Kaylin knocked with almost enough force to stave the door in. “Evanton!”
Grethan opened the door, his eyes wild; they were almost brown. The stalks on his forehead were weaving frantically. “Kaylin!” No rain fell in the store at his back, and the floor looked dry. This should have been a comfort.
“What’s happened? Where’s Evanton?”
“He’s in—I think he’s in—the Garden.”
“We need to talk with him. It’s—” She started to say an emergency. Grethan’s expression, however, made it clear that he knew.
“I can’t reach him.”
“What?”
“I can’t—I can’t enter the Garden.” He reached out, grabbed her shoulders, dug his fingers into her arms. She let him. Had he been older there was a very real chance she would have broken his fingers or one of his arms—but his fear was so strong she couldn’t, for a moment, see him as adult. As a threat.
Grethan was Tha’alani. His forehead stalks, however, were decorative. He could not join—or touch—the Tha’alaan, as the rest of his kin could. The only way for Grethan to reach it at all, the only way to alleviate the isolation that was almost unknown to the Tha’alani, was through the elemental water.
“Slow down,” she said, forcing herself to do the same, although she had no time. She could practically feel the Arkon breathing down her neck. “Grethan, slow down. Where did you last see Evanton? He’s not in the Garden?”
“There is no Garden.”
*
Kaylin headed—sprinted—toward the rickety, narrow hall on the other side of the kitchen. She wasn’t certain whether or not Grethan followed, and at the moment, she didn’t care. She made Teela’s Leontine seem tame as she skidded to a stop.
“Grethan...”
“I told you. It’s gone.”
The hall with which Kaylin was most familiar was no longer a squeaky mess of narrow boards, made even narrower by overstuffed shelving. It hadn’t transformed into a grander hall, and it hadn’t, as halls did in Tiamaris, remade itself to better accommodate the actual number of visitors.
It had simply ceased to exist.
Squawk.
“I know,” she whispered. “We’ve got a problem.”
*
The Arkon surrendered draconic form when Kaylin returned to the street. Gilbert, Kattea, Mandoran and Annarion slid off his shrinking back before they ended up in a pile atop his human form. Grethan held back, his toes on the threshold, his hands gripping the frame of the door.
“What is happening?” the Arkon demanded.
“The Garden—or at least any way of reaching it—is gone.”
“Gone, as in the door has disappeared?”
Kaylin swallowed. “Gone as in: miniature version of the Winding Path.” She turned back to Grethan. “I don’t know if you heard, but—part of the city is doing the same thing as your back hall. But on a much larger scale.”
To her surprise, Grethan nodded. “Evanton heard. Evanton—” He swallowed. “He went to the Garden.”
“How did he hear? Did he use the mirror?”
Grethan nodded.
Kaylin cursed. “Can you hear the elements at all?”
The boy shook his head. The presence of a Dragon and two Barrani calmed him a bit, as did the two Hawks.
“You said he went into the Garden before it disappeared?”
Grethan nodded again.
Kaylin considered the wisdom of bringing Mandoran and Annarion into the store. But Mandoran hadn’t set off any alarms or fail-safes; he hadn’t caused problems until he’d been introduced to the elemental water itself. If there was no Garden, this was less likely to cause problems. She hoped.
“Gilbert—when you went to speak with the water—”
Gilbert nodded. He tried to set Kattea down, but she clung to him tightly.
“Did you make it to the Garden?”
He frowned. Kaylin led him to the start of what was no longer a hallway. The edge of the floor curved in a circular shape, as if someone had dropped a giant stone ball into something much squishier. To either side, she saw what she would have expected to see if a large spherical chunk had been removed from a building.
Beneath this sphere of absence, she could see stone halls.
Squawk. A translucent wing rose instantly to cover the upper half of Kaylin’s face.
“Teela demands to know what you see now,” Annarion said.
“Teela is definitely feeling better. Tell her I see the hallway.”
“Pardon?”
“I see the Keeper’s hallway. I see the door that leads to the Garden. I see his packed shelves and his threadbare runners. He’s there.” She poked the familiar. “Show Grethan.”
The Keeper’s panicked apprentice stepped back to stand beside Kaylin, and the familiar sighed and lifted his other wing. He dug claws into Kaylin’s shoulder, in theory for balance.
“What do you see, Grethan?”
“I see—” He ducked out from under the wing. Rose again. Ducked. “I— The hall is there.”
“Yes. Via dragon wing, it’s there.” She ignored the Arkon’s cough.
“Can I— Is it real?”
Squawk.