“Gilbert, what do you see?”
“I see the hall that I walked this morning. The floor will hold Grethan if, and only if, he does not lose sight of it. Grethan, you said the Keeper was in the Garden?”
“Yes,” Grethan replied, once again looking through the small dragon’s wing. “Can we go there?”
“Arkon?”
“If the Keeper is having difficulty, I am not certain adding Private Neya will make his life any easier.”
“Which means...no?”
“Which means: hurry.”
Gilbert reached out and caught Kaylin’s shoulder. “It is possible,” he said grimly, “that without the familiar, your Grethan will be lost.”
She hesitated. “If the Garden itself is in the same state as the hall—or the corpses—we’re probably doomed anyway.” She slid an arm around Grethan’s arm. “It’s up to you. Do you want to join Evanton, or do you want to wait?”
“I want to go to the Garden.”
*
Annarion coughed.
Everyone—except Grethan—turned to look at him.
“What do the two of you see?” Kaylin asked.
They exchanged a glance. “Do you have a rope?” Annarion asked Grethan. Grethan shook himself, ducked out from under the familiar’s wing and disentangled his arm. He walked back into the kitchen and made the noises people made when they were looking for something they were mostly certain was there—somewhere.
He came back with a length of rope. Annarion took it, tied one end to Mandoran’s waist, endured Mandoran’s criticism of his ability to tie a knot and then tied the other to his own.
“I see a hall,” he told Kaylin, when this was done. “But there’s something off about it. Does it strike you as odd when you have your familiar’s help?”
“Only in that I need his help to see it,” she offered. “To be honest, I’m slightly more concerned about the basement.”
Silence.
“The basement?” Mandoran asked.
“The stone halls beneath this one. You can see them where there should be floor.”
They exchanged another glance.
“Please tell me you can see them.”
“We can see the hall, but it is...transparent. We can’t see what’s below it. Severn?”
Severn said nothing.
“Kattea?”
“I think I see dirt. It’s kind of dark.”
Kaylin fished a flare out of her kit. “I don’t suppose you have another rope, Grethan?”
*
She tossed the lit flare down into the basement she could see without her familiar’s wing, taking care to avoid following it.
The light illuminated the hard sides of walls, and the rope seemed to sink forever; the flare didn’t actually reach the floor on the first two attempts. “Can you see the walls now?”
Silence.
“Okay, tell me what you guys see.”
Mandoran said, “I think I see what you see.”
“You think?”
“The walls are old and crumbling, to my eye. If the street is built over this, it’s a wonder it hasn’t sunk.”
“They’re not crumbling, to my eye. They look almost new.” She frowned. “They look...” She turned to Gilbert and Kattea. “They look like the walls in your basement.” She paused. “They look exactly like the walls in your basement.
“Gilbert—”
But Gilbert had come to the edge of the hall that the rest of them could see—or rather, the edge of space where the hall had been. “Yes,” he said softly. “You are right.”
“Share,” Mandoran said, in exactly the intonation Teela would have used.
“Gilbert’s basement is a giant hall, or a series of halls. There are doors, which imply rooms—but Kattea said—”
“The rooms move,” the girl said. She glanced at Gilbert. “Gilbert has a room. Sometimes it’s hard to find the room.”
The Arkon’s very orange eyes fixed themselves on Kattea. “How do you find the room without getting lost?”
“There’s a mark on the door. Gilbert’s name.”
Silence.
“When you say Gilbert’s name—” Mandoran began. Kaylin stepped on his foot.
“The rooms...move,” the Arkon said slowly. “But you find them. How long does it take you to find them?”
“Not very long. Well, once it took hours.”
“And you said the water carried you to the basement, and you found the house above it?”
Kattea nodded, uncertain now; she looked to Gilbert for confirmation. “We found the stairs,” she said. “And they weren’t like the rest of the halls. I mean, they were more...normal. So, we climbed those.”
“Where did you think they would lead?”
She glanced at Gilbert again. He seemed to be interested in the answer; Kaylin wanted to scream with frustration. Time. Time. Time.
“Somewhere safe,” she said quietly. “Somewhere on the other side of the bridge.” More silence. “I thought... I thought maybe I might find my dad.”
*
Kaylin said, “Grethan, I think you should join Evanton.”
He blinked. “Do you really see stone halls?” he whispered.