“Whatever.”
“This,” Teela replied, as she lifted her hands, “is why I prefer to leave you at home.”
“If it helps, I don’t use Dragon titles, either.”
“Or table manners. Although, to be fair, yours have improved markedly in the past month. Manners, however, are particularly useful among my kin. They are tools of diplomacy when used correctly.”
“According to Bellusdeo, so is war.”
This pulled a chuckle out of Teela that Kaylin would have bet wasn’t there. “It is to avoid deploying that tool that manners are frequently best used. Now be quiet and let me concentrate.”
Severn unwound his weapon chain. If the Barrani guard found this offensive, it didn’t show. Then again, both Kaylin and Severn were wearing Hawk colors, and the Barrani generally considered the Hawks barely worth notice. Therewereadvantages to being invisible.
There were advantages to being multilingual as well. It meant Kaylin could understand the very quiet, very Leontine phrase that Teela used. “Can you break it?”
“Not safely—for you.”
“Severn?”
“Probably.” He didn’t start the weapon chain spinning, and wouldn’t until the guard formation changed. He looked to Teela for permission.
“What, in your opinion, does the spell do?” Teela asked.
Kaylin, however, missed the first iteration because her arms had begun to glow. Although the marks that adorned most of her skin were hidden by long sleeves, the cloth could only mute the light when it reached a certain level. “Nothing good.” She swiveled her head in the familiar’s direction. “Are you willing to risk him eating it?”
“There are other halls we can take, but they have different drawbacks, the biggest being the height of the ceiling.”
People had passed through the sigil; it had not appeared to harm them. Kaylin pointed this out, but dubiously. Teela accepted it in the spirit with which it was offered. “The familiar?”
The small, translucent creature in question lifted a wing and folded it more or less across both of Kaylin’s eyes. This time, it was Kaylin who gave in to Leontine, but hers was louder and more disgusted.
“What are you looking at?”
“I’m not completely certain but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s a portal.”
“A portal.”
“The sigil seems to sit in the center of what might otherwise be a window—it’s transparent, but it seems to sort of reflect light. Not well,” she added. “But beyond that window, I can’t see the hall at all. I can see something dark, and a flicker of light a few yards in that implies torches. I think there’s stone or dirt floors; I can’t see ceiling. Just darkness.”
“When you say not certain, would you be willing to bet on it?”
“Definitely.”
“With your own money?”
“Yes.”
Teela was silent for another beat. “Let him eat it, if he can.”
The familiar then withdrew his wing and launched himself off Kaylin’s shoulder, leaving tiny claw marks in his wake. What Teela could see as a spell by casting a spell herself, he could see without apparent effort. He didn’t look worried. Wings spread, he hovered directly in front of the sigil that Kaylin had first seen.
His roar at this size had never been terribly impressive, but he roared anyway, and followed it up with Dragon breath in miniature. A stream of sparkling silver smoke left his open mouth. Unlike actual Dragons, it wasn’t smoke created by fire, and the cloud that formed in its wake didn’t burn what it touched. It did, however, melt it.
“You know,” Kaylin said, as she watched the familiar at work, “this would be a great way to erase magical evidence.”
“I imagine that’s just one reason why the Arcanum in concert would love to have familiars of their own,” was Teela’s dry response.
The sigil began to collapse, the solidity of its carved form running like the wax of a poorly made candle. It did not hit floor; it didn’t hit anything. The air seemed to absorb it as they watched. Only when the familiar was done and had returned to Kaylin’s shoulder did Teela signal to her guards.
