Sophia listened to Xin'ri talk to Mo'ra for a bit, but it quickly became obvious that Mo'ra was damaged. She still thought everything was a dream, despite being told otherwise repeatedly, but that wasn't what gave it away. It was the fact that she'd ask a question, get an answer, and then ask the same question again a few minutes later. When she got the same answer as the first time, she'd have the same reaction as the first time, as well.

It was more like talking to a chatbot than it was like talking to a person.

When Sophia thought about it, that was probably by design. There was no place in a sword for a mind; that all had to be supported by the enchantment. A simpler mind, one only capable of acting as a tether to the capacity the Broken Lord needed, should be easier to make and would certainly not require as much of the enchantment, which meant the complexity and power could be spent elsewhere. The fact that it seemed to have removed Mo'ra's sense of time so that she didn't know she'd spent years in utter darkness and thought it was no more than a minute or two was probably welcome but unintentional.

It made her reunion with Xin'ri distinctly awkward.

Sophia winced as Mo'ra called her friend "Ri-ri" again, then took a closer look at the runescript separating them from the rest of the world. They had quite a bit of time left, but Sophia was completely ready to leave. It didn't look like Xin'ri was going to be done any time soon, but there was no reason this conversation had to be down here. It could just as easily be back in their house, where it was much more comfortable.

She stood and turned towards Xin'ri and the floating sword. "I think we're done here. I don't think the Broken Lord knew where Mo'ra was, and I don't think he's going to be able to tell now either."

Xin'ri nodded.

Sophia glanced around the group. Everyone nodded or waved for her to get on with it, even Sweetfire. He was the only one who looked disappointed, but Sophia was pretty sure he wasn't actually worried about the Broken Lord; he'd always been less worried than Sophia, Dav, and Ci'an. He was probably sad that he wouldn't get any longer to study the active runescript, though he had said he wasn't learning much from it.

She stepped over to the cancellation rune and ran some mana into it. Back in Izel, it was destroyed along with the rest of the runescript by the power that flooded out of the broken sword she's accidentally stolen; here, that wasn't a problem.

The words came out of nowhere a moment after the runescript's protection disappeared. "You are not followers of the Broken Lord."

Sophia swung around and found a man she recognized sitting on one of the paint cans. The man matched the voice, but it was still hard to believe. "Bai? Why are you here?"

Bai chuckled. "Looking for you, if you're the elf girl who opened up the door in the Garden. First, though, please explain the floating broken sword. Is it glowing?"

Sophia glanced towards Mo'ra. She was glowing, a little, with a soft white light that made her look like ordinary steel. A moment of concentration told her that the light wasn't truly visible; it was simply the mana she contained. Sophia had to concentrate to not see it. "I didn't know you could see mana."

"If I want to," Bai admitted. "But that's not an answer?"

"Do you care?" Dav spoke loudly. His hand wasn't on his sword, but it was close.

Bai sighed. "Always with the dance … I'm not here to fight, you can answer or not. I hope you will, but I won't try to force it. Does the name Tiwaz mean anything to you?"

Sophia's mouth dropped open.

"It does." Dav's words were firm, but Sophia noticed that he seemed to relax a little. "Clearly we need to talk. Why did you follow us down here?"

Bai gave a fluid shrug. "Impatience, most likely. I was not completely certain you were the people I sought; all I could be certain of was that Sweetfire knew who opened the door. I looked for Sweetfire, and when I saw that you had all come deep into the underground, I had to follow."

"Okay, back up. You were looking for us?" Sophia felt like Bai was elegantly explaining absolutely nothing, which meant that either he was trying to deceive them or she'd missed something important. It was usually the second option.

Bai blinked once, then said it like it was obvious. "You opened that door with the authorization of Tiwaz. Tiwaz has slept for hundreds of years; even now I cannot reach him. Yet you have?"

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"Hundreds of years?" Sweetfire's muttered question was barely audible.

Sophia ignored the question. Bai was apparently an android; if the Kestii Empire could make Tiwaz and Othala, there was no reason they couldn't make a long-lived android. He'd have less capacity than a fixed installation like the two facility-minds, but it still made sense. He had to come from somewhere and the current Broken Lands were far less advanced than ancient Kestii.

"Yes, we woke him up. He didn't mention you." She frowned at Bai, but she didn't really suspect him of anything untoward, at least not yet. The only real risk was if he still followed the Emperor that apparently became the Broken Lord, at least if she'd pieced together the different stories properly. She should probably feel him out on that. "And who is the Broken Lord to you?"

