lot of exposed stone in this interminable hallway. You can’t touch that instead?”
Kaylin shook her head. “It’s the door. I’d be willing to bet on it.”
“With your own money?”
“Yes. Lots of.”
“Fine. I will remove the door the normal way, regardless of any inefficiency.”
* * *
It took longer than reducing the door to ash, but she did destroy the central part of the door with fire, weakening its structural stability enough that she could then peel away the frame remaining and toss the wooden bits to the side.
Kaylin lifted her left arm and grimaced; without the frame, it was harder to keep her hand in contact with the building. She wondered if the need to touch was one of the crutches Sanabalis often talked about. Probably.
There. She slowed the point of contact to see it better. Felt the moment when she confirmed the fact that the doorway was not alive.
Felt the disconnect when she realized this was not entirely true. The wooden frame was gone; what she touched now was stone. No. It was like stone; it felt like stone beneath her fingertips. But there was something other about it.
“You know how I said I thought this might be a sentient building?”
No one answered.
“I’m about to test that.”
When she tensed her arm again, she saw that the marks across her skin were glowing faintly. The glow was even; all of the visible marks were a pale blue now. No single word seemed to stand out. No mark rose that might accomplish her goal. The goal, however, was clear. She wanted this doorway—absent actual door—to take her to an exit, some way of leaving this endless iteration of the same damn hall.
The stone was alive. Not in the way that she, Severn or Bellusdeo were. Maybe in the same way Helen was. She had never tried to touch Helen in the way she now approached this empty frame.
No, Hope said. But you have never had the need. Mark this well, Chosen.
She spoke to the stone through the tips of her fingers. She wasn’t certain if she was speaking the words aloud. Probably not. Her thoughts weren’t easily poured into actual words, and it was the thought, the intent, the need to leave this space, that she kept at the forefront. But some small contaminant remained: she was trying to communicate with a nebulous something she wasn’t even certain existed. She introduced herself, wordless, arm raised, marks glowing.
She listened. If listening took physical effort, she made it—and here, it did.
There was no answer.
“Keep doing what you’re doing,” Bellusdeo said.
No answer she could hear or grasp, no subvocal communication that flowed into her or through her. She realized she had closed her eyes, and opened them with effort; her eyelids felt as if they weighed as much, individually, as her arms.
What was left of a doorway opened into a hall, which was different. The doors on either side of this single hall—still made of stone, and still shorter in height—had increased in number. There were four doors. They were all closed. There was no door at the end of this hall; there were stairs. Stairs that ascended.
Severn slid past Kaylin and into this new hall; Bellusdeo, after a brief discussion, did the same.
Thank you, Kaylin said in the theory that manners never hurt when dealing with the equivalent of ancient, localized gods. I’m sorry we broke your doors.
* * *
Severn made no attempt to open the new closed doors, and Kaylin saw why instantly: at least two of those doors had seen use. The knobs retained tarnish and fingerprints. There was dust in this hall, in the corners; the center stretch of floor was clean.
Severn moved the way a cat moves; he was silent but swift. He headed directly for the stairs.
Bellusdeo could not move as quietly; her clothing, if nothing else, didn’t allow for it. Her eyes were orange, but it was a gold-orange; she was not afraid of anything that might—just might—inhabit the rooms.
Only when she reached the stairs did Kaylin relax. Relax in this case meant allow different worries to take over. Severn was ahead of her in that regard. He didn’t expect trouble, but he wasn’t certain where this building was actually located. The eyeball was firmly in the border zone. But the building itself?
It can’t be located in the fiefs. I don’t think the Towers would accept it.
It could be located in the city beyond the fiefs. Say, in the warrens.
The warrens? No way.
Because?
Because there’s a huge chunk of