Arms folded over his chest, Sovran watches us with mild amusement.
Xeni sits taller and turns to him. “You never answered my question. Who are you?”
Sovran tilts his head in that assessing way he has. “A friend.”
“How did you know we needed help?” Ego asks.
Sovran’s golden eyes flick over to her. “You are a very loud bunch.”
Xeni’s suspicion comes in bounds as his gaze roams Sovran’s expansive frame. His leather pants are in good condition, although his white linen shirt is splattered with a fresh spray of blood. He’s out of place in the filthy darkness, though I can’t imagine anywhere he’d blend in.
After a long stretch, Xeni leans closer. “I’ve been a medic for twenty years and studied every species. I’ve never seen or read about someone who looks like you.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Sovran says.
“Talk about vague answers,” Sakane mumbles.
Sovran’s eyes move to him for a moment before he huffs an impatient breath. “I am the only one of my kind on this plane.”
My brows bunch as I consider this. “How did that happen?”
His jaw tenses in the smallest show of irritation, the muscle kicking before loosening again. “Bad timing, one could say.”
“Bad timing,” Xeni mutters as he drags his palm over his face. “Okay, let’s try this… whatisyour kind? Can we start there?”
Sovran glances up at the small grate above, tilting his ear toward the moonlit opening. He doesn’t seem to be in a rush, staring at the dark sky outside before meeting Xeni’s gaze.
“My people are called the Lythienne,” he finally says as he glances between me and Xeni with a slight shake of his head. “You won’t find us referenced in any written history here.”
“But you’ve been here since the fall of the veil?” I ask.
He stares at me for a long moment, golden eyes unreadable. “More or less.”
My eyes flick toward the others. They’re all as bewildered as I am, frozen in collectivewhat-the-hell.
Ego finally breaks the silence. “Not to break up this… whatever the fuck this is, but if we’re going to get out of the city before daybreak, we need to figure out another route. If they’re patrolling the direction we were headed, we don’t stand a chance.”
She glances around the dark room, narrowing her eyes into the pitch-black corners like they personally offended her. “Is there another way out of here?”
“There are ways to escape the city, yes,” Sovran says, calm as a statue.
Ego’s cheek dimples with irritation as she purses her lips. “Wow. You literally just answer exactly what’s asked, don’t you? No more, no less. Like a magic eight-ball with abs.”
Sovran’s brow lifts a fraction.Barely, but it’s there.
Ego throws her hands up. “Okay, let’s try this a different way. We were planning on using an old culvert on the eastern wall, but if this path isn’t safe, I don’t know another way. So spill. Alternative routes.Now. Use your words.”
Cato snorts. “You’re gonna need a bigger stick to poke the sphinx here.”
Ego shoots him a look. “I’ve got plenty of sticks, thank you. And I’m not afraid to use them.”
She turns back to Sovran, planting her hands on her hips. “Come on, Goldilocks. Give us something we can actually use before the sun comes up and turns us into target practice.”
Sovran’s eyes roll up toward the sky again like he’s thinking, and I fight not to twitch in the deafening silence. He nods to himself and glances at the door we entered.
“The culvert is no longer passable,” he says. “It is not safe. There is another path we must take.”
“We?” Xeni asks.
