the High Halls.”
She froze. “Do not tell me that you’ve been visiting the High Halls.”
“Well, we’re Lords of the High Court now, aren’t we?”
“Lords of the High Court that a lot of your kin want dead, yes.”
“Sedarias says that’s normal. If she hadn’t gone to the green, most of her kin would still want her dead. Better now than later, when she’s firmly established. Where’s Severn?”
“He’s stuck in the maze of endless hall. So’s Emmerian, if that’s helpful.”
“Why are you guys in this room?”
“I think he meant to send us all, but missed the other two. I told you—I think I told you—that we found our way in the first time because a giant eyeball caught us in its gaze, right? Well...this was his normal eye, and Severn and Emmerian could dodge into corners. We were kind of standing in front of it.”
“Do you know why?”
Bellusdeo snorted. “We believe—and we have no more access to Killian than you—that it had something to do with our mention of the intruders here. Apparently, people who are in this building are expected to either be teachers or students. Kaylin has a message from a teacher who is demonstrably unable to reach this building, but she was unwilling to deliver it when she saw Killian’s invisible companions.
“She was the only person present who could see them.”
“We can see them.”
“None of you saw them the last time we were here,” Kaylin said. “Regardless, I’m not sure Killian can. If he could, they’d be in the same student rooms you are.”
“Maybe that’s why most of them are on the outside of the building.” Kaylin could almost hear Terrano shrug.
The Arkon now cleared his throat very, very loudly. “It is my belief that the border zones are the frayed outer edges of Killian’s territory.”
Kaylin had whiplash from the change of topic. “But they’re all over the place. I mean—they exist between all the fiefs. Your Records didn’t—”
He cleared his voice loudly. Bellusdeo stepped on her foot at almost the same time.
Fine. “The location of the school—the Academia—was pretty fixed. I mean, it was actual geography, not theoretical geography. Larrantin implied—no, I inferred from what he said—that warning had been given to the occupants of the Academia when the Towers were to rise.”
“So people who got the warnings deserted the building?” Terrano asked.
“That’s probably all of the student body and all of the teachers. But... Killian’s been finding new students, probably slowly, in at least the Candallar border zone. It’s how we found him in the first place.”
“But he didn’t keep you here as a student—he showed you the way out. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
She shrugged. “It does now. Now all we want is to deliver a message to Killian and possibly have Killian eject all of the people he doesn’t seem to see.”
“You don’t want to know what they’re trying to do?”
“I’d consider that a bonus. I’m assuming—call me a cynic—that whatever it is they’re trying to do is bad. The Arkon says that there used to be a chancellor, someone who was like Helen’s tenant. He either died or abandoned his post. I’m going to assume died, because—”
“If Helen wanted to preserve you in this exact situation, she’d eject you,” Terrano helpfully pointed out. “It’s possible that he ejected the former chancellor. Sedarias asks who that chancellor was.”
The Arkon answered. “It was Terramonte, according to Killianas. Understand that the Chancellors of the Academia did not retire in the fashion to which you are accustomed. Terramonte was, I believe, an emergency choice; someone to fill that role until Aramechtis returned from the war. But Aramechtis did not return. The last true chancellor was probably Aramechtis.” His eyes were a shade of copper now. “He was chancellor in my early years in this institution. He had a terrible habit of singing in the morning.”
“Why is that terrible?”
“He was a Dragon, and he liked to project his voice. To retreat from the Academia almost killed him; the war finished off what survived. He had some difficulty facing his former students and former council members on battlefields. I remember the sound of his roaring when the Towers did rise.”
“He didn’t know that Killian had survived.”
“No. No one did. Inform us if you encounter a door or something that looks like a room.” He spoke to Terrano.
“Why a room or a door?”
“It is my hope that we are here to speak with Killian.”
Terrano cursed liberally. “We have a problem on our end, and it’s—” The sentence came to an