darkening it, as well.
But if the fire that contained opalescence spread, the glittering bits didn’t. And as Kaylin looked at them—really looked at them, studying them as if she were Robin—she could see them not as scintillating, ugly colors, but as windows.
Small windows, opening to landscapes of blue, dark blue, green; of red and orange, of the white of terrible blizzard and the white-gray of fog.
Starrante had said that these were like small shards of portals, and she understood now. None of these shards, none of these spinning splinters of moving color, were large enough to fit through. But they were large enough individually to take her body apart if she stood in one place while they advanced.
“If Terrano taught them this, I’m going to kill him,” she heard herself saying.
“Terrano did not teach them this.” Sedarias, eyes midnight blue, watched the web, her glance flitting to the Dragons and back.
The pieces of color were caught between strands and held fast there. She could almost feel them click into place, as if the web itself were the frame into which colored glass might be fit. But all of those pieces still opened into disparate spaces—spaces she could see much more clearly now that they weren’t in motion.
Robin was practically vibrating in place, excitement and fear mingling. He counted as pieces were caught by the web and locked in place; the whole of the slowly growing window shuddered violently each time it happened.
“Be ready,” Starrante told them.
Clink. Clink. Clink. The sounds grew louder as the web retained the pieces; the pieces themselves began to shimmer with a gray, almost reflected light—probably Starrante’s body. The lower corners of the web and the upper corners on both sides caught pieces, as well—smaller shards that did not fit precisely, but were being kept at bay. Kaylin’s skin felt normal now; whatever magic was being done was not the magic that caused agony when it was cast.
But it was magic, and when the last of the pieces—or the last of the useful pieces—fell into place in the center of the web, there was a loud, shattering sound—a sound that was the exact opposite of what she would have expected, given what her eyes could see. The strands of webbing between the disparate pieces shivered in place, the motion itself like the refrain of a familiar, wordless song. Starrante’s clicking seemed to keep a beat, a rhythm, as those strands vanished and left, in their place, a single plate of what might have been glass.
“Now!” Starrante barked, his voice as loud as a Dragon’s. And speaking thus, he swept Robin and Kaylin into that glass plate.
* * *
It wasn’t glass.
They passed through it, as Starrante had no doubt intended. So, too, did the rest of their companions, their feet hitting stone, their eyes bouncing off darkness. It was dark here.
It wasn’t quiet.
“Do not touch anything,” Starrante said, his voice a rumble of thunder as he made his way through a pane that was almost too small to contain him.
“Where are we?” Bellusdeo demanded—just before Sedarias could.
It was Kaylin who answered. “We’re in the library.”
* * *
On the other side of a portal that had not closed was a hallway. It was familiar, and the gaping hole left by falling roof framed the top edge of the portal.
“Can you close the portal?” Emmerian asked. Kaylin was surprised by this because he seldom spoke in larger gatherings.
“With effort that I do not choose to expend, yes.”
“They can follow us.”
Starrante’s grin was, again, disturbing. The portal shed light—probably the light of the hallway—which caused his fangs to glint in the darkness. And he did have fangs. “One can only hope. Ah, this is much, much better.” His head rose on the stick-like neck he could contract to invisibility. His eyes were red.
“What are they doing?” His feet shifted direction, even if the rest of his body remained fixed in place.
Kaylin was viscerally relieved not to be part of that they. His neck seemed to extend forever as he lifted his head; outrage seemed to cause this buoyancy. The library wasn’t silent, but the sounds that she could hear were muddied, almost unidentifiable—as if there were crowds of people in every direction, engaged in...something.
“You’re certain this is the library?”
Starrante failed to answer.
Bellusdeo, however, did. Sort of. She spoke a word—a sharp word that caused Kaylin to flinch—and light flooded the area. Starrante had been right: this was the library. But it was the library in pieces. Not collapsed and not