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T he weak spring sun was warm on our faces as we wound our way down through the streets of the Temple district.

“A bit useless, that guy,” El observed.

“Intentionally so, I think,” Byrgir said.

El’s hood now hung loosely across her shoulders, her fae features on full display. Her appearance garnered stares and whispers as we passed people. One man across the street yelled out at us.

“Fae trash!” he called, and spat on the ground. “Go back to the abyss you crawled out of, demon woman!”

El didn’t miss a beat. She whirled and flashed him a seductive smile. “I’d love to take you with me, big boy. Why don’t you come over here and sate that burning curiosity?” She coaxed him mockingly.

I stifled a laugh, but Byrgir grabbed her shoulder. “Are you trying to get us all arrested, El?” he hissed at her. “Put your gods damned hood up and shut your mouth.”

As if on cue, three armored guards fell into step behind us. They wore the coat of arms of King Evander, an ash tree with a red rose on either side on a green field. We walked faster, and they picked up their pace.

“Hey! You three!” one of them called.

Byrgir’s hand rested on the hilt of one of his daggers as we turned. “Need something?” he growled. The guards stopped, but did not step back.

“Fae-touched aren’t allowed in the Temple district,” one of the guards barked, eying first El and then me.

“Aren’t allowed?” Byrgir asked. “According to who?”

“By decree of King Evander,” he announced. “What business do you have here?”

“Our business here is none of yours,” El snapped.

“The business of any fae-touched most certainly is,” the guard replied. “Since you’re clearly trespassing where you shouldn’t be, we can either arrest you or escort you from the city gates.”

“We have a meeting with the High Priestess of Enos tomorrow,” I interjected with far more confidence than I felt. “I think she would be disappointed to hear that her meeting was canceled because those she intended to host are in jail.”

The guard gave me a long, hard look. I let my awareness slip around him, reading his emotions, although I didn’t need to. Everything he felt was scrawled across his face: Deep hatred, far more than I expected. Anger, and fear too. He truly believed we were dangerous.

“Fine,” he said at last. “Return to your lodgings and go to your meeting, then leave. And if there are any reports of you harassing citizens, I personally will make sure your exit from my city is swift and painful. Now go.”

El sneered at him, but Byrgir turned her away with a strong hand on her shoulder.

“I think now’s the time for your glamour tricks, El,” Byrgir said.

We turned down the next narrow alley we found.

El pulled up her hood, muttering under her breath, and I watched in awe as her visage shimmered, then shifted entirely.

Her horns vanished, her ears became shorter and rounded, her skin faded to a peachy human paleness.

She looked back at me with the face of a somewhat plain human woman. Only her hair remained the same.

“There. How do I look?” she asked.

“Perfectly boring,” Byrgir answered.

Yet as I watched, the glamour she had cast slipped away and I saw her true form again. It simply looked, with my Sourcerer’s eye, as though an illusionary mist hung over her, a sort of cloudiness that smudged the edges of her features.

Byrgir left us that afternoon to check in with Crow, wherever he was in the city.

El gladly took the opportunity to bring me on a tour of Avanis, with the intention of finding me more clothes.

I hadn’t purchased much in Rhyanaes yet, and apparently Avanis had more options.

El offered to glamour my eyes as well, but I declined.

I had become adept at keeping my head down in public.

We visited a clothier that maintained some of the same fae influence as the dress shop in Rhyanaes, though this one was almost entirely undergarments.

I had thought it was closed at first, given how devoid of other customers it was.

El picked out an assortment of lacy, beautiful silk sets for herself, and helped me choose a few of my own.

I also bought two shirts from them that were similar to the one El was already wearing.

I loved the soft, silky feel of the fabric and the light, slim designs.

We walked back to the inn with shopping bags in tow, and an assortment of little cakes and pastries from our compulsory tours of each bakery we passed, courtesy of El’s sweet tooth.

The next morning, a note awaited us at the front desk of the inn, summoning us to the Temple that afternoon for an audience with the High Priestess herself, conveniently turning the lie I had told the guards the previous day into the truth.

