Kaylin bit her tongue on the Leontine that often followed condescending and unhelpful advice. Winston didn’t know any better. Probably. It was Sedarias who tore a strip off the bottom of her gown; she brought it to Kaylin and bound that arm. “Teela is not impressed,” she said, as she worked.
“I’ve done worse.”
Sedarias pursed lips and said, “I’d appreciate if the two of you had this argument in person, rather than through me.” She finished binding the arm.
Spike began to move. Given his size, Kaylin had expected his movement to be lumbering; it wasn’t. She could track his movement by the dimming of color, but didn’t watch it for long. Winston retained Barrani form; his brother did not. The brother began to move as Winston marshaled the rest of the group. Winston watched the distant predator before nodding a hundred times. It was as if he’d set his head in motion and forgotten about it.
“Now,” he said. “Run.”
*
Running was part of beat training. The city streets were an obstacle course that generally impeded momentum. Stopping and starting, however, gave a person a chance to catch their breath; the current landscape didn’t provide that. Even if it had, Kaylin was certain Winston wouldn’t. But he appeared to be right: whatever it was that had caused Winston’s brother to flee back to the group in a panic moved toward Spike.
“Are there always predators like that here?”
“No. That was highly unusual, this close to the Hallionne spheres,” Winston said. He seemed to have dispensed with a need to breathe, and his syllables sounded exactly the same as they usually did. Kaylin’s were more labored, their beat uneven.
“You think they’re looking for us?”
“No. For your friends. Or for that one,” he added, nodding in Terrano’s direction. “Alsanis said you are aware that when your friends are careless they are easily heard, and easily found.”
Kaylin cringed. She hadn’t had this conversation with Alsanis, but was well aware that conversation—or volition—was not required. And it was true. She assumed, or had assumed, that Sedarias and the rest of the cohort had been learning the same lessons Annarion currently struggled with; that some of the cohort would be like Mandoran, and take them to heart more readily. And some would not.
“We were very lucky.”
“Lucky?”
“You brought Spike. You were right,” he added, without a trace of self-consciousness. “If we had left him with Alsanis, I’m not sure all of us would have escaped. They weren’t expecting Spike.”
“What is Spike, exactly?”
“You don’t know?”
“We found him outside of Alsanis and did something to free him.”
“Ah.”
“He came from Ravellon.”
Silence. Thoughtful silence. “When you say we do you mean you?”
“Yes.”
Terrano cleared his throat. Loudly. “When she says we, she means me.”
“Language is tricky. I see.” He spoke again, but this time, Kaylin didn’t understand the words.
Her familiar squawked. He had removed the wing from her face, and she could no longer see either Spike or the thing that pursued him, but she didn’t look; she was too busy running and trying to squeeze a few words out of increasingly overworked lungs.
“Lord Kaylin, we believe that the predator might have originated in Ravellon.”
“How? Something that size can’t leave the fief. Unless...” Spike was from Ravellon. And Gilbert. And the Dragon outcaste. “Never mind.” She asked the more important question next. “Why do you think that? What can you see that screams Ravellon?”
Winston’s answer was unintelligible, but he appeared to be speaking to Kaylin. She frowned.
“I didn’t understand a word of that.”
He tried again. And a third time. When enlightenment failed to appear on Kaylin’s face, he shifted his gaze to the familiar. Winston could run and rotate his head in a full circle, which was both disturbing and expected, at this point.
The familiar’s squawking response was longer and louder this time.
“He’s going to have to explain it to you later,” Winston said, raising his voice over the familiar’s. “But not here.”
*
They reached what Kaylin assumed was Hallionne Kariastos without further incident or pursuit. Kaylin recognized their end point because it was a shimmering, standing arch. That, and Winston’s brother had come to a full stop, finally condescending to change the shape of his body to better reflect the people he was escorting. Winston seemed relieved. He approached the portal and stuck his head through; half of his body seemed to disappear.
It reappeared more or less in the same place, but Winston’s face now sported a frown, and his eyes had lost some of the Barrani cohesion.
“Is this the wrong place?” Kaylin demanded.
“It is the right place,” Winston said, in the wrong tone. “The Hallionne, however, is not responding.”
“Can we enter the portal?”
“I am not certain it is wise.” He turned to his brother and spoke their unknown language, and his brother immediately returned to running form and headed back into the unknown.
Sedarias and the cohort were blue-eyed to a man, with the possible exception of Terrano.
“Do you think the Barrani could do to Kariastos what was attempted in Alsanis?” Kaylin demanded.
It was Terrano who said, “Yes. And they’d have more of a chance of success. Alsanis was accustomed to us. He couldn’t keep pace with me,” he added, without a trace of obvious pride, “but he was never that far behind. I’m not sure any of the other Hallionne would have the same experience.”
“Terrano, you are going to tell me exactly what was done to enter Alsanis. Now. The Consort is there.”
“The Consort will be safe,” Sedarias interrupted. “If the portal is still standing, Kariastos is not yet undone.”
“We need to do something—Winston thinks there’s something wrong.” She headed toward the portal, but Sedarias grabbed her by the shoulders, and met her gaze. “You don’t understand the Consort’s power. There’s a reason she came to the Hallionne in person. A reason she came to this one.” She turned to Terrano. “Can you find the way in?”
Since they were standing in front of the way in, the question made no immediate sense. Kaylin caught up with its meaning a beat after Terrano did.
Terrano did not look comfortable. Given Sedarias’s blistering glare, this was not surprising; Kaylin didn’t feel comfortable, either. “Kariastos isn’t Alsanis. There’s a reason we didn’t come here the first time.”
“And right now, that’s good. But something’s wrong, and we need to fix it,” Kaylin told them both. Terrano looked at Sedarias. Sedarias looked at nothing for one long moment.
“Mandoran was right,” she finally said. She looked at Kaylin as if she were an insect who had finally demanded her full attention. All of the cohort were now turned toward her, as if she were gravity and they were falling.
“Do not do that here,” Winston said, his voice sharp. “We are not yet safe.”
Sedarias laughed. In a bitter voice, she said, “There is no safety. Kaylin is mortal. If she can build safety, it only has to last decades. But you know, as well as we, that safety is an illusion. Trust is a lie we tell ourselves.”