Liilia's eyes widened as the beam drew closer. Her pink magic was being pushed toward her by the Witchbinder's azure engram. She could see him scribbling furiously, re-writing and adding strength to his thaumaturgical script. He had a frighteningly steady hand, and a gaze to match.

  Lunomancy strained the body like any other exertion, but it came with harsher penalties for overexertion. Skin and bones grew frail. Blood thinned and stopped clotting. The brain ached and throbbed. Too much lunomancy wouldn’t kill a witch, but if she used enough, taking a single step might break her foot, and scratching an itch might shred her skin.

  This particular spell of Liilia’s was magic that required a careful relaxation of the muscles to strengthen itself. She breathed out, and gained a small edge in the tug of war.

  It was short-lived. The witchbinder's spell pushed past even that surge, and a moment later, the collision point of the magic was pushed between her hands and into her chest. She gasped. Her form began to evaporate.

  Off to one side, sitting cross-legged with her glowing hands in her lap, the real Liilia returned to view from the invisibility she’d woven. She watched as her projection disintegrated under the mage's runic power.

  "Good work," Liilia said. "You've clearly practiced."

  It was a common Barridian midnight, not far from Aleb. Some moons were high in the sky. A gentle breeze blew on Liilia's face from the north, tinged with salt from the Everwhite Sea air. Compared to the desert heat she'd spent months traveling in, it was wonderful. Even with the disturbing new backdrop of the Fade, which had surged miles toward the sickly city.

  A little over an hour ago, Liilia saw the Fade hurling like an avalanche of smoke toward Aleb. It was awe-inspiring, terrifying, a sight not seen for fifty years. Most people alive in Mekkendor today had grown up in a world where the Fade barely moved at all, only claiming territory nobody lived in. Its expansion was almost like a tree that falls in a forest with no one to hear it. This had led people to settle all around it for the valuable Fade-talents that it seemed to cultivate. Now, like an alligator mistaken for a log, the Fade was snapping its jaws on the world once more.

  From where she’d been standing, Liilia thought Aleb had shared the fate of Pilgrim’s Swindle. She doubled her pace, hoping to get through the coastal chokepoint between Barrid and Ecliptica before it closed. Fortunately, the Fade had stopped partially inside the city, consuming most of the hinterland and causing mass hysteria, but leaving the neck of land between it and the northern coast traversible, and sparing the lake that gave water and life to the area. There was still ample space between the Fade and the Plaart line, that boundary inland from the coast where habitation became possible again due to distance from the tides of the dangerous Everwhite seas. The choke point was now much thinner, and Aleb’s spiraling deterioration had accelerated. From the view a few miles north, Liilia guessed it would be anarchy by the end of the night.

  In a weed-infested field west of the roaring, dying city, Liilia encountered a scriptomancer. A witchbinder, no less, who didn’t say much but refused to explain how he had homed in on her so effortlessly. He was even able to resist her ability to probe the thoughts of others. Liilia had her own secrets, and with the failure to recruit Ben, her new plan gave her plenty of time around this new prospect. The hidden details would have to do for now.

  Most people probably suspected what Liilia did from the witchbinder’s injuries: a battle had taken place, and blood had been spilled. This was a well-known provocation for the Fade to rush forward and gobble up the battlefield. Over fifty years ago, warring nations took great care to avoid fighting too close to the Fade, unless they were deliberately trying to destroy the land their opponents lived on instead of conquering it.

  Between Liilia and her new scriptomancer friend, a fire crackled. The witchbinder looked dirty and worn, but at least he wasn't looking at her. He hadn't said a word to Liilia in the hour since he’d found her. She'd known he was a witchbinder, and he knew she was a moon-witch, but he didn't have a contract on her. Besides, there seemed to be a subtle understanding between the two that neither was the first of the other’s kind they had defeated. However, they both recognized the other was one of the best specimens they’d encountered. Liilia was not just any moon-witch; she was an empress witch. And as for the witchbinder, he had exactly the trait in common with Ben that Liilia and the other witches needed back in Album.

