suddenly confronted with an alien, unknown species that almost defied comprehension. It would have been comical in any other circumstance.
“There is no chancellor,” Killian said, his voice flat and uninflected.
This would have stopped Kaylin dead in her tracks. It almost stopped the Arkon, but not for the same reasons.
“No chancellor?”
“No.”
“Who was the last chancellor?”
“Chancellor Terramonte. He ascended to the position upon the departure of Aramechtis. He did not hold it for long.”
One of the two names caused the Arkon’s eyes to shift color. “What befell Terramonte? He would not have surrendered the seat.”
“But he did, Lannagaros. As did the council. There has been no other.”
“Did you not think to exalt Larrantin?”
“Larrantin has not applied.”
Kaylin thought of the book. The book the Arkon now held.
“Surely,” the Arkon continued, “there are candidates under your consideration.”
“I believe there are those who intend to forward themselves as chancellor, yes. They do not, however, understand the necessary forms.”
“Forms?” The Arkon’s exhalation was full of smoke.
To Kaylin, this was the type of plodding dream that contained details better suited to nightmares—because bureaucracy was a nightmare to Kaylin, and this sounded like an arcane version of exactly that.
The trembling at her feet grew stronger, as if the ground itself was a thin—and increasingly fragile—layer beneath which something much larger was sleeping. And waking.
“I think we have to move,” Kaylin said. The words were meant for the Arkon. The Arkon wasn’t listening to Kaylin.
“Forms,” Killian repeated. Dragon breath might have been an everyday, mundane occurrence for all the attention he paid to the smoke. “You have some small understanding of what is required.”
The Arkon nodded.
“There is a disturbance in the lecture halls,” Killian said. “I cannot afford to indulge in idle conversation.” He then turned his gaze—with the same apparent effort—to Kaylin. “If you are lost, I will show you the way out, but I cannot guarantee that it will be as safe for you or your companions as your last excursion.” Killian turned and began his slow, deliberate walk, as if expecting to be followed.
She cleared her throat.
He paused but didn’t turn back. “Do you wish to remain here? It is safe for you and your kind, but it lacks basic amenities.”
“I don’t think it’s going to remain safe,” she told him, grim now. “Is there a reason you can’t take the book from the Arkon?”
* * *
“Book?” Killian turned then, the movement far more like the movements of the Barrani she knew. Kaylin almost took a step back at the intensity of his expression; his eye had lost the appearance of natural eyes. It was, like Helen’s could be when she was distracted by dangers, obsidian. But the flecks of color that added light were almost lurid.
“Larrantin gave me a book,” Kaylin said, her voice steady by dint of will. She was telling the truth—but sometimes truth didn’t matter to the powerful. Killian had not seemed powerful to her until the moment he turned. He’d seemed...broken, almost absent, and, although she would never say this out loud, pitiable.
She repented.
“He gave me a book to give to you.”
“You do not carry a book.”
“No. I—” She swallowed. “The last time you saw me, I was trying to deliver Larrantin’s book. But when the door opened, you had guests.”
He did not reply. When Kaylin fell silent, he said, “Continue.” His voice, like the movement of floor beneath their feet, was thunder.
This had seemed like such a good idea when she’d been looking for a way into the building that bypassed the Arcanist and his crew. It didn’t seem like a great idea now.
“We—I wasn’t sure you were aware that you had guests. They weren’t students. They weren’t trapped in your wall.”
Killian’s eye began to glow, the black emitting a light that ate all other light. As if the remaining eye in miniature was akin to the giant eye on the wall, that dark-cast gaze traveled over all of them. Severn moved, and moved quickly, as did Emmerian, leaping into the corners formed by walls on either side of the open door.
Bellusdeo was standing too close to the Arkon to do so. Or maybe not; she didn’t even make the attempt to get out of the way of a gaze that had become, in a moment, almost physical.
As the gaze of the eye in the border zone, this one swept them someplace else in an instant.
* * *
Someplace else was dark. The floor in this place was soft—which implied carpet. Or worse. It no longer trembled. Kaylin reached out with