“I noticed,” Spike said. His voice was diffuse now, the syllables elongated; they no longer seemed to come from the spiky, silvered ball.
“I meant you weren’t offended.”
A series of clicks that might have been insects talking came from the ball. Terrano laughed. “He doesn’t understand what you mean by offended. You can try explaining it. I’m not going to.”
“Oh?” Bellusdeo asked.
“He’ll ask what angry is. Or what fear is. It’s going to be explanations all the way down, and I don’t have the patience.”
“Or skill,” the Dragon muttered. She was visible, but sort of visually smeared. Kaylin lifted her hands to rub her eyes. It seemed that smoke—or mist—was creeping up from the ground in a way that obscured vision.
“Unlike the rest of you,” Terrano snapped, “I don’t spend my time doing nothing but pointless, boring,politicaltalk!”
“That’s what your friends are going to be doing when they arrive in Elantra.”
Terrano shrieked in frustration. It reminded Kaylin of the sound Mandoran made when he got stuck in walls. The air grew more foggy as they began their descent.
“Bellusdeo?”
“Here.”
“Do you see a lot of fog?”
“It seems more like smoke, to me—but yes, it’s interfering with visibility.”
Kaylin considered asking the Dragon to go back up the stairs, but decided against it; the stairs didn’t seem particularly fixed in either form or shape. Whatever Alsanis was doing, he was doing in a rush.
“I do not see this smoke,” Spike said. Terrano was unwilling to explainoffendedto Spike, but had no trouble withsmoke.
“What do you see?”
“The atmosphere of the area which you are entering is not fully compatible with your species. This may cause difficulties with your perception of the space.”
Kaylin ground to a halt. “My species? Or our species?”
He whirred a bit and then said, “You are human and Dragon. This area is not compatible with your kind.”
“And him?”
“It’s not a problem for me,” Terrano replied.
“What exactly is his species?”
Spike whirred. She thought there were more sounds in it, but they didn’t resolve into anything like language, at least not the languages she knew. “Alsanis?”
“Terrano has gone ahead,” the Hallionne replied. “But there is an instability in the portal room, and I do not believe it will be possible to entirely contain its appearance. Please accept my apologies for the discomfort, Lord Kaylin.”
“Will he help us?” Bellusdeo asked, her voice a rumble of sound.
“I am certain he will try.”
The familiar squawked loudly, which was a warning. It wasn’t atimelywarning. The step on which Kaylin had leapt ceased to exist just as her left foot hit it.
* * *
Bellusdeo caught her before the ground—if therewasground—could. Gold-tinted claws grabbed both of her arms, and Kaylin, who could climb up the side of a building with a little bit of luck and equipment, managed—with effort—to twist her way up to the Dragon’s back. Spike, on the other hand, didn’t require rescue. If he no longer had wings, or what looked like wings, he seemed immune to simple things like gravity. He floated alongside Kaylin.
“I am going to be really displeased if I hit ceiling or walls,” the gold Dragon said. She roared. In the depths of whatever it was that lay beneath her feet, something answered. This did not fill Kaylin with anything remotely resembling hope.
