“I’m sorry.” Nerves pricked their way down Alie’s spine; if the woman got agitated, she could get violent, and Alie had no weapons other than a dagger slipped in the top of her boot that she barely knew how to use. “I can’t say I know what you’re talking about.”
The woman rolled her not-quite-familiar eyes. Then she grabbed Alie’s arm and hauled her toward an alley.
Her boots skidded in the dust of the Ward; Alie tried to struggle away without making too much of a scene, but the woman’s grip was iron. As a last resort, Alie looked around desperately for the bloodcoat she was sure dogged her steps. There was no one. Maybe Jax and Apollius weren’t watching her as closely as she thought, at least not today.
Figured.
The woman pulled her into the shadows of the alley, old wooden crates stacked against stone walls, rotting through with rain. She turned and glared at Alie. “Are you going to run, or are you going to listen?”
The dagger glittering in the woman’s hand made running seem like a bad choice.
Her own dagger was itching in her boot. But all Alie knew was that the pointy end should be turned toward your enemy, and the woman in the black dress seemed like she was more knowledgeable than that. The best thing to do was to play along.
Alie nodded smoothly. “I’ll listen.”
“Good.” The woman tucked her own knife back into the ratty cloth at her waist. As she did, her palm turned toward the light. White scars scored the bottom edge where her hand met her wrist, the rough approximations of the phases of the moon.
The nerves in Alie’s spine went from pinpricks to near-painful gooseflesh.
“I know who you are,” the woman said. “You don’t know who I am, and that’s fine. I’m Lilia, and I want to help you.”
Another nod, still smooth, still courtly.
“If you aren’t looking for the piece of the Fount yet, I assume it’s because you didn’t know you should be.” Lilia crossed her arms, but the movement seemed more like she was trying to hold herself up than meant to convey any particular emotion. She looked tired, as if it had been ages since she felt safe enough to sleep. “I guess I’m not surprised. All the pretty ethereal things made it into the Tracts; the gritty parts were only for those of us in too deep already.”
In too deep, with moon scars on her hands. “You’re one of the Buried Watch.”
“Worse than that.” Lilia barked a short, painful laugh. “I was the gods-damned Night Priestess.”
The Night Priestess. Lore’s mother.
A pale brow arched over a hazel eye, one the exact color of Lore’s, now that Alie knew what to look for. “Are you going to run now?” Lore’s mother asked.
“No.” Alie shook her head. “If you know something that can help us, I want to hear it.”
“You’re far more willing to listen than my daughter,” Lilia said, trying to smile and succeeding only in twitching her lip. “Though I suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise.” She leaned her shoulder against the wall. “You’re all trying to kill Apollius, then?”
Hearing it said so baldly made Alie’s eyes widen. She was stilla courtier at heart, far more used to dancing around ugly subjects than addressing them outright.
“Of course you are,” Lilia said. “You’re in league with Lore, and she doesn’t do half measures.” A distant look came into her eyes. “Maybe if I’d told her all this, she would have asked for my help sooner. Though I can’t really blame her.”
Alie didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure if Lilia wanted her to. It sounded like she was talking mostly to herself, a conversation retread over and over.
Lilia shook herself, as if casting off a sudden chill. “Too late for that,” she said briskly. “I made my bed. So I’ll tell you, and I’ll trust that you have a way to get the information to the rest of the reborn avatars. We in the Buried Watch knew about dreamwalking, even if we couldn’t do it. Some of the Presque Mort used to, back when Nyxara was newly dead and Her power was everywhere. They can’t anymore, but I’m sure you can manage it.”
That, Alie should probably respond to. “I’m not sure what you mean,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant despite the panic clawing into her chest. “But if you have helpful information—”
“Save it.” Lilia’s voice was threadbare, like this gruff, to-the-point persona was something she’d slipped into out of necessity, and it was wearing down fast. “You’re Lereal. I could feel you manipulating the magic across the Ward. How else do you think I knew to approach you?”
Shit. Shit shit shit. She thought she’d been so careful, so clever. “If you could feel it, then…”
“Apollius absolutely knows,” Lilia said, answering before Alie could finish, stating the obvious she hadn’t let herself think about. “And we should both be very concerned why He hasn’t done something about it.”
And of course she’d known that, but hearing it said so plainly made her shoulders tense.
“Which means,” Lilia said, “that we should move quickly.If you want to kill Apollius, you’ll have to first make the Fount whole again. It can’t hold everything, not while It’s broken.”
“Then we’re fucked,” Alie said simply. Her language had gotten so much worse since she made friends with Lore. “Seeing as the Fount is on the Golden Mount, and the Golden Mount is hidden in ash so thick that you could choke on it.”
