She’d answer his questions.
That was so clear and obvious that some of her fear drained away. She’d answer and she’d do it quickly.
With that settled, she’d better think about how she’d respond. Should have already thought about that instead of drifting off in the hot water. Should definitely not have drained herself so badly reaching for an impossibly far-away Rule, because now she was too depleted to mindspeak Cynna to make sure she didn’t contradict what Cynna had said. Though how she was supposed to stop herself from doing stupid shit in her sleep—
Shut up, she told herself. All those shoulds did not do a damn thing to help. Think. What did she most need to keep from Kongqi?
Her mindspeech. It might be AWOL due to overuse at the moment, but it would return. A sorcéri drifted across her cheek at that moment as if to underline that thought, which made her think of Cullen, which made her heart squeeze in her chest. Cullen liked to collect sorcéri. He could see them. He—
Shit. Cullen saw sorcéri because he was a sorcerer—meaning that he saw magic. The spawn were sorcerers, too. She’d been moaning about not being able to use mindspeech while she was with Kongqi, but that would be about the worst thing she could do. He’d see it.
Maybe he already had. She’d already used her mindsense in his presence, hadn’t she? To find out if he was a spawn.
Lily forgot to play stoic warrior and scrubbed her face with both hands. She might have already given Kongqi a big, fat clue about her mindsense, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. The best she could hope for was that Kongqi hadn’t been paying attention to his Sight at that moment. It wasn’t an unreasonable hope. Cullen kept his awareness of his Sight dialed down much of the time. It could be distracting, he said. Kongqi might, too.
She sighed deeply, then forced herself to straighten. What else did she need to keep from Kongqi?
Gan. The things about Gan that Cynna had kept hidden, that is. Kongqi knew Gan was a crosser and had brought Cynna and Lily here. He didn’t know Gan used to be a demon and therefore could go dashtu. Gan might be nearby even now, waiting for a chance to help—and dammit, why hadn’t she looked for Gan’s mind while she was bathing instead of . . . never mind. What else?
The mate bond. She was used to keeping that secret. The bond was as much a spiritual construct as a magical one, so there was a decent chance Kongqi wouldn’t notice it despite his sorcerous vision. Better be sure she didn’t try to use it while she was in his presence, though.
Last but far from least: Reno. Very much, Reno.
If she and Cynna had a secret weapon, it was the green dragon. Who probably wasn’t here yet, but would arrive at some point. Whose abilities were largely a mystery to her, but they included mind magic on a level that could hide itself from an Old One—at least for a while—and blowing up nodes. Or coming so close to blowing them up that it took everything the Great Bitch had to stabilize them . . . which she had done, just as Reno had expected, thereby preserving the life of her avatar. And the construct? Had the G.B. saved it, too? That enormous and enormously powerful magical construct that had been draining all the magic from a region in Dis in order to do God-only-knew-what . . .
And that’s what she had to learn. That was the key question: what was that magical construct supposed to do? The only people here who might know were the spawn. Well, maybe Alice Báitóu, too . . . Alice, whose role she did not understand. Why was the woman here? Was she the G.B.’s agent or emissary? That would explain her clout with the spawn, but then why had she been so worried about the G.B. getting hold of the Codex? If she—
Lily emerged from her thoughts with a jolt. They’d halted in front of the largest of the stone buildings in the compound, the one with the gilded roof. Directly in front of them, three broad steps led to a narrow veranda and a pair of ornately carved doors. Lily’s mouth went dry. On this hot, humid evening, her hands felt cold. Showtime.
“Come,” Fang said.
They did not go up the shallow steps to the fancy doors. Instead they took a gravel path to another entrance off to the right, one partly hidden by tall shrubs—an entrance reached by descending a narrower set of stairs heading below ground level. Lily’s mouth twisted when she saw those stairs. Bad stuff happened every time she went underground.
She halfway expected some kind of dank dungeon. Instead they entered a small anteroom carpeted in rush mats where two more guards waited. Those two saluted Fang by thumping their chests with their fists. Fang gave them a nod and led Lily and his original pair of guards into what might have been an upscale office hallway, albeit one lit by clusters of mage lights instead of fluorescent tubes. The walls were white and plastered, the floor wooden and spotless—and being kept that way by a woman who was washing it on her hands and knees. Recessed doorways punctuated both walls at regular intervals. Some doorways had doors; some did not.
The doors were not like the ones she was used to. No doorknobs. Instead they had round iron rings that reminded her of knockers. “How do those doorknobs work?” she asked. Fang glanced over his shoulder at her, his face puzzled. Wrong word, maybe? She tried again. “The latches. The rings on the doors.”
He paused, then looked at her again and spoke in a voice so low she barely heard him. “Lily Yu. I do not [something]. Your kinship with the Zhuren is remote, but [something-something] courtesy. But the Zhuren are not [something about questions or problems?]. You would do well to remember that.” He turned and continued down the hall.
Lily followed, frowning. Had she understood any of that right? Damn, but she missed her mindsense. Her kinship—if that’s what he’d said—with the Zhuren was certainly remote. Nonexistent, as far as she was concerned. Her magic might be descended from dragons, but she wasn’t. And yet Tom Weng had called her cousin when they met, and the only way Fang Ye Lì could have gotten the idea that she was some kind of kin to the Zhuren would be if one of them told him so.
Why would they do that?
The hall appeared to bisect the entire basement level of the building. About halfway down it they turned into another hall. She glimpsed a stairwell in the direction they did not take—one with stairs leading both up and down. This was not the lowest floor, then. The second hall traveled about fifteen feet before turning right. Fang didn’t go that far, stopping at one of the doorways that lacked a door. He motioned for her to go in.
She did, trailing the other two guards. This room was small, white, and bare except for a single wooden bench on the wall to her left. In addition to the open doorway, there were two closed doors: one on the wall with the bench, one opposite it.