Cast in Wisdom (Chronicles of Elantra #15) - Michelle Sagara Page 0,23
river between here and the warrens. And because a building’s power tends to be centered in an actual space.
The jurisdictions of the Towers are the fiefs they stand in.
And Helen can’t leave her boundaries. Look—if something has an area of effect that’s larger than the Tower of the fief, there’s no way it’s in the warrens. It’s a building.
Did it speak to you?
No.
But it responded to something you did.
Looks like it. She felt uneasy then.
Exactly. Severn picked up on everything. Always had. Either we’re wrong about the sentience, or the building itself was somehow broken in the creation of the fiefs. If we’re wrong, and we’re not in a sentient building...
Then I just broke a magical spell of some kind.
Or you used one to force the trap to release us. You only think it’s a building because you weren’t sick when you passed through the portal, the eye’s gaze.
She nodded. I think it’s a building, though. There was something there. Something that wasn’t quite in reach—but something that felt like it might be sleeping. And no, I don’t want to try to wake it up while we’re inside its stomach, relatively speaking.
* * *
The stairs opened up into another hall, which seemed identical to the hall they had just left. There was, however, one long streak, slanted between the two halls, that implied someone had charred the flooring.
“It wasn’t me,” Bellusdeo said as Kaylin knelt to examine the floor. “I only remove doors. If a floor gives way, it causes more problems than it usually solves.”
“You know this from personal experience?”
“I occasionally lost my temper in inconvenient places, yes.”
They spoke in low tones; Severn lifted a hand, and they fell silent. In silence, Kaylin could hear the creak of floors. It was a familiar sound, given her old apartment and the new rooms that Helen had created to make Kaylin feel more at home. The older, warped floors meant nothing larger than a rat could sneak up on her, or sneak into her room.
That wasn’t going to be an issue, living with Helen—but old habits had kept her alive in places far less safe. She hadn’t lost those bitter instincts yet. She wondered if she ever would. If she did, she wondered if she’d regret it. The creaking stopped, but Bellusdeo’s tread, no matter how delicate her movements, was never going to be silent. Both Severn and Kaylin could manage it.
Hope, however, squawked. Loudly.
“Will you cut that out?” Kaylin whispered.
He squawked in response. Or rather, not in response. Ever since she had gone into the High Halls with the cohort, she could understand Hope when he was attempting to speak directly to her. His words to anyone else were just as angry—birdlike as they’d always been.
Kaylin glanced at Bellusdeo; the Dragon’s eyes were a deep orange now, but her forehead had folded into a frown. It wasn’t an expression of annoyance or anger; she was concentrating. Concentration often looked like ill temper to Kaylin.
Severn lifted a hand. Kaylin froze. Bellusdeo was not far behind, but her eyes weren’t getting any lighter. She gestured, her brows furrowing; Kaylin’s arms tingled. Having received whatever information she sought from the spell, Bellusdeo then moved past where Severn stood at the corner of a wall.
She reached for a weapon she wasn’t carrying and exhaled a stream of smoke as she lowered her hand. The weapons that Hawks carried—daggers, sticks—were not, in the Dragon’s opinion, weapons at all; Severn carried the weapon chain that the Halls of Law had granted dispensation for when he’d been a Wolf.
The Hawklord had never rescinded it. Neither had Marcus, but the latter was probably because it required paperwork. Kaylin thought if Bellusdeo accidentally sneezed a gout of flame on his paperwork, he might like her a lot more; no one would dress down a Dragon, or rather, no one in the Imperial Court would.
The Hawklord, however, might take a dimmer view.
Bellusdeo didn’t slide around the corner; she stepped firmly past it and turned to her left. “Good afternoon,” she said, raising her voice until the syllables were underscored by a Draconic rumble. “We appear to be lost.”
“You do indeed,” an unfamiliar voice replied. “I would consider this a poor choice of hiding place if you wish to remain hidden.”
Kaylin stepped in immediately behind the Dragon, because Hope was on her shoulder and his protection against magical attack had a very small radius. She almost called Severn in when she saw the person who addressed Bellusdeo. He was Barrani.