Page 92 of Guardian of Exile

Loclyn studied her silently. He was a man of harsh features, his cheekbones and jawline seeming rough-hewn from unyielding granite. He was the oldest of the councilors she’d seen—she would guess he’d been in his mid-fifties before he’d stopped aging.

Devoted? she asked. The four surrounding him were no easier to read than he was. A Livkai, male by the rings of black scales on his tail, a Siren woman in her mid-thirties, and two base Humans who looked like siblings in their late teens, their eyes void of irises, white orbs flecked with silver and gold.

If a person is interesting or pleasing enough to him, Loclyn collects them, Alihana answered. They are granted a lengthened lifespan from living in his Station, in return for utter devotion. This extended life lasts until he tires of them, or until someone kills them. He is an energy mage.

Okay, she had dealt with an energy mage before. Yes, it had been precisely once, and it had been Maruca, who hadn’t actually wanted to kill her—she didn’t think—but it wasn’t as if she had no experience with it. She wanted to warn Kaden, Morgen, and Tristen, but she had no way of doing that without revealing to Loclyn that they were present. Besides which, Kaden and Morgen probably knew each of the councilors on sight anyway, and the name—or the energy mage designation—likely wouldn’t mean anything to Tristen.

Entering A-Queltr can provide a barrier to his power, should it prove necessary, Alihana whispered in her mind, but while your father could possibly, with extreme effort, kill him via it, it is unlikely you could. Loclyn’s own magic provides a shield against the ability. He is connected to all his Devoted, and can pull from them to fuel it. You are unlikely to outlast him without becoming lost to death yourself.

So A-Queltr would protect her, but it wouldn’t let her kill him. If it came to a fight, losing her connection to the Station to enter A-Queltr wouldn’t be her best option. Isolating him in part of the Station after Tristen had cut Loclyn’s connection to it would.

Loclyn still hadn’t answered her, so Nyx snapped her fingers at him, because she was certain it was something no one in their right mind would ever do to a councilor if they recognized them as such. “I don’t mean to be rude, but as I said, non-Station personnel aren’t allowed behind the counter.”

Loclyn folded his arms across his chest. “Am I expected to believe you have no idea who I am?”

“Am I supposed to know who you are?”

He made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. “Councilor Loclyn.”

She laughed. “If you’re going to impersonate a councilor, you could at least pick the one who oversees my Station.” She pointed to the cafe exit. “The door is that way.”

He pulled on her Station. It wasn’t much—a little nudge that had the floor rippling to push her off balance—and it was everything she could do not to instinctively counter it and give away every ability she wasn’t supposed to have. She stumbled forward, coming far closer to him than she preferred.

“Does that clarify the issue of my identity?” Loclyn asked.

“My apologies, Councilor,” she said grudgingly. “To what do I owe the honor of your visit?”

“Do you know how long you have been gone from this Station?”

“Do you know how few visitors Earth gets? I have more than enough free time to spend in Earth Between,” she replied, wishing she had any idea how long he thought she’d been gone. How long he’d been waiting. While she didn’t think he’d been standing in the cafe for days, watching for her to return, she could very easily see him leaving his lackeys to do just that and summon him as soon as they noticed her.

She felt a pull on her connection to Kaliaris and opened the channel between them. They couldn’t affect much of the physical reality of the Station without her actively directing it, but they were getting better at working through her. A clock appeared on the wall behind Loclyn. Its hands marked seven, then spun backward. She counted the hours. Twelve. Sixteen. Nineteen.

Shit. Loclyn had been here for nearly a day.

“And you have been there the entire time you have been gone? In that town?” He sank enough disdain into the last word to make it clear he viewed the city of Earth Between as something more akin to a hovel.

You are dumb and flighty and spoiled, she told herself, because projecting that felt like the safest option for convincing him that, yes, she had just been on vacation. “Look, is this about me not being in the Station? Did someone complain because they couldn’t buy books or coffee or something?

“Because that’s ridiculous. My Avatar can do that. I didn’t have any Arrivals and it’s boring here. So what if I wanted to stay in town for a few days? Is that a crime?”

Loclyn studied her. “If you were truly in town, no.”

She frowned, trying to look like it was a weird question. “I can’t go anywhere else.”

“Can you not?” His gaze roved over her. At first, she didn’t know what he was looking for, and once she did, she knew she was in trouble. The Hiding over her portal magic bracelets required a sudden influx of power to maintain. He didn’t know she had them, as was evidenced by the fact her Hiding strained but didn’t break, but that he was looking for them at all meant she was well and truly fucked.

She tried anyway. “Look,” she said, “I appreciate that you’re kind of my boss, I guess? But this is really weird, and since I haven’t broken any rules, maybe you could just get to the point?”

He shrugged. “If you wish.”

He nodded to the siblings with with the iris-less eyes. Those strange orbs fixated on her. Their magic unfurled, reaching for her. She wanted to run, or throw up A-Queltr as a shield. But she couldn’t do either of those things without giving away that she had something to hide.

The siblings’ magic washed over her. It felt like promise and opportunity, like if she just opened her mind to them, they would show her all the things she had not yet even decided to do. Their magic whispered promises. It could show her so much, so many things about herself she didn’t yet know. It could show her the future. Everything that would happen to her, everything that would be.

All she had to do was let it in. To show it everything that she was, everything that she had been, so it could know where life would take her. She wavered. The promise was intoxicating. She wanted the surety offered, the certainty of knowing that she would succeed, that her friends would live, that her fathers would live.

Yes. Let us in, and we will tell you.