Page 134 of Traitor Witch

I gape at her. "Who?"

"No one you will have heard of." Sophie interjects. "Lily was an exile long before even Petra was born."

"The point is," Petra grumbles. "You will need to be prepared for all kinds of attacks. Lily is a powerful witch, and anyone who underestimates a Castleman mage is an idiot."

"Why would a witch help the Queen?" I mutter, taking a small bite of food. "Even exiles serve the Goddess."

"Lily chose a different path. One which has led her to madness." Sophie gets quieter as she speaks. "Though she was once a Solar, she no longer counts herself one of us or holdsherself to our vow of non-violence. Her powers are formidable, and we have no idea what abilities she might have developed over the centuries she's been in hiding. We didn't even know she was still alive until..."

"Until she was mentioned in Glenna's letters," Petra spits. "No wonder so many of my students died when they went into the palace completely unprepared to fight an elder witch on top of the shifter and mage guards." Her hands fist around her cutlery, knuckles turning white. "She will be a tough and unpredictable opponent. Even I would struggle to go up against her."

Petra unclenches her hand from her knife long enough to grab her goblet of wine and down it in one.

I wonder if she's thinking about her own mates facing an elder witch.

"So you didn't face her when you went after the Eagle yourself?"

The glare she gives me is withering. "Obviously not."

Is that all she's going to say on the subject? How am I supposed to know what I'm up against if the one person who's come back from the palace won't tell me?

"That Lily still has the ability to draw power when she's abandoned the teachings of Mother Sunlight worries me," Sophie interjects before I can say anything, taking a sip of water. "As an elder, she knows magic that the rest of us can scarcely dream of. You should not engage her directly if it can be avoided."

Petra scoffs. "You have a week to learn, and the first day will be wasted while you heal your new sigils."

I suppress a shudder. "More sigils?" After all the ones Alletta inked into my skin, I hoped I'd be done with sigils for at least the next few decades.

"Yes. Shadows have their own marks. Ones which helpwith our unique gifts." Was it my imagination or did Petra seem a little sympathetic?

Great.

"Anyone else I should know about?"

"The usual: mage traps, shifter guards, and human ingenuity." Petra doesn't even look up as she says it, and it's starting to annoy me.

"Come on, you've been there. You must know something more than that."

"Yes. I've been there. I was cut down right outside the Queen's bedroomfourhundred years ago," Petra grouches. "I saved every memory I had and prepared my students to face the same. Even if they hadn't upped security all these centuries later, my information hasn't helped any other Shadow get as far as I did."

She shoves away from the table, leaving her food mostly untouched as she stalks towards the stairs.

Sophie just sighs.

“Forgive her, Nilsa. She has lost a lot and your being here has her more on edge than usual."

"She seems like she hates me."

"Petra is... she has a complicated relationship with her Goddess." The Mother Solar spears a potato delicately with her fork and chews slowly before continuing. "In her mind, she is being punished for her failure. Although that is not how our great deities work, the Moon Mother's efforts to protect her can seem like that at times."

"Her ageing?"

"She is still a great warrior. She has the power to do all she once could. But the Goddess insists Petra remains at Sanctum to preserve the knowledge of the Shadows and allow the future Lunar High Priestess time to come of age." Sophie glances over the crowd and I wonder, for a second, if the High Priestess knows who will be chosen as Petra's successor.

"Her ageing worsens when she tries to leave, and Petra—for all her faults—will not allow the lore of the Shadows to die with her. So she has remained here, bitter with loss, for too long. Her days are spent watching Cawshome sink further into true darkness and praying for someone to kill the Queen so she can just let go and join her mates in the stars."

"Until she got the order to kill Glenna and Felicity," I grumble.

"Until then," Sophie agrees. "When she learned that, not only was there a last Shadow, but Glenna had been perverting the Goddess's plans while another of our own kind was aiding the Eagle."