Magic twisted through the air, and Lis screamed and dropped to her knees. Arxis kept his anxious expression, but his voice was a sneer. “You’ve been here too long, Teacher, and forgotten how assassins treat our leaders. We don’t criticize and lounge about and disobey.”
Ileni scrambled to her feet. “You don’t understand—”
“I understand,” Arxis said, “that we had an agreement. You’ll get no more help from me.”
“If you’ll just listen—”
But Arxis was already rushing toward Lis. He dropped beside her, putting his arms around her. Lis buried her face in his shoulder, and he whispered something into her ear, his lips brushing the side of her face.
Ileni looked quickly away, heat rising to her cheeks. This was what she and Sorin must have looked like, from the outside. Sordid, and stupid, and predictable.
But this was different. Ileni had known exactly how stupid she was being, falling in love with a killer. Lis had no idea what Arxis was.
Cyn watched the pair, ignoring the rain that slicked her hair to her face. Her lips were pressed together, her eyebrows drawn sharply with concern. For Lis?
The rain was pelting Ileni now, pressing her clothes to her skin. No one was paying attention to her, which made it easy to flee yet again.
The mirror seemed misty that night, her reflection indistinct, as if something too faint to see was rippling through the glass. Was Sorin on the other side, trying to reach her? Or was she just imagining it because she wanted to see him so badly?
Or did she? If she really wanted to see him, she could. She could open the portal easily, from this side.
She couldn’t imagine what she would say to him once she did.
Ileni touched the mirror’s surface. She would get only one chance. Karyn would feel the portal open, and then she would repair the breach in the wards, and Ileni’s connection to Sorin would be gone.
This wasn’t the time to use it. She didn’t need Sorin, not now.
She needed to know what else she had been meant to see at Death’s Door.
But who could she ask? Arxis wasn’t going to tell her. Evin . . . Evin probably didn’t know anything he didn’t care to know.
Cyn? Cyn might feel guilty about what she had done on the plateau that day—she seemed good at feeling guilty once it was too late to change anything. Ileni could use that. She could go to Cyn right now, offering forgiveness. She would ask her why she had been so angry, steer that into a discussion about the lodestones. . . .
Ileni let her hand slide away from the mirror. It wouldn’t work. Cyn was a true believer, a soldier of the Empire. She might question the tactics, but she would never question the goal.
Ileni had been just like her once.
She tried to despise Cyn for her blindness, but gave up when the effort was only half-born. Cyn knew her place, knew it was important, knew she was striving for something worthwhile. Something great. She knew she was on the right side. And even though she was wrong, that knowledge made her strong.
While Ileni knew—deep in her bones, bound in her heart—the unhappiness that came from suspecting you were on the wrong side.
And so she knew exactly who could provide her with answers.
CHAPTER
17
Outside Lis’s door, in a dim hallway lit only by her magelight, Ileni hesitated yet again. What if Lis was asleep? Worse, what if she wasn’t alone? An image flashed through her mind: Arxis leaning toward Lis—he, a remorseless predator; she, hypnotized prey.
Just do it. Ileni rapped hard on the wooden door.
Long moments passed in echoing silence. Knock again? Or leave? Ileni lifted her hand, lowered it, and was just stepping back when the door opened.
Lis was, to Ileni’s relief, fully dressed. But when she saw Ileni, her smile turned into a blank, disappointed stare. Seconds later, it was a scowl. “What are you doing here?”
“Where,” Ileni said, “does the lodestones’ power come from?”
Lis went still for a moment. Then her lip curled. “I think you already know the answer to that. If you’re too stupid to figure it out, that’s your own problem.” She stepped back and started to close the door.
Ileni used a burst of magic to push it back open—perhaps a bit more magic than was, strictly speaking, necessary. Lis staggered back a few steps. Ileni stepped into the doorway. “Do you want to tell me why you hate me?”
“No,” Lis said, without blinking. “Not really.”
“Fine,” Ileni said. “I just want to ask you some questions.”
“How fascinating.” Lis grabbed the door handle, obviously about to slam the door.
Ileni grabbed the edge of the door. “If you answer them, I won’t tell Karyn about you and Arxis.”
Lis laughed in her face. “Go right ahead.”
So much for that. Ileni tried to think of another threat, and came up empty.
Lis lifted an eyebrow. “Why would she care? Come to think of it, why do you care?”
The answer to that should have been obvious, given Ileni and Arxis’s supposed past. Ileni blinked, focusing on Lis. Not a hint of jealousy fueled the other girl’s anger. Somehow, she knew that story wasn’t true.