The Lilliad part 7 ( so short, sorry, am die)

Lilli considered the impossibilities. 

It was true that she’d survived a Ktharyis and that was lucky- but getting lucky one time didn’t mean she could do it again. One of those things had been hard enough, she’d nearly died anyway. But now she knew to be wary. That the sense of calm they imposed was a lie. 

Thousands upon thousands of people were probably going to die without that knowledge. 

And now she wasn’t totally alone. If Elathor was still willing to work with her, they might be useful. At least she wouldn’t die immediately unless they couldn’t help it. 

And she didn’t have a choice. Not really. 

Not unless she wanted to watch the world burn. 

Lilli’s legs felt like they were going to give out, so she decided to go with it. Her legs crumpled underneath her, and she plopped down on her ass next to the witch. 

They sat there for a long moment. Lilli followed the witch’s eyes up to the stars and wondered what she saw there. 

They twinkled and shone- but Lilli didn’t see how it was any different from any other night. No star looked to be giving her answers.

“So,” Lilli hedged, “what do you think I should do?”

Just asking wasn’t committing herself to a course of action, right? It was only a question. 

The witch just looked at her. It was infuriating how people just seemed to think she could read their minds. 

“I think you know what you should do.” The witch said, beginning to sound a little bored. “We both know that you don’t want to.”

“Does it matter what I want?” Lilli asked, kind of figuring how this would end. 

The witch shrugged. “Yes and no. But in the long term, no. Not at all.”

Lilli sighed, long and deep. Being her had always sucked, but never quite this acutely. 

“All right, then.” She muttered. “I guess I have a wizard to smuggle somewhere.” She stood up, feeling the ache in her bones. They were about as into this as her mind was. 

Lilli blinked. “Actually, what’s your name?” She asked the witch. “I guess I don’t know it.”

The witch grinned. Lilli could see a significant gap between her two front teeth that she hadn’t noted before. And that one of them was a tiny runestone.

“Melthior, of course. It’s my shop, isn’t it?” She stood herself, shaking out her luxurious robes. “I will see you after you visit the College.”

Then she disappeared. Lilli noticed that Melthior hadn’t offered to magic her off this godforsaken rooftop.

So she skittered back over the tiles and down into the streets, back to Elathor. 

They were waiting nervously by the door, about where she’d left them maybe an hour earlier. They kept glancing back inside the shop, but the door was now closed and it was dark. 

“Melthior kick you out?” Lilli asked, sidling up to Elathor and away from the bustling crowd. 

They wrung their taloned hands nervously. 

“Yes.” They tried to straighten. “She said to only come back after we got the information we needed.”

“Let’s go, then.” Lilli muttered. “I don’t know where it is, though, so you have to take us there.”

The Magician’s College was apparently one of the massive, fort-like buildings in the rich area of town. 

To be more accurate, it was a series of connected forts there. With some mean-looking guards. 

Elathor looked at her helplessly.

“Well, Lilli…” they wheedled. “How do we get in?”

Lilli looked at the building. The windows were small and unfathomably high. There were tons of guards. 

“The door.” She said, grabbing Elathor’s arm and dragging them to the set of guards at the gate. 

“Name and purpose?” One said, peering down a particularly nasty-looking glave at her. 

Lilli swallowed the urge to stress vomit. 

“I am Lilli,” she made an attempt at a bow, knowing it was pretty iffy at best. “My… teacher, he has been afflicted by a serious magical illness. Please, they need to see a magician immediately.” She willed her eyes to fill her tears, and was gratified when the guard looked uncomfortable.

He stamped something and handed it to her. 

“Magical illnesses are the building to the left.” He said, pointing. “Just don’t touch anything, and please do not bother any students practicing their magic.”

She nodded, and drug Elathor’s thankfully-silent body through the imposing gate. As she walked by, she noted the carvings. They were intricate and a bit disturbing, some sort of blood-soaked battle scene. 

Hard to believe they did healing here. Once they were out of the guards’ sight, she shoved Elathor behind a door. 

“Where do we go from here?” She asked quietly. “Where would they be keeping the Ktharyis’?”

Elathor, smartly, kept their pointy trap shut. But did point to a building in the back of the campus. 

There were lots of nerds in robes in between them and their goal. But if Lilli was in this, she was in all the way. Nerds could get wrecked.

One did finish a spell to make a ball of fire and throw it at the wall across from her. 

Okay, the nerds could get wrecked by someone else. Lilli would like to live. 

It was important to pretend that you belonged in places you were definitely trespassing in. Accordingly, Lilli directed Elathor as if they were a lost puppy- past all the young mage/magicians/whatever who were learning terrifying murder magic. 

She could feel her legs weakening with her nerves, but she willed them to be ramrod straight. She was an official person on official fish business. 

At the indicated building, they ducked into the entrance and she checked the entryway. There wasn’t really anyone around, which was convenient. 

She turned back to see that Elathor was shuffling away from her, down the stairs. She followed them down six flights, and down a confusing series of pathways. 

Elathor stopped at a door, and peeked in through the window crack. 

“Probably in here.” They whispered. “Storage for dangerous and sensitive materials.”

“Okay.” She whispered back. 

They opened the door. It opened with a long, unoiled creak. It seemed to echo up the stairs and reverberate on the stone walls and floors. Lilli froze. 

“Who the hell is that?” Someone barked from inside. 

Well. Her luck couldn’t last forever.