ex-mortal, Elena figured that was probably better for their health. Old immortals weren’t always rational in their behavior—they might be sorry for decapitating an annoying neighbor, but said neighbor would still be deader than dead.

Flying on, she considered the facts of this job. Vampire concerned was one Damian Hale. The easiest place to start would be his room at Imani’s residence; that he was suspected to have run the previous night, his disappearance not noticed until this morning shouldn’t matter to her bloodhound nose.

Neither was the weather a problem.

After many winter hunts since she’d first joined the Guild, Elena could scent-track through snow so long as the scent wasn’t buried too deep. Since it had snowed only a little this morning, she should be fine.

Spotting the correct home—though “mansion” was the better word for the stately edifice that occupied its surroundings like a grand dame who had no time for anyone’s bullshit—Elena winged down to land on the snow-covered lawn.

It had been churned up by multiple pairs of feet.