“Were you two attacked on the way here?” Kaylin asked.
Winston blinked. “No.”
“Why are you worried about Spike?”
“I believe that he’ll be noticed.”
“...And you weren’t worried about being noticed yourselves.”
“No—I told you, we avoided forms of travel that would be notable.”
Bellusdeo coughed into her hand.
“There are hunters abroad,” Winston continued.
“And that’s different from the norm.”
He nodded gravely. “Something is waking, Lord Kaylin.”
She blinked. “Why are you calling me that?”
Winston blinked as well, but with more obvious confusion and less grimace. “We were told by Bertolle that that is the correct form of address. And that we must endeavor to use it.”
“Bertolle was wrong. You can call me Private Neya, if you absolutely insist on using something that isn’t my name.” Which was irrelevant. Kaylin mentally kicked herself. “What do you mean, something’s waking?”
The two brothers exchanged a glance, and the other brother then spoke, whirring and clicking at Spike. Spike replied in kind, and as he talked, Winston forgot about his eyes; they lost their resemblance to Barrani eyes, widening in his face until the upper half was a kind of black mess that resembled open eyes seen through a magnifying glass.
All of the cohort found this obviously disturbing, judging by their expressions. Bellusdeo, orange-eyed, turned to Kaylin. “You arecertainthey are safe?”
Kaylin nodded. In a much quieter voice, she added, “They’re not quite used to having bodies like ours. I think. When they first woke, they reminded me of foundlings; they were extremely excited to see what these bodies could do. I think one of them grew both arms by several yards, and knotted them.”
“That is...not comforting.”
“It was very helpful when we were on the portal paths. They literally threw themselves down and became a road we could follow, which would occasionally open its eyes and mouths beneath our feet.” Kaylin grimaced, remembering it. “But they were the reason we managed to travel in more or less the same direction. If you fall off the portal paths, you wander a lot.”
“Do you think that was the intent with the cohort? That they fall off those paths and become lost?”
“It’s a thought.”
“Which means no.”
“I think someone wants Sedarias out of the picture. I don’t think they care whether or not the rest of the cohort arrives—but I could be wrong.”
“You’re wrong,” Sedarias said. She glanced at Terrano, and her expression softened.
“Terrano, you said you ducked into Hallionne Orbaranne’s space because something was chasing you?”
He nodded, his own expression uncharacteristically grim. “There are often things that will hurt you, off the pathways in the outlands. But most of them will hurt you unintentionally. They’re just not equipped to interact with people like you. Winston—I’m going to assume you came up with that name—is a good example. He’s flexible, and he can exist in a bunch of different states. He’s more aware of the dangers out there because he can.”
“Was the thing you were hiding from the same thing Winston’s worried about?”
“It shouldn’t be.” Terrano frowned.
“Is it possible that you attracted attention while you were exploring? And now that you have, something that wasn’t aware of us is now searching?”
The hesitation before the answer was longer than it needed to be. Kaylin chalked it down asmaybe. She was therefore surprised when Winston said, “No. It is possible that he did attract attention; he is not like the others here. But what is hunting now is far more like him than we are. Something is waking,” he said again.
“What?Whatis waking?”