∞∞∞

We were met at the Temple gate by an anchorite, her mouth chained closed in their gruesome holy custom. She brought us up the front steps, through the ornate doors of the main entrance, then straight through the next set of doors into the main Temple itself.

It was dim inside. The windows were stretched tall and narrow, letting in little natural light.

Wax dripped from candelabras throughout the room.

The ceiling was high, and from it dangled chandeliers of concentric circles of gold.

On a raised dais at the far end of the hall was a throne bathed in a wide circle of bright, natural light slanting in from a circular window high in the Temple wall.

It smelled of warm dust and stale incense.

We approached the dais, footsteps echoing.

The anchorite bowed her head and stood off to the side.

As if they had choreographed the timing, two moving, burning candles shifted toward us in the shadows behind the illuminated throne, the flames guttering as they went.

The High Priestess stepped from the shadows into the natural light and walked with decadent slowness toward the throne.

Her very entrance was a performance. The tall heels of her shoes clacked against the stone with each step, setting a beat to the dance.

Her head was entirely shrouded in a mask with no definable facial features or gaps for her eyes or nose.

It wrapped around her face from the top of her head to narrow beneath her chin in one smooth curve.

Gold filigree twisted across it, swirling over where her eyes, nose, and mouth would be.

From the top of the mask, decorative metal curved out over either shoulder; swinging from chains at the end of each metal arm were two lit candles in trays.

From behind her head spread an array of thin gold spikes that flashed as they caught the sunlight.

The entire display gave the impression that her head itself radiated light.

The figure beneath her white and gold dress was tall and slim. Her plunging neckline revealed flawless pale skin, and more of her breasts than I expected a High Priestess of the new god would show. Behind the mask, her long brunette hair was braided down her back.

She stood in front of the throne and addressed us, extending her arms wide.

“Welcome, valued emissaries of the Rhyanaes Council, to the Temple of Enos, center of the Paragons of the Light, crown jewel of Avanis. I am High Priestess Zisorah. How may I be of humble service?”

She settled into the throne. There was nothing humble about her.

El began, “High Priestess Zisorah, I am Elenwen Elduren, and these are my companions, Halja Latharnach and Byrgir Ulfarsson. We have come to you as emissaries of the Council of Rhyanaes, and as friends of Eilith Morceran.”

The High Priestess bobbed her head in a slow, thoughtful nod, and the candles swung on their chains, their flames sputtering and dancing.

“I wondered when you would visit,” she said.

“We requested information through written correspondence but never received a reply,” El said coolly.

“Ah, yes, of course you did. I am a busy woman, Miss Elduren, and I depend on my Deacons to handle most of my correspondences and alert me to anything requiring my personal attention. It is possible it was lost, or that my Deacons simply have not yet reached it in the backlog of letters. Or, perhaps, they did not deem it worthy of my time. Whatever the reason for its absentia may be, you are here now. And you are all most welcome.” She nodded her head, the candles swinging again before continuing, “First, let me assuage your concerns. Your friend Eilith Morceran is safe and well here under my care. She resides in this very Temple, close to the light of our Lord Enos.”

“She is being held here, you mean? Against her will? Or am I mistaken?” El smiled, polite and false.

“You are not, Miss Elduren. Although I do admit I was personally disappointed it came to this. You see, Eilith Morceran was encouraged on multiple occasions by my Paragons to cease her dark ways and release the village of Skeioholm from her influence. She was warned that her practices were criminal, against the morality of our Lord of Light, and against the laws set by our exalted King Evander.”

“But they weren’t criminal yet,” El countered. “Not at the time you ‘arrested’ her. That law was only recently adopted.”

“That law has applied to the city of Avanis for months, though it was expanded to the rest of Elvik only recently. Morceran, however, was given a direct order from her king to stop her practices and cease her endangerment of Skeioholm’s community before her practice became illegal.

She refused.” Her tone still carried the graciousness of a host, but I sensed the small hint of impatience brewing beneath that mask.

“You were concerned for the safety of Skeioholm? It’s days from Avanis,” I said.