“Yes. Being in the outlands addled my brain.”
“Speaking of the outlands,” Kaylin said as she considered and rejected everything about Sedarias’s power struggles asnot her problem. “I’ve got a couple of questions for you.”
“For us collectively?”
“No—that’ll annoy Sedarias.”
He laughed. “For me, then.”
“For you. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to cross the borders between actual fiefs—not theRavellonborder, and not the city-facing perimeter—but I’d be interested to hear what you think.”
“What I think of?”
“The border zone itself.”
Terrano frowned. “The border zone?Ravellon’s border?”
She shook her head. “The border between the fiefs.”
“Which border?”
“Any border.”
“That’s where you guys went?”
“Sort of. Bellusdeo’s annoyed at Candallar, and she wanted to inspect theRavellonborder in the fief of Candallar.”
“And that led to the border zone?”
“She also wanted to check out the border zone. All of them. Since she went from Candallar into the neighboring fiefs along theRavellonborder, we managed this.”
“There’s abutcoming.”
“Not really. The border zone is...not like the fiefs. It’s its own thing, and I don’t understand it. It feels like it’s almost, but not quite, like the outlands.”
“Almost but not quite? Kaylin, you areterriblewith words.”
“Everything looks like it should, in theory, when you enter it. I mean, the buildings and the street continue from the non-border-side view. But everything’s washed out. It’s almost black and white; there’s a hint of color, but it’s faded.”
“People live there?”
“Not that I know of. I mean, we had things pretty tough and we didn’t try to squat in the border.”
“Why? Shadow?”
Kaylin offered him a fief shrug.
“You want me to look at the border zone?”
“I wanted to know if you wandered off track.”
“We were speaking on behalf of Sedarias. What do you think?”
Kaylin grimaced. “I think I’m going to finish dinner and go to bed. I’m not sure I want you to look at the border zone, either. I was just asking if you did. You’ve spent more time in places like the outlands than anyone else I know. I think.”
“What would you ask me if I’d gone into the border zone?”
“What you saw there. What it meant to you. When Nightshade crossed into the border zone, he couldn’t see what the rest of us saw.”
