We all have regrets. “Let me tell you about my friend. His name is Christopher. He thinks he could fly if only he remembered how. Turns out he can. He’s kind and gentle. He tries to help even when things are difficult and he’s terrified. He once went into Mishmar to rescue me. He takes care of his little dog and he tries to cook for Barabas, because we all know that Barabas is awful in the kitchen.”

“He isn’t . . . Yes, he is.”

“That’s the only Christopher I know. I never met the Legatus of the Golden Legion. No desire to meet him.” I looked at him. “It doesn’t matter what you were. It matters what you are now.”

“You forgot one title in your introduction,” he said.

“Oh?”

“Kate Daniels, daughter of Nimrod the Builder of Towers, Guardian of Atlanta. Savior of Christopher.”

“Don’t,” I told him.

“I would’ve died in that cage.”

“My father shattered your mind and tortured you. I tried to correct his wrong.”

“Nimrod didn’t shatter my mind. I shattered it myself.” Christopher looked up at the night sky and a shadow of something vicious crossed his face. “I was the most powerful Legatus on record. One night your father invited me to dinner and made me a proposal: he had developed a way to implant a deity into a human host. The process had some limitations. The deity had to be well known enough to have a distinct presence, but not self-aware enough to interfere with the human host’s ego. It had to have almost no followers, so the host’s will would not be affected. The human had to have a vast reserve of natural magic, enough to sustain and feed the deity’s powers. He compared it to standing in the middle of a storm and absorbing all of its fury into yourself. Such a person, he said, would surpass both the Legatus and the Preceptor of his Iron Dogs. He would truly be his second-in-command. He was very persuasive.”

“Did you say yes?”

“I said no.”

“You said no to my father?”

“I did. I told him that a storm could power you or tear you apart and I didn’t want to be ripped to pieces.”

That took some serious balls.

“He said he understood. I told him that d’Ambray would make a better candidate. We all worshipped your father, but he had Hugh the longest, since Hugh was a child. He would do anything Nimrod asked of him.”

And what a wonderful reward Hugh got for his devotion.