“Roof?”
“Flat, at least from this angle.”
The Dragon glanced at Severn. “Investigate?”
“Leave it,” Kaylin said, regretting Bellusdeo’s presence. It was harder to take calculated risks while in the company of the future of an entire race.
Hope squawked.
“...or not.” Kaylin turned back to the windowless, doorless building.
“Have you seen something like the border zone before?” Kaylin asked the Dragon as they approached a street-facing solid wall.
The Dragon shook her head. “There were no Towers, no protective ring of fiefs around theRavellonthat existed in my world.” She stretched out a hand to touch what appeared to be a stone wall. “This feels solid to me. It smells solid. It would not surprise me if people were living in the buildings here. If they can enter them.”
It had never occurred to Kaylin to live in the border zone.
It is not safe, Hope said, the squawks that formed syllables far quieter than they usually were this close to her ear.It is not a land that was meant to be inhabited by your kind.
“Why does it exist at all?”
I do not know. But it is possible that the Towers and their responsibilities cannot overlap without danger to those responsibilities. Each Tower knows its own lands; each Tower must. Here, between those defining borders, they are absent.
“And the Shadows can’t come through the border territories?”
Look toRavellon.
She did.Ravellon, enclosed in a translucent, faintly shining barrier, could no longer be seen. She moved, then, to attempt to see past the squat, featureless building;Ravellondidn’t exist. She then turned in the direction they’d come. The street was clear, and it continued—pale and faded—into Tiamaris.
“Can either of you seeRavellon?”
Severn shook his head. Bellusdeo said, “No.”
“Neither can I. Hope, whatisthis place?”
I have already said I do not know, the familiar replied.But I see what you see. And I fail to see what you fail to see. These lands are not malleable in the fashion of the outlands and the portal paths of the Hallionne. They do not take commands or suggestions with regard to their shape. I believe they are as you see them now.
I do not believe they are always as you see them now. There is something that tastes wrong in the air.
“How wrong?”
She didn’t understand Hope’s answer. It was squawking but seemed deliberate, and the tone trailed into disgust. Probably at mortals, definitely at Kaylin’s lack of comprehension.
“Would you sense Shadow here if you saw it?”
It was Bellusdeo who answered. “I would.”
There was no arguing with that. Even if Kaylin was skeptical, there was still no arguing. She examined the squat cube of a building. There was no obvious door facing the street, and no obvious windows, either. The lack of both was probably what made the building seem wrong to her. That, and the color. It had some. The rest of the street was leeched of color as if by a fog that was otherwise invisible. Her hand fell to her dagger; Bellusdeo cleared her throat.
Right. Right, she had a Dragon, and Bellusdeo could breathe fire quite comfortably in an otherwise human body.
“Magic?” Severn asked.
“Not yet. My skin is fine.”
He headed around the corner of the building.No doors here.
Back of the building?
