“I think I have something that might help with that,” I say.
“What?”
I shake my head. I don't want to say more than I have, both because I'm not certain yet that I'll succeed and because of the places I must go to get help.
“If it works, I'll tell you later,” I say to him. “For now, I need to go. I have a meeting to get to that might make a difference.”
I rush through the palace, heading back to my rooms and changing into a long grey tunic, belted at the waist and sandals. As usual I throw a cloak around my shoulders to disguise my identity as I go through the city. I watch for any signs that I'm being followed, and take side streets to make it less obvious which direction I'm heading in.
I'm not meeting Alaric at the tower this time. Instead, I head to an entrance to the catacombs, slipping down into the darkness, borrowing the eyesight of animals accustomed to the night so that I can pick my way along the tunnels without needing a torch. Alaric is waiting for me in a large, circular space, lined with stone benches that must have been some kind of meeting place, back in the distant past. Light filters in from above, revealing the cracks in the stone and the plants wrapped around everything, having reclaimed what should otherwise be a dead space.
Alaric is waiting there, lounging on one of the stone benches as casually as if this were some elegant salon. He’s wearing his real face, for once, and it always makes me smile to see him. There's another man with him, much older and more grizzled, with a grey beard that's fading to white and a frame that was probably once powerful but is now hunched over. When he looks at me I can see catlike eyes, and I know this is a beast whisperer, one of those who has taken in too much power for too long from some animal or other, leaving him stuck with a physical remnant of the exchange he cannot get rid of. He sniffs the air as I approach, as if he can scent my presence as much as see me.
“Lyra, you came,” Alaric says with a smile. “I was getting worried you weren’t going to show.”
“The senate meeting ran on longer than I expected,” I say.
Alaric looks worried. “How did it go?”
I shake my head. “We couldn’t stop the others from voting to give Selene more freedoms. She can walk the city now, rather than being confined to Ironhold.”
The beast whisperer snorts. “She could do that anyway. Why do you think I’m hiding, girl?”
“Who is this, Alaric?” I ask.
Alaric seems to remember himself. “Lyra, this is Elanar. You wanted a beast whisperer who might be able to show you more about how to use your powers. Well, Elanar has been around for a long time, and seen plenty of ways to use those abilities.”
“And I need to do something with myself while I hide,” the older man says. “I might as well teach you how to actually control your magic.”
“Your eyes say that you've had some problems with that yourself,” I point out.
Elanar shrugs, then seems to concentrate, and his eyes fade back to a careful watery blue, marred by the milkiness of cataracts. “I keep these eyes because my own aren’t so goodanymore. Doesn't mean I don't have control. The ones who can't get themselves back just haven't listened to me enough.”
That's an impressive feat. I hadn't thought that those who had started to twist into animal form could get their human selves back so easily.
“I heard you were training with Elara,” Elanar says. He doesn't sound happy as he speaks her name.
“She taught me a lot about what it means to be a beast whisperer,” I reply.
Elanar laughs. “Probably telling you that we were superior to all the humans, and that we deserve to rule over them.”
I nod. That was the approach Lady Elara always took.
“And probably never teaching you the finer details of what you can do. She always had power, but if she knew all the tricks of our kind she never shared them with others. She always wanted to make sure she was the strongest.”
That fits with my memory of her as well, although I'm surprised to hear this beast whisperer talking about her with anything less than total respect.
“You weren't one of her followers, then?” I say.
Elanar shrugs. “I knew some of them. I never joined their little faction. In the end that kept me safe, but now it means I've got no one to turn to while Selene is trying to kill us all.”
“The resistance will protect you,” Alaric promises. “We'll do everything in our power to make sure she can never get to you.”
“And in return I teach Lyra here all the things she ought to know?” Elanar says. “All the things I've learned in a long life?”
Alaric nods.
“Well then,” he says. “We’d better get started.”