  Hepa hung low in the sky. She would set before much longer. Liilia needed to explain herself to the witchbinder and get him to come with her one way or another before that happened. If the other Liilia and this mage fought, Liilia would lose no matter who came out alive.

  Liilia wondered what the witchbinder had been doing here. Witches like the ones he hunted tended to avoid Aleb like everyone else who could afford to. The Fade loomed as always to the south. They were west of Aleb, at the edge of the indifferent deserts of Barrid, a place that scorched by day and bit by night. Roads worn by the feet of slaves and trade caravans dominated the place. Akastamsis’s borders started right outside Aleb; technically, that meant the two mages were already in Ecliptica.

  "So," Liilia said. "Can I read your mind yet? Or do you want to use your mouth?"

  The scriptomancer shook his head, slowly, and with a wince. He looked like he’d been hit very hard on his temple. With the arm holding his moon-shard, he pointed at his head.

  "Very well," she said. Pink magic pulsed faintly near one of her ears, and she sent:

  Can you hear me? Think yes or no.

  He was, unfortunately, staring at her again. For a moment, there was nothing. Liilia considered pushing another layer into his thoughts, but then she heard at surface level:

  Yes.

  Ah, good. What is your name?

  Lawrence.

  Liilia worked in thoughts. Specifically, she worked in their relationship with facts. She couldn't alter the facts very much, like most lunomancy could, but she could absolutely alter the thoughts, and that was even more dangerous. From simple projections of things that weren't there, to the planting of beliefs that wrapped around a target's brain like wisteria around a bowry. She got to know a person's mind very quickly.

  Lawrence's mind, from what she'd seen of it past his protective engrams, was like a mirror made of very smooth rock. Not very good at what it was designed for, but damn hard to break or scrutinize. A mirror showed things. Lawrence's mind obscured them. A mirror shattered when you threw something in it. Lawrence's bounced it off.

  This wasn't a problem for an illusionist like Liilia. It just necessitated a different approach. So far, they hadn't come to blows. But Liilia prepared to come to blows with everyone. That was what happened when you came to blows with yourself on a regular basis.

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  Hepa reminded Liilia that she wasn't at war with herself, she was just the host of a particularly nasty parasite that passed itself off as her when she wasn't looking, like how the most dangerous diseases trick the immune system. Liilia listened to this with forgetful ears.

  Can you not speak? she asked Lawrence. Or do you choose not to?

  My former employer allowed me to refrain, Lawrence thought. Liilia took the hint and moved on.

  So, what happened to your mates? Were you after another witch like me, and you made the mistake of cornering her?

  Lawrence started writing in the sand with his moon-shard, leaving a trail of burning sparks. He did not look away from Liilia.

  He’s writing instead, now, she noticed. That would make it easier for him to omit things than if she were reading his thoughts. She found that he had re-asserted his protective engram over his mind, but said nothing.

  We were after another witch like you, and we did corner her, he wrote, but she did not defeat us. Our client did.

  Liilia read Lawrence's account of pursuing the escaped slave, from acquiring the contract in Bentley to the end here, near the Fade. Lawrence took all of three sentences to explain the whole thing, including the Fade swallowing all the horses and corpses minutes after the witch ran away.

  Lawrence finished by saying that the client and the target both ran directly into the Fade, and he was considering what to do next.

  “Are you still going to Ecliptica to settle down?” Liilia asked. “Or do you want to hunt down one more witch?” Lawrence, still staring at her, didn't move a muscle on his face. He hadn’t throughout the entire explanation. He erased what he had written and started again:

  As a matter of fact, he wrote, I do. I suspect that witch may have survived. I am familiar with lunomancy’s ability to preserve its users from the Fade’s mists.

  Liilia raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you say she ran directly into the Fade?”

  I have private reasons to suspect despite that circumstance.

  Liilia narrowed her eyes. Perhaps she would get those reasons in exchange for some of her own.

  Once I have searched to my satisfaction, I will see about settling down, he went on. Hunting witches is growing increasingly complicated. You needn’t worry in any case. I do not take contracts on empress witches anymore.

  Liilia snorted. “That's considerate of you.”

  But I do hope to find the other one, the girl Derek employed us to pursue.

  Liilia grew uncomfortable. “Yes… about her. What did you say her name was?”

