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When Neha’s private guard summoned him two hours later, the courtyard was close to cleared, the injuredhis leave of the healer under who, he entered the palace to find Neha seated on the thronelike chair at the head of the central roo, her wounds bandaged

Those bandages told hi at a far slower rate than they should—and that Nivriti was no longer an ordinary angel

“So, now you are a peaceerously neutral

“You are one of the els,” he said, and in spite of her acts after Anoushka’s death, the words were true “To lose you would create more problems than it would solve”

“Exactly how rational do you believe h to take and use what Lijuan could teach you about accelerating the e yourself to fall into her web” It was a wild shot in the dark

“Finally,” Neha said in a sinuous whisper, “we coer to assist me, was it not?”

“I am a spymaster”

Neha’s smile was cold “And to ask you to act in any other ould be akin to asking an eagle not to eat a rabbit” Picking up a baby eyelash viper that had slithered across the floor to her, she draped it over her shoulders, absently stroking its yellow orange skin “Yes, Lijuan has been hborly of late”

Jason could guess The traus for a predator like Lijuan “I have wondered one thing,” he said

Neha raised an eyebrow

“Whether Lijuan can so to learn how to do so, from others in the Cadre” It was a theory so nascent, he hadn’t even mentioned to Raphael “Her offer to assist you would then make more sense”

“Well, well, well” Neha rose and walked down the shallow steps below her throne to shake her head “Such a waste that you will never rule Yes, the helpful Lijuan thought to play aet what I want”

Jason was near certain there was, in truth, no true secret to accelerating the develope of the Cascade effect At least nine thousand years of age, she’d had e library for such secrets, even had she not come into her power at a time when several Ancients yet sat on the Cadre They could well have told her of the Cascade

Such a plan would befit the Archangel of China’s intelligent, deviousit up noould be to make Neha look the fool, so he kept his silence and considered his report to Raphael Though he couldn’t speak of the Lijuan–Neha connection, he could now discuss Neha’s new abilities—her display over the city had made them public