Bellusdeo nodded. “One small problem, however.”
“Yeah. Which way is out?”
That question became the only relevant question an hour later. It had edged past normal lunch hour, and while street duties could get in the way of timely meals, Kaylin’s stomach didn’t care much about duty. It made noise.
The building appeared to consist of one large room—the room with the wall—but it also had two rooms to either side of the major one. Kaylin assumed that they would be rectangles, roughly the length of the main room—a room that appeared to be featureless and empty without the visual aid provided by Hope.
Bellusdeo checked out the doors, assessing their possibly magical consequences before she allowed them to be touched or opened. Severn, accustomed to the Dragon, allowed this. Kaylin was almost certain that if he saidNo, Bellusdeo would step back, something she would never do for Kaylin.
“The marks on your arms aren’t glowing,” the Dragon said. “And your general whining hasn’t increased. I think we’re safe from magical difficulties for the moment.”
She was right. The door—a small door better suited to a mudroom or a closet—opened into a long room. Unlike the first room, it appeared to be a study of some sort; two desks were flush against the far wall. There was no paper, no writing implements, nothing that implied that the desks had been used.
Kaylin exhaled and glanced at Hope. She attempted to open one of the drawers. It was locked. The knob felt oddly greasy, given the almost sterile room. “The other door?”
Severn nodded.
The second room was not a room; the door led to a hall with doorless walls that ended in stairs.
“Why do they always have to go down?”
Severn started into the hall. “There’s no other door,” he said. “And it’s possible that the entrance and exit are underground.”
“In Candallar?”
“If we’re lucky.”
This was not the first time they had entered an unexpected basement. Given her general luck, it probably wouldn’t be the last, but the statue of a boy Bellusdeo thought had gone missing remained firmly fixed in mind. She couldn’t be certain that people hadn’t just been sucked into the wall when they touched it; couldn’t be certain that they hadn’t found their way into this place the same way she had. Giant eyeballs on the side of buildings would have been cause for gossip or worry—but not if no one who’d seen them made their way back.
And to be fair, if they had, they weren’t likely to be believed by anyone who didn’t live on the edge of the fiefs. Strange things happened in the border zone. It was both a whisper and a fear, and the only thing that could drive the desperate across the borders were the hunting Ferals. If the Ferals were on your heels, you knew what death awaited. The unknown was definitely worth the risk.
Hope squawked. “Hush. I’m counting steps.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve encountered giant eyeballs in your former career,” Bellusdeo asked Severn.
“I’ve encountered worse. There are forty-eight,” he added.
Kaylin turned to look back at the stairs. They remained solid, slightly worn stone. There were no magical runes, no sign of the sigils that implied that Arcanists or mages had been at work. There were no torches or other forms of light; if light came here, it was carried by the visitor—and most visitors, like, say, the missing boy, didn’t carry light with them.
Hope lifted his head. He squawked.
“This is going to be trouble,” Kaylin said out loud.
Bellusdeo didn’t argue. She did push past Kaylin but allowed Severn to continue on point. Clearly, she hadn’t fully absorbed the fact that Kaylin was also a corporal now.
“What trouble are you expecting?” Bellusdeo demanded.
“I think this might be a sentient building.”
“What?”
“I think there’s a chance that the building itself is sentient, like Helen or the Hallionne.”
“Sentient buildings seldom eat people.”
“I didn’t say its personality was either Helen or Hallionne. I didn’t know about Helen until I went to apply as a tenant. I did know the Towers existed, but I didn’t understand how they worked.”
Bellusdeo said nothing.
