She checked down the alley, ensuring she wouldn’t be overheard. “Yes, but I do not want to alarm my brother.”
Celissia’s head lifted from where she was folding empty burlap sacks.
I balked. “Why?”
Mora went on rearranging the stock of the stall we were restoring, the tent shredded but some of the goods still intact. “Because it is beyond his capability of fixing.”
“Why?” I pushed, hands tightening on the broom.
Mora’s lips rolled between her teeth.
“Right.” I sighed. “Locked.”
So whatever reason Lancaster’s magic wasn’t working was tied to the secrets the fae had been sworn to. And as we’d guessed so far in our gentle prodding over our travels, all locks tied back to the gods.
Though it felt like days ago at this point, questions from Vale’s reading nagged at my mind.
“What did you think of what was seen before the storm hit?” I chose my words carefully. While Lancaster, Cypherion, and Vale had all drifted away to aid other parts of the market, there were still plenty of warriors around. I dropped my voice even lower. “Of the Gods…harming the Angels.”
Mora shuffled about the shredded tent, her step not faltering, and I pretended to focus on the pile of rubble I was amassing as she said, “The Angels mean very little to me beyond a subject of study such as the scrolls.”
“But does that justify what the Gods may have done?” Celissia asked, stacking her neatly-folded pile along the back wall.
“There is no proof the Gods and Goddesses did anything,” Mora said, not unkindly.
“Suppose they did, though,” I challenged.
A cluster of Soulguiders passed the stall, arms laden with goods from shattered crates. Mora took a step closer, voice sharp as the blades at her thighs. “I have studied my…Aoiflyn in depth in my many centuries, and there is no account of her walking this land with the Angels.”
“Perhaps it’s been forgotten. Like those bargains that hold your tongue, perhaps the histories have been similarly tied up.” I shrugged, but Mora averted her eyes. “You clearly do not believe the Gods are guilty of the acts Vale thinks she witnessed. It unsettles you.”
Celissia’s eyes flicked between us as I pushed the fae.
“No,” Mora said. “What unsettles me is that the warriors do not know what the Gods and Goddesses are truly capable of.”
“What do you mean?”
Again, her lips rolled together.
“Gods and Angels, Spirits and Fates. Even those beings not worshipped on this continent. They are all masses of power. They have wrungwarsthrough the heavens, leveled worlds at the blink of an eye.” Mora shivered, the motion so quick it could have been my human eyes playing tricks. “Your friends find my queen brutal? They find the cruelty of their own leaders hard to grasp?” Her face paled. “They are small compared to the might of the six.”
Her words raised goosebumps across my skin.
“Then you do find the Gods capable of harming the Angels?” I asked, searching her expression for any hint of what she wished to say beyond this vague warning, but it was veiled. Damn tricky immortals.
“Capable, certainly.” Mora sighed. “But there is no account of Gods gracing your continent in the long fae histories, so I do not believe it happened as the Starsearcher saw.”
She turned back to the barrels, hefting another up with a grunt. Celissia went on with her work, largely staying out of the conversation, but I didn’t believe for a moment she wasn’t tucking away every syllable. I grabbed my broom again, but didn’t resume sweeping. A clawing instinct gripped my gut, my fingers tightening on the wood.
“I have worshipped the Gods my entire life,” I whispered. “My parents instilled the practices in me. They taught me my morning and nighttime prayers as a girl and told me when I was in distress or lonely, the Gods would care for me.”
A warmth filled Mora’s eyes when she turned to me now. A kinship. “And it pains you to consider that the Gods and Goddesses may not be as wholesome as you were led to believe?”
“It is a hard fact to reconcile.” A dichotomy my brain couldn’t understand.
She nodded. “From what I have seen, your friends are dealing with similar questions of their own Angels. Who to trust, who to follow.”
Celissia scoffed, striding across the alley to another tent. “That’s simplifying it.”
