“True. Move over.”
Kaylin rolled her eyes, but before she could respond, the eye that was covered by translucent wing caught movement in the haze. Something that looked like fog, but grayer, darker. It had no distinct shape, not immediately; it looked more like a body bag. She could not see it through her right eye. “I take it back,” she told the Dragon.
“What’s changed?”
“I think there is something in there.”
“Terrano?”
“He didn’t answer.”
“Maybe,” the Dragon said, glancing at Kaylin, “he couldn’t hear you.” It was just enough warning that Kaylin could bring both her hands to cover her ears. Or one hand; Spike was in the other and she didn’t think attempting to jam half of him into her ears was going to help her hearing much.
Bellusdeo roared. Kaylin was vaguely impressed that the roar encompassed syllables. Something in the fog, however, was not; it froze. The Dragon’s voice appeared to echo; the ground started to shift beneath their feet.
A head poked out of the haze. It didn’t appear to be attached to anything else, but Kaylin recognized it immediately. She also recognized the expression. “Will you stop that right now? You’re panicking everyone!”
Bellusdeo folded her arms, but fell silent.
“Step back,” Kaylin suggested.
“No.”
“I don’t think he’s bringing anything through that can kill us.”
“Not us, no.”
“Fine. I don’t think he’s bringing anything that can kill me.”
“That is inaccurate,” Spike said.
Her familiar hissed. The laughing hiss. “Nothing that will kill me, then.”
“That is conjecture,” Spike replied.
“Are you capturing this?”
“Yes. I am uncertain that you will be able to view it. Your vision is extremely limited, as is your ability to interact with the world.”
Kaylin sometimes felt like companions were just a form of portable criticism, like portable mirrors, but less helpful.
“I believe Terrano is attempting to engage the layer that you occupy now. He is having some difficulty.”
The small dragon withdrew his wing with a noisy, rattling sigh. He looked pointedly at his theoretical master, and she nodded. “Go.”
He lifted himself off her shoulder as Bellusdeo said, “He should stay in contact with you.” But there was a slight rise at the end of that statement, as if the sensible warning was uttered with some doubt.
If the familiar heard, he failed to reply; instead, he floated toward the visible haze. He didn’t disappear into it, which was good, but inhaled as if he intended to breathe on it, which was less good. Maybe.
He exhaled a cloud of silver mist while she was still considering.
Where the mist hit the haze, the two combined. She had half expected the haze to freeze, but it didn’t. It seemed to become more solid—and more silver—where the familiar’s breath touched it, but no distinct shape emerged from the combination. He inhaled and breathed again. The mass became harder, reflecting a light that didn’t have any obvious source.
As it did, Kaylin thought it looked like a cave, or a silvery, slightly melted version of a cave. And standing in its mouth, she could see Terrano. He had his left arm beneath the arms of another person, or at least something vaguely person-shaped, and as he approached the mouth of the cave, that person began to...cohere. She was a Barrani female, or rather, the ghost of one; she was transparent, but not in the way Kaylin’s familiar was. Terrano’s arm should have passed through her. It didn’t. But Kaylin was certain he would be the only person present who could touch her.
The stranger lifted her head; her hair was ghostly, all color leached from it by lack of solidity. She lifted her chin, straightened her shoulders, but did not pull away from Terrano. Possibly because she couldn’t. His grip was tight, his eyes the darkness of chaos or shadow. His form, however, did not waver.
He pulled her out of the cave.
She lost solidity, and he cursed; his grip appeared to tighten, but it tightened on smoke. Before he could shift it, she melted away again. Terrano sagged. “They never listened to me,” he told Kaylin. “Mandoran did sometimes, but the others, not so much.”
“Who was that?”
“Is,” was his defensive reply. He looked exhausted as he turned, once again, to the cave mouth. To the familiar, he said, “Can you hold this space?”
Squawk.
“Good. I have to leave it in your hands. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get them out of there if I don’t.”
*
It took Terrano three tries to free one of the cohort. But the third time she began to lose cohesion, she frowned, her eyes narrowing. Kaylin could practically see the blue in their ghostly appearance; she could certainly see the narrowing of lips and the determined tightening of jaw.
“Sedarias?” Kaylin asked.
The woman looked up at the sound of Kaylin’s voice, her eyes changing shape. She caught Terrano’s arm in her insubstantial hands, and as she wavered, Kaylin called her name again. The dissipation stopped; the ghost almost appeared to be sweating with effort. She began to walk, to take steps—all silent—as Terrano supported her.
Kaylin came face-to-face with Sedarias. Sedarias did not take on color, she didn’t become solid. But she was, in as much as Kaylin thought she could be, here. She opened her mouth, but no words left her moving lips. And then her lips stopped moving as she caught sight of the Dragon.
*
To Kaylin’s surprise, Sedarias bowed. She had expected a reaction similar to Terrano’s, but remembered that Sedarias, unlike Terrano, was linked—or had been linked—to Mandoran, Annarion and Teela. What they saw, or at least what the first two saw, she also saw. She therefore knew Bellusdeo at least as well as the boys did.
Given what they said about Sedarias, probably better.
Bellusdeo returned the bow. Her eyes were a shade of orange that was probably about as close to gold as they could be, given her location.
Terrano exhaled and frowned. After a moment, he called Sedarias by name, and she turned to him, her own expression rippling. She spoke silently again, but he could apparently read her lips; he nodded and headed back to the cave.