Cast in Wisdom (Chronicles of Elantra #15) - Michelle Sagara Page 0,19

definitely worth the risk.

Hope squawked. “Hush. I’m counting steps.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve encountered giant eyeballs in your former career,” Bellusdeo asked Severn.

“I’ve encountered worse. There are forty-eight,” he added.

Kaylin turned to look back at the stairs. They remained solid, slightly worn stone. There were no magical runes, no sign of the sigils that implied that Arcanists or mages had been at work. There were no torches or other forms of light; if light came here, it was carried by the visitor—and most visitors, like, say, the missing boy, didn’t carry light with them.

Hope lifted his head. He squawked.

“This is going to be trouble,” Kaylin said out loud.

Bellusdeo didn’t argue. She did push past Kaylin but allowed Severn to continue on point. Clearly, she hadn’t fully absorbed the fact that Kaylin was also a corporal now.

“What trouble are you expecting?” Bellusdeo demanded.

“I think this might be a sentient building.”

“What?”

“I think there’s a chance that the building itself is sentient, like Helen or the Hallionne.”

“Sentient buildings seldom eat people.”

“I didn’t say its personality was either Helen or Hallionne. I didn’t know about Helen until I went to apply as a tenant. I did know the Towers existed, but I didn’t understand how they worked.”

Bellusdeo said nothing.

“This might be something like Helen.”

“Your reasoning?”

“There’s some magic here—but I think most of it is yours. The light, the scan you’re doing to detect other magic. The eye on the external wall is the type of magic I’d associate with buildings that can play god within their own perimeters.” She shrugged, uneasy. “Mostly, it’s the portal.”

“Pardon?”

“Portals make me ill most of the time.” Literally. “I didn’t feel any discomfort at the transition at all. And that happens mostly inside of sentient buildings.”

“Can you sense any sentience?”

Hope squawked.

“Say that so I can understand it.”

If you insist, although I am already fatigued. I do not dispute your logic, but I do not sense an overarching control. Helen is noticeable immediately, as are the Hallionne.

“You think I’m wrong.”

No. I think you may be correct—but something is off in that case. He squawked again, this time in a short burst.

“How could there be a sentient building in the border zone?”

It was Severn who answered. “If it was built before the fall of Ravellon, its existence in the border zone would be poor luck on the part of the building. You can ask Helen; she might have more information. Or perhaps you can visit the High Halls and see if you can speak with Spike.”

“Once we get out.”

“Once we get out.”

* * *

If this was a building that was, in some fashion, like Helen, it was sleeping. The hall that the stairs led to was dark, the ceilings short and distinctly basement-like. Nothing about the building except the wall of statues that could only be seen through Hope’s wing implied that they were in a space defined—and rearranged at will—by any sentience other than a carpenter and stonemason.

If the eyeball on the external wall didn’t count.

Bellusdeo’s light brightened; the long corridor resolved itself into a wall with a door on each side, and a door at the end. These doors, like the side doors in the great room above, were better suited to closets. Or, to be fair, to Kaylin’s first apartment.

The doors to the left and right, like the doors above, were locked. There were no door wards, nor was there Kaylin-detectable magic on either the knobs or the locks.

Severn continued past them to the door at the end of this basement hallway.

“It had better not be another set of stairs.”

* * *

It wasn’t. It was a hall like the one they were standing in. In fact, it appeared to be identical to the one they were standing in. There were doors to the left and right, both locked, and a door at the end.

The third such hall caused a small spate of Leontine. Kaylin drew a dagger and scored the right door; it was wood, but it was normal wood. Sadly, it was a harder grade of wood. Bellusdeo chose to end Kaylin’s attempt to etch an X across the door’s surface.

She breathed on it instead.

Given that they were half-afraid that the building was sentient, Kaylin didn’t think this wise. But it was certainly faster, and the Dragon’s flame was controlled enough that she didn’t turn the door into ash. The mark was, of course, on the door in the next hall.

They were walking in a circle, an iterative loop. It was a defensive design; thieves or intruders couldn’t