A tall man with dark, spiky hair and pale blue eyes came running down the street, and he was headed right for my hiding spot. I’d didn’t recognize his face. Maybe he was from the Legion, but then why wasn’t he wearing a Legion uniform?

I crouched down lower. I could have sworn he looked straight at me. This was bad. Really bad. If he wasn’t from the Legion, then he was most likely a thief come to rob the Lost City of its treasures. He’d see me as competition and attack, at which point Colonel Fireswift’s men would close in around us. I had to strike first and take him down before he could fight back. I reached for my gun.

But I hesitated. There was something about him, something familiar. His scent. Yes, that was it. His scent. His scent was Nero’s scent. The moment I made the connection, the man’s face blurred, a visual hiccup rippling across his skin before the spell resettled.

“Nero?” I whispered.

He crouched down beside me behind the rusted old truck. “How did you know? How did you see through that spell?”

“I’m not sure exactly.” I took his hand in mine, lifting it to my nose. “It had something to do with your scent. It reminded me of your blood and how much I crave it. How it sings to me. How my pulse syncs to yours whenever you’re near.”

He brushed the hair back from my face. “That is the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me.”

I caught his hand as it brushed through my hair. “When I recognized your scent, your face blurred for a moment.” It was so weird to see someone with a stranger’s face touch me like that. “How are you doing this?”

“It’s shifting magic,” he told me. “Glamour, one branch of shifting. It’s a mental shift, not a physical one.”

“Meaning you didn’t actually change your appearance? You’re projecting it or something into my mind?”

“Right.”

“Will others be able to see through the glamour?” I asked.

“It depends on how strong their magic is. Up close, other angels and high-level Legion soldiers will be able to see through it. From afar, it should fool most people, though. If we keep our distance, our disguises will hold. We should be able to get past them.”

“Our disguises?”

He drew his sword, showing me my reflection. An unfamiliar face stared back at me, a woman with hair as black as obsidian and dark skin as smooth as honey. I puckered up my full, red lips and blew myself a kiss.

“Couldn’t you have made me taller? Or given me bigger boobs?” I teased him.

“Changing larger dimensions is tricky.”

I sighed. “Too bad.” I gazed at my new face in the sword. Even though I knew it was fake, I had a hard time seeing through my own glamour.

“Why can’t I see through it, knowing it’s fake? If this is a mental spell, shouldn’t that knowledge be enough? Why do I have to squint my eyes and concentrate really hard to see through it?”

“Because I am an angel with high-level magic.”

“I thought modesty is a virtue,” I teased.

“Not in angels.”

I snickered.

“Your ability to see through glamours will grow with practice and as you level up your magic. For now, you should just know that not everyone is what they appear. So always make sure someone is who they look like before spilling secrets. Even if you see me, it might not be me.”

“Things were so much simpler when people had only one face.”

“We are have many faces, Leda.”

Colonel Fireswift had at least a dozen—all of them cruel.

We snuck through the city ruins, avoiding Legion teams. Avoiding Colonel Fireswift most of all. Nero said his disguise probably wouldn’t work against him, not even from a distance.

“How long have you know him?” I asked.

“We were in the same initiation group two hundred years ago. We entered the Legion together, both of us Legion brats, both shooting high.”

“So he saw you as his greatest competition?”

“He still does.” Nero pulled me into a building as a patrol passed by. “You need to be careful with him. He didn’t get to be an angel bu being just a dumb brute. He knows how to play the game. He will find your weaknesses and exploit them. And you make that easy. Your enemies can see everything because you put it all out there. They will use it against you, including Fireswift’s son, your friend. Everything you share with him he will use against you when push comes to shove, when it’s a choice between you and himself. I’ve seen it before. His father did the same to me.”

“Jace is not his father, nor does he want to be. And that’s what really matters in the end. I have faith that he will find the right path.”

“You can’t save everyone.”

“No, but I think I know who can be saved.” I smiled at him.

We emerged from the building, continuing toward the entrance to the underground levels.”

“You mean me,” Nero said. “You think I can be saved.”

“From the moment you walked into that back room holding my Legion application, I knew that was an angel who was screaming for someone to kill that bug stuck up his ass.”

“And you figured yourself equal to the job?”

“Of course. I excel at lost causes. You’re already much more agreeable than you used to be. If only you would stop giving me pushups.”

“Pushups build muscle and character,” he said seriously.