“They are,” I said, thinking of Sadi and the Elder Daemon had mentioned. “Some of them are.”

Her cool, dark gaze landed on me. “Then there truly is no other option. The Origins were created as the perfect species, with cognitive abilities beyond anything ordinary humans are capable of. The Origin—”

“We get it,” snapped Daemon. His eyes glimmered like cut emeralds. “Maybe if you hadn’t messed with Mother Nature and create Origins—”

“Hey,” muttered Archer. “One standing right here.”

Daemon ignored him. “Maybe if you hadn’t done this, the Luxen wouldn’t have come.”

“You don’t know that,” she said, shoulders bunching. “They could’ve—”

“What I do know is that they are working with the Luxen,” he said, cutting her off. “And it doesn’t take a giant leap of logic to think that they had something to do with the Luxen coming here. That shit is on your hands—on Daedalus.”

“Which is awfully ironic, don’t you think?” Archer said, and when Daemon shot him a blank look, I thought for a second he might roll his eyes. “Daedalus was the father of Icarus in Greek mythology. He built the wings Icarus used to fly, and the dumb kid got too close to the sun. The wings melted and he plummeted back down to Earth, drowning in the sea. Kind of like his invention was his own downfall. Same with Prometheus.”

Daemon stared at Archer for a long moment and then turned back to Nancy. “Anyway, no matter how you guys spin it, this mess is on your hands.”

“And we are trying to fix it,” General Eaton responded. “Unless you all have something we haven’t thought of, there is no other option.”

“I don’t know.” I pressed my fingers to my temples. “We really could use the Avengers right about now.”

“Screw that. We need Loki,” Daemon retorted.

General Eaton arched a brow. “Well, unfortunately, the Marvel universe isn’t real, so . . .”

I started to laugh, because I was seconds from doing the crazy laugh and never stopping, but then Daemon blinked as if something had smacked him upside the head.

“Wait,” he said, thrusting a hand through his unruly hair. “We need the equivalent of Loki.”

“I’m not really following that train of thought,” I said.

He shook his head. “There is something we can use, that I know we can use.”

General Eaton inclined his head as Archer’s gaze turned razor sharp. His lips thinned, and I knew he was peeking in on Daemon’s thoughts. Whatever he was seeing, he didn’t look like he was a big fan of it.

When Archer spoke in an awed whisper, he confirmed my suspicion. “That’s crazy insane, like completely senseless, but it might work.”

Daemon sent him a killer look. “Gee, why don’t you go ahead and tell them what I’m thinking.”

“Oh, no.” Archer waved his hand dismissively. “I don’t want to steal your thunder.”

“I think you already did, so—”

“Come on,” I jumped in, impatient. “Tell the rest of us who don’t have nifty mind-reading abilities.”

Daemon’s lips twisted into a semblance of a smile. “There is one thing that the invading Luxen really have no defense against.”

“Well, obviously the EMP weapon,” Nancy commented mulishly.

His nostrils flared. “Besides something that destroys everything as we know it on Earth.”

She looked away, focusing on the monitor as if she were bored with the whole conversation. I wondered if anyone would get mad if I spin-kicked her in the back of the head.

“The Arum,” Daemon said.

I blinked slowly, thinking my brain just went kaput on me. “What?”

“The invading Luxen know of the Arum. That much I picked up, but there was something else I learned from them,” Daemon explained. “They have no experience with them.”

“But they know of them,” General Eaton said. “You just said that.”

“Yeah, but from my personal experience, knowing of the Arum and hearing about them are totally different than actually dealing with them, especially if you’ve never seen one face-to-face before—and they haven’t. The Arum were long gone, on their way here, and these Luxen went in the opposite direction. Even if they’d seen one before, they were just children then.”

A few of the officers in the room, the ones at the mini-monitors, had turned in their seats and were paying a lot of attention to Daemon.

“The first time I faced off with an Arum, I would’ve died if Matthew . . .” He took a breath, and the others might not have noticed the flicker of pain, but I saw it, and my chest ached. Matthew, who had been a father figure to all of them, had betrayed them, and I knew that would cut deep for a very long time. “If Matthew hadn’t been there, someone older and more experienced with the Arum, I would’ve died. Hell, many times over before I got the hang of fighting them.”

“The Arum were created by the freaking laws of nature to keep the Luxen in check and fight them,” Archer said, excitement thrumming in his voice. “They are the only true predator of the Luxen.”

A tiny spark of hope flared in my chest, but I didn’t want to give it too much room to grow. “But the Origins will know how to fight them.”

“They will, but there aren’t thousands and thousands of them,” Daemon said. “And there’s no way they can teach the Luxen that quickly how to defend themselves. Hell, I doubt they even think the Arum will be a problem. Luxen, by nature, are arrogant.”