Bai stopped absolutely still for a moment, like she'd shocked him, then glanced at the sword floating next to Xin'ri and then back at Sophia. "You know."

Sophia shook her head. "No, I don't, but I think I need to. Can you please stop talking in riddles?"

"I am not," Bai protested softly. "Yet perhaps I speak from knowledge you do not have, or do not know you have. Very well; shall we adjourn to a more comfortable location? I suggest that we find a place other than the Vocational Registry. If we are to speak of the Broken Lord, it should be in a place with no ears, but there is no reason it cannot be comfortable."

"I know just the place," Dav answered. "Let's pack up and head to the surface."

The place Dav meant was, of course, the comfortable party room in the building they rented from Arryn. It was late when they arrived back on the surface, but that was why they'd chosen a day without an Arena performance to head underground; they had no idea how long it would take.

Sweetfire stayed with them. He mostly faded into the background, but Sophia overheard Ci'an quietly ask him why he was following. She wasn't sure if his answer that it was the best entertainment he'd had in years was serious or not. It kind of sounded like something her aunt Amaia would say, but Amaia loved movies and thought of them as the way people were supposed to interact. Sweetfire didn't have that excuse.

The first thing they established was that everyone present except Bai and Sweetfire had a Hallow. From what Sophia could tell, it was an open secret that her group simply hadn't realized was open. Well, they knew Sweetfire knew; they'd already covered that.

Sweetfire was very good at guessing and asking leading questions that got him the answers he was looking for. The fact that Sophia slipped and said something only confirmed what he'd already started to guess. They already knew that, but it was still embarrassing to Sophia when Sweetfire talked through all the small slips they'd made, especially her large mistake of using the Wanderer's name in public.

Bai could sense Hallows, which was something none of the others knew was possible; it was apparently knowledge that was lost or suppressed after the Kestii Empire fell. Bai didn't know when or how it was lost, but he'd chosen not to reveal his ability to anyone before them. He considered it far too dangerous with as powerful as the Blade was.

He also didn't trust the Blade at all, because she did have a Hallow, and it was a Hallow from the Broken Lord. At least, Bai thought it was a Hallow; like all of the other Hallows he'd felt granted by the Broken Lord, it seemed hollow to Bai's senses.

Sophia took that time to tell him about Mo'ra and what they'd discovered about the Hallowing ceremonies and the broken swords. Bai was not pleased and treated them all to a surprisingly pleasant-sounding diatribe on Bai's feelings about the Broken Lord.

As far as he was concerned, the Broken Lord had broken faith with his people twice. First, he'd broken the Tower. There was no real question about that; he was inside the Tower of Kestii when it fell and none of the supporters who went in with him were ever heard from again.

Bai could forgive that if it was an honest mistake, and it could have been. In fact, Bai rather hoped it was. The Tower brought power and opportunity with the Gateways that came with it, but it also brought death, and the monsters of the Maze had already started to spread across the land by then. Bai hoped that the Broken Lord was trying to avert that disaster when he broke the Tower, for all that it created far worse trouble without the benefits.

What Bai couldn't forgive was the second way the Broken Lord broke faith with his people: his Hallowed killed all of the other Hallowed, the exact people who might have the best chance to deal with the disaster he unleashed. Bai didn't see it happen with his own eyes, but when he woke in response to new settlers entering the underground and found that the only Hallowed anyone knew of was the Hallowed of the Broken Lord, he looked into what little was left from the time right after the Tower fell. There were no direct recordings, but there was a record of who deleted all of the records from the infirmary: the man who led the exodus.

A man who was once Hallowed of the Empire's Son and was now Hallowed of the Broken Lord.

Bai might not be able to prove that it happened or that it was at the behest of the Broken Lord himself, but no other explanation made sense of the fact that there were no known Hallowed of any Patron other than the Broken Lord, even though Bai could sense that there were a few.

Bai's ability to sense the Hallowed was, in fact, what originally made Bai suspicious of the Arena before he reported the only thing he could to the Registry Master: that people under the Arena's aegis had a higher survival rate than those who only reported to the Registry. It was true, but it wasn't what Bai actually wanted investigated. He wanted to know why almost every Hallowed with a Patron other than the Broken Lord and many of the other highly talented, driven people died in the Maze while Hallowed of the Broken Lord survived.

It amused Sophia when Jax admitted that they already knew about that because they were the people looking into it at the Registry Master's request. Jax didn't reveal his official position; he simply made it sound like they'd been asked because of the timing and because they were new to Mazehold. Sophia didn't know how he did it, but by the time he finished talking, she was half-convinced that Arryn was the reason they were trusted with the mission, not Jax himself.

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