“Oh, Alacrity’s mercy!” Alyx exclaimed as Cass stepped into her guest room. The swordswoman shot up from the couch by the hearth and rushed to Cass’s side. “You’re alive. Where have you been? Why didn’t you meet up when we agreed?”

Alyx’s words slowed as her fingers found the bloody collar of Cass’s robes. She rubbed it between her fingers, a frown falling on her lips. “What happened to you?”

Cass explained her day, how she was attacked on her way to the library, how she’d gotten so distracted with the books that she lost track of time, her getting lost on the way back to the mansion, and finally the impromptu tea with the Lady Veldor.

“Assassins?” Alyx muttered, falling back into one of Cass’s sitting room couches. Her frown turned into a full scowl. “Any idea who tried to kill you?”

Cass shook her head and sat herself down across from Alyx. Salos jumped up to sit in her lap. She fished the ring from her Bag. “They had this on them. You recognize it?”

Alyx turned it over, holding its emerald and copper face to the light. Her scowl deepened.

“This shouldn’t be here,” she muttered. “This is the mark of the Copper Crescent, a dangerous cult. They were expelled from the city over ten years ago.”

“Why would an exiled cult attack me?” Cass asked. If it had been a noble house, it would have been easy enough to accept Daidyn’s earlier guess that the attack targeted Cass as one of Alyx’s followers.

For it to be a cult instead threw all that out the window.

Alyx turned the ring over in her hands. “I don’t know. But even association with this cult in this city is punishable by execution. Telis,” she handed the ring to the butler. “Report this to my grandmother directly if you can. To Aunt Ashrel, if you must. Then see what you can find out separately.”

Telis nodded and hurried from the room.

“What god does this cult worship?” Cass asked. Perception’s silver eyes floated in the back of Cass’s mind. A shiver ran down her spine.

“Fortitude. They twist the doctrine of She of Standing Stone and Proper Ends into an exultation of death.” Alyx shook her head. “Most of the details about them are suppressed.”

“So is Fortitude evil too?” Cass asked.

Alyx shook her head. “No. None of the gods are ‘evil’. In Fortitude’s case, it’s just some of her worshipers who take her tenants toward dark ends.”

“And the demon god?” Cass asked. “Is he evil?”

Alyx inhaled sharply. “Is the abyss evil? What about a raging storm? They are dangerous. He is dangerous. And he’s not well-liked in Vaisom. For his part in the fate of dragons, he is reviled by most here. But he still has worshipers. Many claim him as their patron, even if they don’t like him personally.”

So, more of an ancient Greek Hades than a Disney Hades?

“Anyway, I’m glad you’re safe,” Alyx said. “When you didn’t show up for lunch…” She shook her head. “You will tell me before you leave, right?”

Cass raised an eyebrow. “Where am I going?”

Alyx looked away. “When you didn’t show up, my first thought wasn’t that you were in danger, but that you’d decided to find answers on your own. That you might have left the city entirely.”

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Cass bit her lip.

“I know you will not stay forever. Obviously. The Academy will find an answer for you or the Vault will. And then, you’ll go home. Or, you won’t find anything here and you’ll move on to the next place with ancient records. But, if you can, before you leave, say something to me, please?

“Don’t just run off on me.”

Cass nodded slowly. “I think I can do that.”

“But if an opportunity appears while I’m in the catacombs, don’t miss it waiting for me,” Alyx added hastily.

“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Cass said.

“You don’t know that,” Alyx said.

Cass had been avoiding thinking about it all day because she didn’t want to square the realities Alyx had outlined with the things she wanted.

But there was only one choice.

Alyx was her friend.

Salos was her friend.

They both needed something from the catacombs.

Cass couldn’t deny Salos the option to find it or let Alyx risk herself alone.

Cass shook her head. “I imagine if I find a way home in the catacombs, you’ll be the first to know. I’m sure I’ll be able to say goodbye.”

“What?” Alyx said.

“I’m going with you,” Cass said, leaning back into the couch cushions.

“No, you aren’t!” Alyx snapped up, her entire body balanced on the couch seat’s forward edge.

“Am too,” Cass said calmly.

“You can’t. We’ve been over this.”

“Maybe,” Cass agreed. “But I’m going.”

“What if you need to kill someone down there?” Alyx demanded.

“I won’t,” Cass said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You don’t know that.”

Cass shrugged. “If you can claim you won’t die, I can claim I won’t need to kill.”

“That’s entirely different!”

“How?” Cass asked. “I think I have more control over killing than you do over dying.”

Alyx’s hands wrung in the air in front of her. She clenched them and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not taking you. You can’t make me.”

“Sure,” Cass said. “But I heard that there is no shortage of Delve teams looking for a mage, while mages interested in entering the catacombs are a highly finite supply.”

“You wouldn’t just join a random team! They could get you killed. They could kill you!”

“Ah.” Cass melodramatically posed. “Woe is me. Too bad there isn’t a team I already trust that is willing to take me along.”

Alyx glared at Cass from across the coffee table.

Cass smirked right back.

“You might as well take her with you, my lady,” Marco piped up from by the door. “We know she’s good in a fight and she’s more trustworthy than mercs.”

Alyx shot him a glare, too.

“And we both know that Telis’s been prepping supplies for three, not two.”

“Insubordination, the both of you,” Alyx muttered. “Fine. Fine. But I need to make this clear: I cannot promise to protect you down there and I cannot promise I will act as honorably as you might want me to. This is a contest with our lives on the line. I cannot and will not hold back.”

Cass nodded. “I can live with that.”

She hoped it was true.

She hoped she wouldn’t need to find out.

“Abyss,” Alyx muttered. “There is so little time now.”

“For?” Cass asked.

“To make sure you’re ready.” Alyx shot up. “I don’t know if you have anything in particular you want, but if nothing else, we need to look at your staff.”

“What’s wrong with my staff?” Cass asked.

“It’s a branch you found on the ground, isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah? But it’s a very nice branch.”

Alyx rolled her eyes. “Most mages have their staffs engraved with inscriptions. I’ve heard it increases the efficiency of other spells or skills or reinforces the material. Really fancy ones can store spells for immediate use later.”

Cass looked at the plain branch beside her. “Do I have time to get that done tonight? Aren’t we leaving tomorrow morning?”

“If we wanted a professional to do it, no, definitely not. But if we do it ourselves…”