Tragic things happened for them all.

Xev turned toward Simi. “Charonte? Can you trace the Malachai?”

“The Simi wishes you’d stop calling her that, cursed god. It really, really annoying. She gots a name. Two of them, actually. And they both are quite lovely. So please, pick one and use it when you address me. Otherwise, I might have to do something not so nice to you to get the Simi’s point across.”

Sighing irritably at him, she closed her eyes and tried to locate Nick.

After a few seconds, she shook her head. “Nope. The Simi gots no ideas where he went on off to. Maybe he got hungry? Sometimes them boys do that without warning. He the only one the Simi knows who eats as much as she does. He a growing Malachai, after all.”

Xev turned around slowly as he studied the symbols on the walls. Symbols that would be useless against Chronus and Tiamat. As well as their pets. He hoped he was wrong. “I have a really bad feeling about this.”

Dagon nodded. “As do I. If both Chronus and Tiamat are here, there can only be one reason for it.”

“What?” Kody asked.

“Judgment,” Xev and Dagon said in unison.

It was the only thing that made sense, and it explained absolutely everything that had happened so far.

The weather. The demons.

Everything.

They should have realized it sooner. But it was so rare a thing that it just hadn’t occurred to him that it could be happening, especially since neither he nor Livia had voted or discussed such.

In theory, the šarras should have all met together to decide upon it. All of them. Yet none had broached the subject with him.

Not even Livia, whom he saw every day.

Kody sucked her breath in sharply. “The others?”

Xev nodded. “They must have called for Nick to be removed as Malachai.”

Her jaw went slack as she finally understood the severity of what they might be dealing with. “Has that ever been done before?”

“Only once. Many eons ago. After that … there’s never been another opportunity. Because of their inherited memories, and tendency and need for vengeance, the Malachais put us down too fast for fear of it happening again. They give us no chance to get together for the vote. And take great pleasure in punishing us for what was done back then.”

Dagon turned to Kody. “You better get to Caleb, and make sure Livia hasn’t done something to him.”

“What do you mean?”