Free Silver Smoke (#1 of Seven Halos Series) by Monica O'Brien Page B

you."
    "I need to know the truth."
    "Fine. But you're not going to like the answer."
    "Tell me."
    Cora locked eyes with Brie, her expression grave. "Brie, the only people who have fainted over my powers before, aside from earthlies, are the Nephilim."

    *****
Pulling a silk wrap over her lips and nose, Thessa covered her face from the crowds of tourists clotting the narrow, cobbled streets. Hallows weren't supposed to be able to transport 8,000 miles at once, but Thessa was an exceptionally old Hallow. Still, the trip from Hawaii to Spain had taken most of Thessa's energy, and recognition was the last thing she wanted.
    Thessa hadn't traversed the Barri Gotic in years, but even now, she could navigate the dark, twisting alleyways with her eyes shut. The Roman-influenced quarter of Barcelona hadn't changed much—it was still a labyrinth of concrete, peppered with small European restaurants and shops filled with visitors and locals alike. There were still pockets of gardens with street dancers performing on the hour, places to sit and drink while soaking up sun, and candle-lit, arched churches on every corner. The architectural buildings were still a mix of old and new stone, with ages ranging from five to 500. They towered over her, side by side, creating a mishmash of centuries of cultural influence contained within a few square miles.
    The buildings were the perfect metaphor for the Hallow community Thessa knew lived in the shadows below. The forgotten medieval crypts and tunnels far beneath the streets housed a smorgasbord of archangels' children, all ages and cultures, living and working together under the New Order's firm fist.
    She wouldn't have visited the city on her own volition, but two days earlier she'd been summoned by none other than Mateo Vega himself. For what, she wasn't sure—hopefully a routine check-in.
    When Thessa reached the Roman walls, she ducked under a half-archway into the dim shelter hidden by columns of brick dating back to 300 AD. She found the brick that was softer than all the others, marked by a symbol that looked like two tildes crossing each other, and pushed on it, letting herself plunge into the depths below.
    Underneath the streets, another city centre thrived under brilliant, artificial light meant to mimic the sun. The light was supercharged, enhancing the Hallows supernatural powers and allowing them to draw freely from the source, like a battery in a recharging station. The city was structured like a stadium, with a metropolis of restaurants and shopping at the core. The houses wound outward from the centre like winds spiraling around the eye of a tornado, each outer ring sitting slightly above the inner ring on an incline. From where Thessa was standing, the empty space between the faux sky and the buildings formed the bottom half of a sphere.
    "La Ciutat dels Lladres d'Ànima," Thessa whispered to herself. The City of Soul Catchers.
    Thessa stood at the center of a sprawling quad with a large fountain surrounded by gray stone benches. Walkways and concrete paths sprouted from the fountain, each one leading to a different district of the city. The fountain was surrounded by some of the most important and frequented Hallow haunts, like L'alquímia Antiga, a fun tourist storefront completely molded from clay. There was an interactive science lab inside, and the gift shop sold replicas of everything from ancient crucibles to transmutation circles.
    La Petita Botiga d'Històries was one of the largest bookstores in the Hallow cities, where you could buy a camouflaged book on how to do just about anything. Younger Hallows used these books to learn about the process of making things so they could practice transmutating objects around them. The books had interchangeable covers that could be purchased separately, so a Hallow could read them on the earthlie train or subway without drawing attention. In the window, Thessa saw several English-language copies of Noah's Concordance, a topical