“To me, right?”
“Yes. Tain was present, and he heard it all. I don’t know why she bothers, though. Mandoran will say something sooner or later.”
“So...the people who are in the training room didn’t deliberately lose cohesion.”
“No.”
“And they dragged Teela in?”
“Yes. Teela did not lose cohesion—as you put it—of her own volition. I believe she finds it very disorienting.”
“And none of the rest of you do.”
“Not in the same way, no.”
Kaylin cursed in Aerian, which the cohort was less likely to know. “You guys do realize that the Consort is coming to dinner, right? This isexactlywhat she’s going to be afraid of.”
“You’ve been attempting to cancel that dinner.”
“Of course I have!”
“Teela suggests you keep trying.”
The first thing Kaylin saw as they finished their crowded descent was Tain’s back. He stood in front of an open door, arms by his sides. It was a readied stance, but he carried no weapons. The first thing she heard was a very chilly Teela, although she hadn’t reached the door itself to peer through.
“I asked you to remain upstairs.”
Tain didn’t bother to reply, and at that point, Kaylin was almost directly behind him.
People were more or less in their regular shapes and sizes. They were, to a Barrani, blue-eyed, and Karian was quivering with indignation—or with the attempt to actually maintain a physical form. Kaylin wasn’t certain which. Terrano whistled, and the whole of the cohort beyond the now-open door turned to glare at him.
He deserved the glare; his smile was beyond cheeky. Kaylin was clearly not the only person to feel this way; Allaron cuffed him on the head. This made Kaylin smile, but inwardly; she could remember Marcus doing the same to her, back in the day. She had watched his first wife send the cublings rolling; they curled into literal fur balls, and when they came to a stop, unfurled, exposing their stomachs, which she then nuzzled. It was the same kind of smack.
Terrano was never going to expose his stomach, though. “You are allhopeless,” he told Sedarias. Kaylin, frankly, would have gone for a different target.
Eddorian, Valliant, Fallessian and Sedarias turned to glare at him; Karian still seemed to be concentrating. Teela turned to glare at Tain. Bellusdeo cleared her throat. The miasma of anger and hostility froze instantly; even Terrano tensed. The only people who didn’t were Teela and Tain.
Having a group mind clearly didn’t confer actual, physical experience. Kaylin was pretty certain Mandoran wouldn’t have tensed, either. Oh, he’d’ve been thinking—but he’d have been thinking of a clever rejoinder, a way to tease the Dragon, to score a point.
“Yes,” Helen said. “He would. But although he won’t come out and say it, he’s quite fond of Bellusdeo. He was far less comfortable about having Tain come to stay. Ah, apologies,” she added, her voice indicating a blush her face usually wouldn’t. “I forget myself.”
Teela snorted. The rest of the cohort seemed to accept that the apology was genuine.
It was Kaylin who pushed past Tain to enter the room first, although Bellusdeo was not far behind. Tain stepped to the side to get out of the Dragon’s way. “What happened?”
“As Helen has no doubt informed you,” Sedarias replied in stiff High Barrani, “our discussion involved some heated disagreement.”
“Did one of you try to kill another one of you?”
“The word you want ispunch,” Helen said.
At Kaylin’s expression, Sedarias snorted. “Please do not tell me you have never experienced the desire to punch Teela.”
“I’ve never been a great liar, so I’m not going to bother. I wasn’t ever stupid enough to try, if that helps.”
“You did try to change the lock on your apartment door, that I recall.”
“I was tired of getting pushed out of bed whenever you were bored!” The lock change had resulted in a door that couldn’t be locked, an angry landlord and Caitlin fielding questions, demands, carpenters and locksmiths.
