She looked through the doors that Teela had opened, staying within easy reach of the Consort as the Consort began to move. Hope remained with them, because the bubble that protected the Consort from magic was centered—as it always was—around him. Unlike Teela or Severn, the Consort did not sprint. Ynpharion stayed with the Consort, which was no surprise, but he was pale and indigo-eyed. When he stepped in front of her, she frowned.
Kaylin, however, did not. She noted that Ynpharion didn’t step back, either, although a moment of silent rigidity implied there was some internal disagreement going on. The Consort could force him to obey—but that would cost them both, and given Hope’s presence and Spike’s absence, it was a price neither could afford to pay. Ynpharion stayed in front. Kaylin opened her mouth and snapped it shut. Nothing she could say in Ynpharion’s defense would help anyone, and if she said the wrong thing, it would just give the Consort a target for her growing fury.
Since Shadow was here, a target already existed, and Kaylin wanted to keep it that way. She also didn’t want to feel sympathy for Ynpharion, and certainly didn’t want to come to his rescue.
“Out of curiosity,” she said as they moved toward the open doors—or what remained of them, because as they approached, Kaylin could see scorching along the inner edges of both, “what happens to an outcaste lord who appears at the High Halls?”
“Nothing,” the Consort replied, almost serene, “if he is not detected.”
She knows you’re coming.
I am not suicidal, Nightshade replied with just a glimmer of amusement.She has some sympathy for the reasons I pursued paths I was ordered not to pursue; in a like situation, she might have made the same choices. But it seems that I am not the only outsider who has chosen to visit in an entirely unconventional way.The humor vanished.Tell An’Teela that the danger is threefold.
Will she even know what that means?
Nightshade didn’t answer. Kaylin couldn’t see what he saw without effort and concentration—not without his help. His tone made clear that the time for such help was not now, but even if it hadn’t, she couldn’t concentrate on what he was seeing without losing track of what was in front of her face. She therefore didn’t know for certain where he was.
As they cleared the door, she forgot about Nightshade.
Chapter 20
The air across the threshold was a different color. Fog, which Kaylin would have called gray, if gray had been the right word for something so livid, so visceral, seemed to stop at the doorway, rising to obscure the ceiling. In the High Halls, the ceilings were tall enough Kaylin had no idea how anyone cleaned them. But they were Barrani ceilings; they probably didn’t get dirty.
She couldn’t see Teela. She couldn’t see Severn. She froze, her toes on the right side of the door. Hope stopped as she did; the Consort did likewise.
Ynpharion didn’t. He walked into the fog, and it swallowed him.
Ynpharion!
I am here, he replied with obvious irritation.
Can you even see anything?
He stopped walking. She could almost feel the rigidity of his sudden stillness.Can you not?
I see a lot of very dense, very ugly fog. It’s...almost sparkling. There are flecks of color in it that probably don’t belong in air that we can breathe. That’s not what you see?
No.
Do you see Teela? Or Severn?
Silence. After a longer pause, he said,No.
She lifted an arm to prevent the Consort from entering the room.Severn?
Here. Busy.
Sorry. Did you just cross the room beyond the door?
Following Teela.
No stairs? No other halls?
No.She felt a sharp stab of pain across her right side, and shut up instantly. No one conversed while fighting for their lives.
“Lord Kaylin?” the Consort said.
“According to Severn, they went straight through the room. They didn’t turn a corner; they didn’t take any stairs. In theory, they’re at the back of the room itself. I can’t see the room.”
