“We bumbled our way out of trouble. I’m guessing Nightshade knows what we did and how we did it. He won’t get stuck the same way we did. I’m more worried about Terrano.”
“Oh?”
“He’s more of a trouble magnet than anyone I’ve ever met.”
Annarion coughed.
“What?”
“Sedarias suggests you find a mirror.”
“I don’t go looking for trouble. I just trip over it.”
“Sedarias also says: fair enough. Is that the border?”
Kaylin glanced at Annarion; his eyes were narrowed. She hesitated, and Bellusdeo said, “Yes, that’s the border. What do you see when you look at it?”
“Fog. Or smoke.” Mandoran and Allaron joined him as they slowed their walk. Kaylin didn’t see fog. Hope was hanging across her shoulders like a shawl, looking distinctly bored. He didn’t sit up and didn’t slap a wing across her eyes. Whatever she saw appeared to be good enough.
She didn’t see what Hope saw.
“Teela?”
“I see streets continuing into what I assume is visually Liatt.”
“Bad assumption,” Bellusdeo then said. “Crossing that street doesn’t take us to a street that looks similar in Liatt.”
“You experimented?”
“For much of the day. I’m not sure why the Towers choose to present an illusion of streets continuing—but if we take that street and turn around the moment we enter Liatt, the street doesn’t align properly.”
“It’s not the same street on both sides?”
“Not always, no. You see street?”
“I see what both you and Kaylin see. Allaron, Annarion and Mandoran don’t. But if Kaylin had lost all contact with her name-bound, we’d know the silence was a simple effect of the border zone. Clearly, that’s not the case. She could speak to the name-bound who were with her in the border zone.”
“You think they found what they were looking for?”
“I think it likely.”
“How do you guys want to do this? You need a rope-line?” Kaylin asked the cohort.
“Nah. We’ve got Teela. We’ll just use her eyes.”
Teela looked about as thrilled as Kaylin expected she would.
They entered the border zone from the Nightshade side, given that was the fief they were standing in. To Kaylin, the evening gave way to a twilight of gray and washed-out color, but the buildings in this light were clearer; Nightshade didn’t believe in lighting all of the streets. To be fair—and this was grudging—Nightshade’s streets were empty of all but the desperate and the drunken at night; the Ferals kept the streets clear.
Kaylin frowned as she studied the street they were standing on; it seemed to continue for a few blocks. She guessed that those blocks were illusory and they would exit the street to a change of environment in Liatt.
Teela didn’t take the lead, and Bellusdeo, while impatient, didn’t want it, either. Kaylin headed toward Liatt. “It’s a proof of concept,” she told her companions. “Let’s see how long it takes us to get out.”
The answer was three blocks. Liatt opened up to late night on the other side; the mist or fog cleared for the cohort as they reached it. Turning immediately, Kaylin looked down the street through which they’d just walked. It was different, or rather, the buildings were.
“I have an idea,” she said.
“A good one?” This was Mandoran.