  Her master called her Phoebe, but in the end, when we caught her, she called herself Euffie.

  Before she could stop herself or overthink, Liilia pressed:

  “Show me what she looked like.”

  Lawrence allowed her into his mind again, and Liilia saw what was best described as, “exactly what she asked for”.

  ***

  I see, Lawrence thought to Liilia a few silent minutes later. That is unfortunate.

  Liilia withdrew from his mind and adjusted her seat in the dirt. Hepa warned her that she only had an hour left before Hepa set.

  Liilia spent the first ten minutes of it staring off into space. She was good at putting her mind somewhere else. She didn't even need a spell for it this time.

  Finally, she turned back to Lawrence. There was a pink pulse near one of her ears.

  So, she sent. You aren't going after that girl for her dead client’s reward, just so we are clear.

  Assuming she survived, Lawrence thought. That is an assumption I’m operating under, mind you. I caught a mage her moon was bonded to before her. That was the longest contract of my career. I started and finished several others during it.

  That's nice, Liilia replied.

  Since things have changed, and I need to travel through Ecliptica in my new search, may I turn you in instead of Euffie? I'll split the reward with you. The principissa of Album is very understanding of that arrangement. After we’ve gone and found - he hesitated on what name to use - the girl, of course. You know my reasons for wanting to find her despite no reward, but you may not trust them. Besides, I'm sure you of all people want to know if she made it out the other end too.

  Liilia flinched, then sent:

  I'm not meeting her. I never want to see her again.

  Oh, said Lawrence. Are you certain? You are, I believe, the kind of moon-witch who could cleanly remove that engram from her face, so she kept every memory she's ever had. Most mages will just have to erase everything from before she got it. She isn't going to find one of those. I could do it, but she may elect to have me erase everything too.

  Good, Liilia sent. I hope she never remembers me. I hope she doesn't find any scriptomancers or lunomancers who can bring me back into her life. She was someone else, someone happier, someone strong, in the memories you showed me. She wasn't stressed, afraid, or frozen up.

  You mean, she was all those things in the memory of when we tried to catch her? She seemed that way to you?

  Yes. She did.

  Lawrence seemed to consider this for a moment.

  I see, he thought eventually. Well then, miss … ?

  Liilia, sent Liilia.

  Well then, miss Liilia, do you want to go to Album?

  Now it was Liilia's turn to consider. Hepa warned her that she was running out of time. The sky was changing color to the north, where the Fade didn't block out the sky from the western horizon.

  Liilia was already on her way to Album, and she needed somebody like Ben or Lawrence to come with her. Her objective coming to a place like Barrid had been the same as Lawrence’s, but in reverse. She wasn’t here to bring a witch to Album; she was here to bring a special breed of scriptomancer that Lawrence clearly belonged to, just like Ben. She didn't care about the money. Once Lawrence found out what Album wanted, he wouldn’t either. He didn’t need to know he’d get none for Liilia’s return; she’d already answered the call and Album wouldn’t pay him for bringing Liilia back from an errand. But that stare he had … that was a lot to consider dealing with for months of travel. She almost wanted to get away from him and exhaust her last few leads on where Ben had hid instead.

  Liilia glanced at the Fade, roiling into the sky behind her. Liilia had wounded the Fadewraith, as only a lunomancer could. Pure lunoplasm, like her conjured weapons were made of, was poisonous to the creature. The Fade would take some time to recover, and if Liilia poisoned it again before too long it would have to replace its servant. The Fadewraith couldn't do anything to Liilia right now, even if she waltzed right into its mists. Another reason to be optimistic the acceleration witch had survived.

  But the Fade would keep attacking. It wouldn't stop until Liilia was gone, even if it had a new servant that didn’t know her like Kriisti did. She and every other mage putting their heads together in Album were a threat. She couldn't keep getting lucky. It would be smart for her to have a scriptomancer escort. And she had to get to Album. The principissa needed the proof of concept Liilia kept insisting on, and which Lawrence was living evidence for.

  Fine, she sent. But you need to be aware of what happens to me when my moon sets. Or rather, what happens to everyone nearby.