The only sound she could hear was the beating of her own heart.
“Where is everyone?” Her whisper sounded more like a shout, nearly making her jump.
Lucia squeezed her hands together and reminded herself again of her mother’s advice: pretend to be confident.
And so she continued deeper into this place. All the buildings looked almost identical, polished and gleaming, but Lucia couldn’t tell what each one was.
Still, the city felt strangely familiar to her.
The ice maze, she thought. Yes, this city reminded her of a large version of the ice maze on the Limerian palace grounds that a friend of her father’s had gifted to her for her tenth birthday.
And, she realized with a sinking feeling, she was already lost within it.
“Who are you, mortal? And how did you get here?”
Lucia started at the voice, like a crack of lightning waking her from a deep sleep. In the span of one heartbeat, she spun around and summoned her magic without a single thought.
Immediately, a bolt of fire lit up her right fist. She tried not to feel dismayed that she’d unconsciously chosen to defend herself with Kyan’s element.
The trigger of her defensive instincts stood before her: a young woman in a long white robe, regarding Lucia with a stunned expression. Her hair was as red as the fire blazing up from Lucia’s hand.
An immortal, beautiful and eternally young.
As soon as the immortal moved her gaze to the fire, her eyes widened with shock. “I know who you are.”
Taking a shaky step backward, Lucia doused the flames. “Do you? Then who am I?”
As the fire gave way to smoke, the girl appeared to compose herself, blinking rapidly. “The sorceress reborn.”
“Perhaps I’m just a witch.”
“A mortal witch could never enter the sacred city. No mortal has ever entered this city.”
The last thing she wanted was to scare anyone, especially this immortal who could help her find Timotheus in this labyrinthine city. In recent weeks, violence and intimidation—not to mention her newly acquired magical ability to extract the truth from mortal tongues—had been the primary tools she’d used to survive, and it seemed she still had a ways to go in terms of breaking that habit.
“Then there’s no reason for me to deny who I am,” Lucia replied slowly, carefully.
A smile spread across the girl’s face, chasing away Lucia’s fear. “Melenia told us that you would walk among us again.”
The name made Lucia’s back stiffen. “Did she?”
She nodded. “She promises that we will all be able to leave here soon and be free to come and go as we please, finally, after all these centuries.”
Melenia seemed to have made a lot of promises to a lot of different people.
Before Lucia killed her, that was.
She took a deep breath, forcing away memories of the evil immortal so she could focus entirely on the present moment.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Mia.”
Though this girl had so far appeared to be nothing other than sweet and friendly, Lucia would not allow herself to forget that Mia was an ageless immortal, a Watcher, not born of man and woman but created from elemental magic.
“My name is Lucia.” She straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and tried to feel powerful. “And I’m here because I need to see Timotheus. Do you know where he is?”
“Yes, of course.” Mia nodded, but the mention of Timotheus had dulled her gaze, and a distasteful look appeared on her beautiful face. “I’m on my way now to the city square, where he’s called for a gathering. He’s agreed to emerge from his current life of solitude and give us a few moments of his time”—she said this with an edge of disdain that Lucia couldn’t miss even if she were deaf—“to answer our questions.”
The confirmation that he was here, that the immortal hadn’t suddenly disappeared just when she needed him most, drew a deep sigh of relief from her lungs.
“I want to be there to hear what he says,” Lucia said. Perhaps he would warn the others about her, if he hadn’t already, as well as the threat of the fire Kindred.
She knew the immortal had visions of the future and could receive prophesies, a gift—or a curse, Timotheus had said—that he’d inherited from Eva, the original sorceress. He could even enter Lucia’s dreams, just as Alexius had, and in those dreams he could read her mind. It was possible he knew every move she ever made, had followed every step she’d ever taken.
The thought made her cringe with shame and embarrassment.
“I don’t want Timotheus to see me yet,” she said to Mia. “And I don’t want to alarm any of your friends with my sudden presence in your world. Will you help me?”
Mia nodded. “Of course I will. However, to remain unseen, I’ll need to lend you my robes.”
Lucia looked down at herself. The dark red cloak she’d been traveling in was torn and singed from her battle with Kyan, and it made her stand out in this city of brightness like a splash of blood on newly fallen snow. “Yes, that would help.”
Mia slipped the beautiful white robe made from a finely woven, shimmering material off her shoulders. Beneath, she wore an equally exquisite silver gown, intricately beaded with small crystals, that bared her arms and hugged her body.
Lucia looked at her with surprise. “You dress far fancier under your robes than anyone I’ve seen attend even most elaborate banquet.”