Death Marked (Death Sworn #2)(50)

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.

What else does she know? Slowly, Ileni said, “I have information about Arxis. You want to hear it.”

Lis rolled her eyes. “Do I? Or do you just want to say it?”

“You have to stay away from him. I know him.”

Lis leaned back. “I know exactly who Arxis is. Far better than you do.”

“I doubt that.”

Lis’s lip curled. “You don’t know anything. Haven’t you realized that by now?”

“Yes,” Ileni said softly. “I have. That’s why I’m here. To ask you for help.”

It hurt, almost physically—exposing her soft side to an enemy. And it didn’t even work. Lis said, “Well, I’m sorry you wasted your time,” and used a pulse of magic to slam the door shut.

Ileni snatched her hand back and met Lis’s magic with her own—no, not my own. They were both drawing on the lodestones, but Ileni was pulling in more magic than Lis, and using it far more skillfully. While holding the door open, she gathered power into a tight pattern, and—with a final, short word—shattered the other girl’s spell.

“I know you’re not like the others,” Ileni hissed. “You know what you’re doing is wrong. So prove it. Tell me.”

Lis’s face was flushed red, but she stood her ground. “Why bother? There’s nothing you can do about it. No one person can change anything, especially not one with all your interesting . . . scruples. If you knew the truth, you would go back to your village and hide there for the rest of your life. This place ruins everything it touches.”

“In that case,” Ileni said softly, “you have nothing to lose.”

“That’s always been true.” Lis turned away, and Ileni thought she wasn’t going to say anything more. Instead, she snapped, “I know you were at Death’s Door.”

“What?”

“I saw you. I hope you enjoyed the show.” Lis lifted her chin. “You didn’t see the whole thing, though, did you? You didn’t go down a level?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ileni said.

“I’ve noticed.” Lis put one hand on the door handle. “Do you honestly think it’s only the old and sick? That we’re willing to steal two days of life—or a week—or a month . . . Where exactly do you think the limit is, Ileni?”

Ileni stepped back.

Lis sneered. “Go deeper, if you want the whole truth. Or don’t. Because once you know it, you’ll have to live with it.”

This time, when Lis slammed the door shut, Ileni didn’t fight her. She stood for several seconds staring at the dark, opaque wood.

If you want the whole truth. She did. Which meant she had to go back to Death’s Door.

If she left the Academy again, if she snuck down to the city in the middle of the night . . . and if she got caught . . . Karyn would take away her magic. And then she truly would be helpless to find out anything more.

Ileni bit her lip. Her chest was tight. Go back to what you were, Karyn had warned. How had she known exactly what Ileni was most afraid of?

Ileni turned on her heel and walked away from Lis’s closed door.


The path down the mountain was twisty and treacherous in the darkness. The rain had stopped by now, and the moon slid in and out of fragmented clouds, providing a drifting, inconsistent light. Ileni paused before she left the Academy and soaked up all the magic she could, then used a sliver of it to make her shoes glow. The light was just bright enough to let her see where she was stepping, but—she hoped—not bright enough to catch anyone’s attention.

She didn’t know how to go directly to Death’s Door, so she had to retrace the path to the Black Sisters—which was even darker and more imposing at night, the murmur of the fountains soft and menacing—and then through the narrow streets and crumbling stairways, which now included sudden dark puddles. After she stepped into the first one—and used up some of her magic to get the water out of her shoes—she watched for them carefully, paying equal attention to the ground and to her surroundings. The shops were closed and dark, and men lurked in shadows on the stairs. They would have been frightening if not for the magic that filled her, but she strode past without slowing down. After days of sparring with Cyn, she knew she could hurt anyone who even thought about threatening her.