Gilbert didn’t speak, but the temperature in the room plunged; the air was now colder than his hands had been.
The books weren’t uniform in size; the tops of the spines didn’t form a neat and even row. The dust was thick, even on the cobwebs. Whatever Gilbert kept here, he hadn’t touched in a while. Certainly not for cleaning, which was a stupid thought. Shadows as housekeepers.
Kaylin was used to thinking of them as death.
She picked a book up off the shelf—or tried. The books were so tightly packed, the random volume she’d chosen didn’t budge. When she applied strength, half a dozen books came free with it.
“What are you doing?” Mandoran asked.
“Looking for words.”
“You might want to consider doing that later.”
“There’s not going to be a later if I can’t find them now.” She collected the books that had been pulled loose and set them on the shelf’s edge. The book she’d chosen, she opened.
The color of light in the room changed.
*
Books generally had pages. This one was not an exception. It had a lot of pages. But it didn’t seem to have a beginning; it didn’t seem to have an end. Opening the cover of the book didn’t lead to a first page of any kind. This wasn’t a problem, because the pages were also blank.
Kaylin closed the book and set it down. She retrieved a different book from the small stack and opened that one instead. The same thing happened. The book opened to some nebulous part of the middle, and it opened in a fan of blank pages.
Grimacing, Kaylin looked at the shelves. There were a lot of books.
Was this the right place? Was this where she would find what she was looking for? Ugh. “Gilbert, what’s in the other room?”
Silence. She almost shrieked in frustration.
“Apologies, Chosen, but I am uncertain. To which other room do you refer?”
“The room behind the door on the far wall.”
He didn’t answer. “If you tell me there is no door on the far wall, I’ll consider serious violence.”
Silence.
Kaylin exhaled. “The door opposite the one I entered? Same shape, same general size?” Her eyes narrowed; her shoulders fell. “The one with the door ward instead of a knob?”
When he again failed to speak, she turned to Mandoran. “Please tell me you can see the door. Look—I could see the door when I entered the room. Before I tried to heal Gilbert. I don’t know what you’re looking at—but could you try to look at it the way the merely mortal do? Just for a minute?”
Mandoran frowned. “I believe I am looking at the door the way the merely mortal do. Now you’ve done it,” he added, with a little too much glee.
“Done what?”
“Teela’s heading down. She tells me to tell you she’ll break your left arm if you open that door before she gets here.”
“She’s not my partner.”
“Your partner is coming, too.”
*
Kattea and Bellusdeo did not appear at the door. Tain, Severn and Teela did. “Yes,” she said, before Kaylin could open her mouth. “I see the door.” Severn nodded. He also unwound his weapon chain.
“What, exactly, are you doing?” Teela demanded.
“Trying to find the right place to put a missing word, if you must know.”
“Kattea said you were—”
“Healing Gilbert, yes. But that doesn’t mean what it normally does. He’s alive, but not in the way any of us are. I think—I think I need to put a word somewhere. To finish a figurative sentence.” She tossed Teela the closed book in her hands.
“Do not open that!” Gilbert shouted. It was the first time he had raised his voice.
“Teela, can you see Gilbert?”
“Yes. You can’t?”
“No. I can hear him. I can’t see him.”
To Gilbert, Teela said, “Kaylin opened this.”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t want me to.”
“I do not think it would be wise. Kaylin is Chosen; she is interacting with the book in a way that you will not.”
“What did you do, kitling?” More edge to this question.
“I picked it up and opened it. It’s blank,” she added. “I think they’re all blank.”
“They are not blank,” Gilbert told her. “Or at least they will not be to your friend.”
“Are they yours?”
“They are in my keeping.” Which wasn’t the same thing.
Teela handed the book back to Kaylin; she tucked it under her arm. “The door?”
Kaylin nodded.
*
They paused in front of it. Severn was a yard behind them. When Teela lifted a hand, Kaylin caught it before the Barrani Hawk’s palm made contact with the ward.
“Not you.”