Beneath Hope’s wing, the eye didn’t look like carved stone. It looked and moved the way a normal eye did—if a normal eye were the size of her head. It had an eyelid, lashes; she couldn’t tell, at this vantage, if it had the normal pupil, iris and white bits. She moved, taking a step back to widen her field of vision.
The movement caught the eye’s attention, and it shifted toward her.
Yes, it had the pupil, iris and white bits a normal eye contained. But as it caught sight of Kaylin, it strained to face her. The angle was wrong; the side-glance was the most that single eye could attain. Or it would have been the most Kaylin could have done if she couldn’t physically move her face.
As if it could hear this observation, the wall shifted. The stone didn’t magically develop facial features, but the wall moved as if it were a face, until the eye was fully facing both Kaylin and Bellusdeo.
Hope inhaled.
Kaylin, meeting the gaze of that single eye, saw light begin to spread across her field of vision, moving as if it were white fire. And then, before she could cover her eyes with more than her eyelids, the light went out. With it went the earth beneath her feet.
Chapter 4
“Really, really never boring,” Bellusdeo said.
Kaylin opened her eyes, which made no effective difference. They were standing—Kaylin knelt briefly to place a tentative hand down—on stone. Hope was with her; the membrane of his wing remained pressed against her eyes.
“We don’t have time for this,” Kaylin said to no one in particular.
“Unless it’s relevant to the Candallar problem,” Bellusdeo pointed out. “And it may well be. Or perhaps it’s a different Candallar problem.”
“There’s no Shadow here.”
“No,” the Dragon replied after a pause.
“Can you see anything?”
“Yes, but not well. It’s dark here, but it’s a normal darkness.” The Dragon then spoke three sharp words, a thunder of syllables emphasizing each one. “It’s not a magical darkness. How are your arms?”
“Sore, given the spell you just cast.”
“Better or worse?”
“I’d like you not to use me as your hotter-colder tool, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Why not? It’s practical. You generally appreciate the practical.”
“I’d suggest,” a familiar voice said, “that we keep discussion to a minimum.” It was Severn.
“You looked at the eye?”
It looked at me.
How new did the stone of this building look to you?
In comparison to the rest of the buildings in the border zone, very new.
Thought so. It seems to be in remarkably good shape for a...block of stone. With a moving eye in the wall. Bellusdeo thinks it’s a coffin. Or she thought it might be, on account of no windows or doors. I don’t suppose you’ve found any corpses?
No. I’ve done little scouting here. I haven’t explored the whole of the building, but there doesn’t seem to be an exit so far.
Great. Just great.To Hope she said, “Can you breathe on a wall and melt us a way out of here?”
“I don’t think melting that wall,” Bellusdeo said, her voice lower, “will necessarily get us back to where we were.”
“It didn’t feel like a portal to me.”
“No?”
