Starrante’s grin was, again, disturbing. The portal shed light—probably the light of the hallway—which caused his fangs to glint in the darkness. And he did have fangs. “One can only hope. Ah, this is much, much better.” His head rose on the stick-like neck he could contract to invisibility. His eyes were red.
“What are theydoing?” His feet shifted direction, even if the rest of his body remained fixed in place.
Kaylin was viscerally relieved not to be part of thatthey. His neck seemed to extend forever as he lifted his head; outrage seemed to cause this buoyancy. The library wasn’t silent, but the sounds that she could hear were muddied, almost unidentifiable—as if there were crowds of people in every direction, engaged in...something.
“You’re certain this is the library?”
Starrante failed to answer.
Bellusdeo, however, did. Sort of. She spoke a word—a sharp word that caused Kaylin to flinch—and light flooded the area. Starrante had been right: this was the library. But it was the library in pieces. Not collapsed and not damaged—but disjointed, as if seen through a broken mirror.
No one moved; Sedarias seemed to be examining the floor. As it was the floor across which they’d otherwise be moving, Kaylin did the same. But even the floor, like the shelving and the hint of distant wall, was cracked and disconnected. It wasn’t like the bits of portals that were certain death; it was different. Thiswasthe library—but Kaylin didn’t like their odds of surviving should they attempt to move across it.
Starrante didn’t like those odds either, because the only thing that moved now was his head. And his mouth.
“What have they done?” he finally asked, apparently of no one.
“I believe they attempted—or Candallar attempted—to break the power of the Arbiters within this space.” It was Sedarias who answered.
Kaylin swallowed. “Where is the Arkon?” she asked.
“He is with Terrano,” Sedarias replied. “I can’t say he’s happy to be there, but they are both alive. Terrano advises us to move very, very carefully if we’re going to move at all.”
“Speak in a language I understand,” Starrante then said—in Barrani.
“My apologies, Arbiter. We have been advised not to attempt to traverse the library floor—by which I assume he means that we are not to move. The Arkon and Terrano are currently standing on a patch of floor very like the one we occupy now.”
“And the other Arbiters?” Kaylin asked—also in Barrani.
“Terrano is uncertain. Mandoran attempted to keep them in one location but believes that Kavallac might have been injured in the fracturing. There is one bit of welcome news, however. Candallar’s erstwhile allies in the library did not survive the attempt to disempower the Arbiters, and the Arkon has not once set the three books he carried aside.”
“That’s two bits,” Robin said.
“The library,” Starrante said, “is the heart of the Academia.”
“I thought it was the students. The people,” Kaylin amended, when Starrante’s head swiveled in her direction.
“If you insist on being pedantic, call them the brains of the Academia. But the library is its heart. It has been damaged,” he added, although this was unnecessary. “But the space is not yet broken.”
“I am not at all certain that Illanen will be pleased by this turn of events.” It was Sedarias who spoke, her voice laced with grim humor.
He will certainly not be, Nightshade said.
Kaylin caught—and held—the threads of his internal voice; they were muted and almost distant.How is Killian?
He has dismissed the class, Nightshade replied.
Did he finish his test?
No. The dismissal was not, in my opinion, planned. He is no longer in the classroom. Robin is with you?
Yes. Robin, Sedarias, your brother, Severn and the Dragons. Can Starrante fix what was broken?
I am not the person of whom you should ask that question, Nightshade replied. It sounded a lot like no.But the day’s schedule appears to have resumed; we are expected at our next class.
“Arbiter,” Kaylin said, remembering at the last moment to inject respect into her urgency. “Can you repair the damage to this space?”
“I am attempting to do so—I cannot assess the full extent of the damage unless we move. And we will move—but you will all have to be mindful of where you step, and how. I will repair the space beneath and around us as we move—but you will lose limbs—or worse—if you do not observe carefully where you place those limbs.
