Cast in Wisdom (Chronicles of Elantra #15) - Michelle Sagara Page 0,70

I take it this guy was old?”

The stranger’s eyes had narrowed, not in anger, but in mild confusion. “These,” he said, while Teela drew breath, “are not my traditional office hours. And that is not a traditional student uniform. Are you a messenger?”

His tone indicated that her answer had better be yes, and that her message had better be delivered with minimal waste of his time.

Kaylin slid immediately into Barrani. “I am not a messenger,” she told the stranger. “I am Kaylin Neya, and I’ve been sent here to examine what is essentially an empty building.”

His brows rose. “Empty?”

She nodded. There was something about this man that was familiar. Or rather, more familiar than his similarity of appearance to every other Barrani she had ever met.

“Who are you talking to?” Teela asked.

“I’m not sure,” Kaylin replied, although she didn’t take her eyes off the man.

“Who are you conversing with?” the man now asked.

“Hope—can you speak to him?”

You are doing so; I see no need to interfere.

But the stranger had now seen Hope, as if the words themselves—or the squawks—had finally made him visible. The expression that he now turned on Kaylin was different.

“Who are you?” The words were sharper, the demand in them clearer.

Hope sighed. Loudly. He then squawked while the man listened. Kaylin wanted to be able to understand every word he spoke; so far she’d managed to understand the ones he aimed at her. It was better—on most days—than nothing.

“Why are you here? This is not the library; these rooms,” he added, waving an arm to encompass more than the one they currently occupied, “are my personal rooms.”

She offered him a Diarmat-taught bow. When she rose, his expression was calmer, although his eyes remained blue. Of course they did. “This building is currently unoccupied. You are the only person we’ve found in it.”

“Impossible.”

She was silent. He wasn’t calling her a liar.

“Was an evacuation order sent? Has the day we feared come to pass?”

Kaylin had no idea what day he referred to, but she could guess. Guessing when Barrani were involved, and they were in your face, wasn’t always the safest or wisest choice—not if you opened your mouth.

Bellusdeo was orange-eyed. She didn’t fold her arms; she was alert. Teela, eyes a darker blue than this stranger’s, was also alert. She hadn’t drawn a weapon and Bellusdeo hadn’t yet decided to breathe fire—for which Kaylin was grateful. She had a visceral fear of fire and books, probably instilled by the Arkon.

“Are you known as Larrantin?”

The man seemed to relax. “I am, by some. Has an acquaintance sent you to fetch me?” He tucked a book under his arm, and Kaylin looked, for the first time, at his clothing. It was oddly styled; she had never seen a Barrani dressed this way. The jacket he wore might have been at home in a painting, but not on an actual person. Also, his pants were weird.

She had some concerns about whether or not he could leave this room.

“When you refer to the day you fear,” she said, as she turned and walked through his open door, “do you mean Ravellon?”

His steps stopped, and she turned to see if he was still following. His expression caught her; there was sorrow in it, and the color of his eyes was not the normal Barrani blue.

“Yes,” he finally said as his eyes began to shade toward a color more natural for the Barrani. “We have worked and struggled here—those of us who might survive catastrophic changes in our environment—to understand what ails Ravellon and how it might be cured. But the sum of our knowledge is too thin, and our understanding of the Ancients and their varied knowledge, too slight.

“But you are Chosen. Do you have wisdom to impart that might have escaped us?” There was hope in the words. Hope and the usual Barrani skepticism.

“I don’t even have the knowledge that you had back in the day.”

“Who sent you?”

This was more complicated. “Were you here when the Towers rose?”

Silence. After a long pause, Larrantin said, “The Towers.” The two words were flat. “But the selection has only barely finished, and there is some debate about the choices.”

“The Towers were created, in the end, by the Ancients. I don’t understand how or why, but this building—” She exhaled. “Come with me. I think you’ll understand, better than I do, what’s happened.”

* * *

Larrantin could leave his room. He could walk through the halls and down the stairs. He could even walk past the desk.