“But the Hallionne can affect the space.”
“Yes.”
“Can you?”
“I do not understand the question.”
“Can you affect the paths the same way the Hallionne can? No, forget that question. Winston looks as if he’s about to turn green.”
He really did. Kaylin would have asked, but his brother came racing back to the group before she could frame a question, and his expression drove all other thoughts away.
“We’re in trouble,” Kaylin said.
The cohort now bunched together as Winston’s brother raced toward them. He came to an immediate and abrupt halt, as if momentum was irrelevant to him. He then spoke to Winston in a language that none of the cohort could understand. Kaylin glanced at Bellusdeo, who shook her head, her own brow furrowing. The brother was clearly agitated.
The familiar squawked loudly. He then lifted his wing and draped it across Kaylin’s eyes.
* * *
The view behind the small dragon’s wing was very different, and Kaylin almost pushed it away; what was gray and formless in her own vision was formless when seen through the familiar’s wing—but that was the only thing the two had in common. Instead of gray, the landscape was an almost lurid splash of color, some harmonizing and some clashing badly. She had never seen blues so bright, reds so vivid, and had they not been moving, it might not have been so bad. But they were shifting constantly, as if seeking either position or dominance, and although there were no obvious objects—or people—in the mix, it made the landscape seem as if it was alive, and not entirely happy to be so.
A vortex appeared in that swirl of color; she could see it by the ways the colors began to move. As if they were liquid, they swirled in toward a point, elongating as they blended and vanished. What remained was Winston’s brother.
No, Kaylin thought. Winston’s brother had been invisible until that moment. Whatever had drained the colors of this land was not Winston’s brother. She remembered, then, that he had been certain he would not be seen, and wondered if this was why. Behind Winston’s brother was something defined by the lack of color that occurred as it walked.
“The good news is,” Kaylin told her companions, “it’s not yet another member of the Barrani High Court.”
“Give us the bad news. Good news isn’t likely to be a problem,” Sedarias replied, in Elantran.
“I was afraid you’d say that. Something is following Winston’s brother.”
“Something?”
“Sorry. I can’t see it clearly, so I have no idea what it is. Spike—do you recognize the thing that’s following Winston’s brother?”
Spike had already begun to spin, but he’d done so silently. Only when he began to emit a series of clicks that really did sound insectoid did Kaylin turn toward him, the familiar’s wings fitted to her face like a second skin. He no longer looked like a spiky, floating ball. But she understood, looking at him, why Winston had been worried. Where Spike spun, colors were attenuated, stretched, absorbed; the landscape beneath the feet of the cohort was almost gray. It was a much larger patch of gray than the patch being created by whatever was chasing Winston’s brother.
“Lord Kaylin,” Winston said. “I believe we will be in danger if we do not move.”
“Can you see the path? Because I can’t.”
“Yes,” Winston said, grimacing. “I really hate this.” He shouted something at his brother, whose breakneck pace had brought him much closer to the group than the thing that appeared to be pursuing him. It wasn’t; Kaylin realized that now. It was heading in a straight path toward Spike.
She kicked herself.
You were not wrong, Nightshade said.You will require what...Spike...sees, if it can be trusted.
I trust it.
That goes without saying.I believe your Spike now apprehends the danger.
Did you recognize what he was, when you first saw him? You’ve crossed the border to Ravellon before.
No. But I would not have recognized your Gilbert, either. Shadow is thought of as if it were fire; one does not need to place one’s hand within it to know that it will burn. Some revision to that thought is underway, but...
But?
Castle Nightshade, as you call my Tower, is extremely reluctant to allow any exploration.
