“Then you’re facing imminent disaster. The whole of the floor here—beneath our feet—is permeable. It exists in a state similar to us.”
The Arcanist, however, said, “There was a reason I wished to retreat. If you can shut up for five minutes, you will be in less danger of imminent disaster.”
* * *
They ran.
“Annarion is informing Bellusdeo of the danger. Bellusdeo will tell the Emperor.” Mandoran frowned and added, “Annarion doesn’t mind the Dragon we live with. I think he still holds a grudge against the Eternal Emperor. Where’s small and squawky?”
“With the rest of the Dragons.”
“I think you want him with you.” Mandoran had stopped just short of the arch that led to another room. There was no door; in general, the Aeries had few closed doors.
Her skin, and the marks that adorned most of it, didn’t react as if magic was present. The Arcanist crossed the threshold before he staggered to a stop. He considered this room safe. And it probably was, if you were the Arcanist.
“Mandoran?”
“The room should be safe for you.” His voice was dead neutral, his expression unusually grim. “I’ve spent enough of this week trapped in a wall—and that was my own fault. If it’s all the same to you, I’m not going to fall to my death if the floors become brittle, porous or nonexistent.”
“If Teela is telling you to stay with me, tell her to bite me.”
“She says she’d rather slap you, but can’t oblige at the moment.” He was staring through the arch at the Arcanist, who had unfolded from a stumbling crouch. In this room, he looked like Kaylin expected an Arcanist would: his natural arrogance reasserted itself.
Kaylin turned to the Arcanist. “You sent the man to talk to Margot.” It wasn’t a question.
The Arcanist nodded. There was a mirror at his back; it was a tall, rectangular mirror whose surface was entirely reflective.
“The mirror has no connection to the outer world,” the Arcanist said before she could ask. “It does not connect, in any way, to the mirror lattice.”
“Let me guess. It’s not secure enough for you.”
He nodded again, his expression betraying a flicker of surprise. “I sent the man, as you call him, to talk to Margot, yes.”
“And you sent him with the bracelet, the collar, the feather.”
“Yes.”
“Which you shouldn’t have had.”
“Not even the pretender could wear that bracelet for long,” the Arcanist replied with a thin, sharp smile. “He could wear it, however, and he did, when he quietly made the claim that he waspraevolo. He claimed to be illegitimate, as Moran dar Carafel is. As proof of that claim, he was tested—but the test was private, and witnessed by only a handful of the Court. The bracelet did not destroy him, but he was unwilling to wear it for long; he did not wish, he said, to cause a civil war. He did not have the wings; Moran did. It is my belief that the wearing did harm him, but I came to it slowly.”
“How long has he been consideredpraevolo?”
The Arcanist took time to reply; he was clearly moving into a political mind-set. “Just under a year.”
“You knew he wasn’t.”
“No,Private, I did not.” This was said with more vehemence. Kaylin was genuinely surprised. Arcanists weren’t generally given to superstitious or religious thought, and in many ways, that’s what thepraevoloseemed to engender.
“Moran had the wings.”
Silence.
“She’s had the wings from birth.”
“We were not immediately aware of her birth.” The words sounded as if they had been dragged from him by main force. They were interrupted, twice, by roaring that shook a floor that was theoretically stable.
“And when you became aware of it, you tried to have her killed.” She folded her arms. “Who is her father?”
