At this, a slender smile graced the Barrani man’s face. His eyes were blue. “No.”
“Have you tried?”
“I have opened the doors,” he replied after another pause. “What you see when you cross the common is not what I see. The area beyond the doors is nigh impassible.”
“Can you take a look outside the doors now? Without using magic that could level a standing army?”
“There are few demands on my time at the moment.” He walked to the doors and opened them. Candallar hadn’t returned; Kaylin was almost certain that he didn’t intend a frontal attack from the doors again.
“What do you see?” she asked.
“Corpses.”
He could see the corpses. “Bellusdeo?”
The gold Dragon shook her head. She’d only heard Kaylin’s half of the conversation, but understood where Kaylin was going.
“So you can see the people who were gathered here. The rest of my companions can’t.” Kaylin exhaled. “I think they’re like you. Except for the corpse part. How much do you know about the Academia?”
This was the wrong question, given the shift in Larrantin’s expression.
Kaylin.
She turned automatically in the direction of Severn’s voice before she realized that he wasn’t speaking out loud. Widening the arc of that turn, she realized that he wasn’t anywhere close enough to speak out loud.
Candallar?
I believe he’s trying to enter the building from the third story. You’ve lost Sedarias and Annarion?
Yes.
You might want to send Bellusdeo upstairs.
“Can these windows be breached?”
“You have already said that two of your companions left through the windows without breaking them.”
Kaylin cursed.
Bellusdeo, however, said, “I am not certain that Candallar has the flexibility—yet—to do the same.”
Larrantin sighed. Loudly. It reminded Kaylin of the Arkon—on a normal day. “I am unaccustomed to the building being quite so empty, but I assure you I am capable of defending it.”
“I didn’t notice that you were defending it from those guys.”
“They had not yet had the temerity to force entry; merely the temerity to try. I will deal with intruders here. You will deliver my message to Killianas.”
“I’m not sure it’s safe.”
“It will become less safe if what you fear is true.”
“What do you mean, whatIfear?”
“You believe that the corpses that both you and I can see are somehow part of the student population of the Academia; you believe that I can see them because I am a teacher at the same place. We are bound here.”
“Most of those peopleweren’tstudents when you were teaching here.”
“How are you so certain?”
