Part of their mentality toward the females could land at the feet of their archaic social structure. The other half was because too many demons weren’t stupid.

Unfortunately.

Demons knew that the one surefire way to cut the Wardens off at the knees was to go after the next generation. Females and young Wardens were targeted. The locations of the communities they lived in were well-protected secrets. That was why the fact Danika was often out and about was surprising.

But also, again, they were superarchaic in their beliefs. Yes, it was more dangerous for the females and the wee baby Wardens, but if they were trained to fight and defend themselves, like Danika and Jada were, they wouldn’t be such easy targets.

One day and one day soon, they were going to have to change.

“I don’t know why we’re all standing here pretending like Danika doesn’t already run the show,” Dez commented from where he stood.

That got another big smile from Danika and a rather muted nod of agreement from Nicolai. I liked them together. A lot.

“Anyway, I started doing some research on ley lines and what could possibly disrupt them since we can’t very well go in and just blow the school and portal up,” Danika continued, and she was right. So charged with celestial energy, it would take out half, if not all, of the city if we attempted something like that, which would result in a whole lot of loss of human life.

And possible exposure.

“I couldn’t find anything on the internet other than some really weird stuff that made no sense,” Danika was saying, drawing my attention back to her. “So I went to our very own personal internet service.”

“Gideon?” Zayne surmised.

She nodded. “I asked if he knew anything, and at first, he wasn’t sure of anything, but he went and locked himself in the library for a couple of hours, emerging with an answer.”

While I wondered if he had found an answer to my oh-so-personal question about reproduction, hope sparked in my chest. I tried not to let it ignite. “Did he find anything?”

“He did.” Danika’s gaze bounced between Zayne and I. “Black tourmaline, hematite and black onyx.”

“Huh?” I murmured.

“Gemstones.” Zayne’s hands slid off my shoulders. “You’re talking about gemstones?”

“Yeah. I know, sounds like some hocus-pocus crap,” Dez said, looking at me. “But we know hocus-pocus crap is some legit stuff, don’t we?”

Yeah.

Yeah, we did.

Nicolai nudged Danika. “Tell them the rest.”

“Those gemstones can block energy—all kinds—and Gideon theorizes that enough of it could very well disrupt the energy of the ley lines,” she explained. “Not only allowing us to possibly destroy it without blowing up the nation’s capital, but if not, definitely rendering the portal useless to the Harbinger.”

23