boys are downstairs,” Helen explained. “I had to move them to the training rooms. Mandoran is not particularly happy with this.”
“Is Bellusdeo with them?”
“Yes.”
“What’s going on?” Kaylin demanded—of Tain.
“You probably know as much as I do. There’s been some trouble with the cohort in the West March. The impressions left by the cohort are chaotic and unclear.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am not certain, at this point, that they can communicate with Teela and the boys. At all.”
Kaylin cursed. In Leontine.
* * *
Barrani could run for longer than most mortals; they were taller than Kaylin and their legs had a greater reach. It took Kaylin five minutes to catch up to Tain, because the training rooms were down an intimidating spiral staircase that seemed to go on forever. Kaylin couldn’t see the floor. She did, however, see a closed door on the wall side of the descent.
“They’re here?” Tain demanded of thin air.
“Yes, dear,” Helen replied.
What, a familiar voice demanded, has happened? It was Nightshade. Kaylin didn’t even fight him as she answered. I will be there soon. If Annarion reappears do not let him leave.
I’m not his boss, and I’m not his jailer.
I was not speaking to you. It took her a moment to understand that he was speaking to Helen. That moment, however, was spent watching Tain’s back as he opened a short, squat door. It was thick and old and scarred. She had been to rooms in Helen’s basement before, but this one, more than any other, reminded her of holding cells, except for the light.
Bellusdeo and Maggaron stood in the room’s center; the Dragon’s eyes were orange red, and the Ascendant was armed. Not that weapons appeared to be necessary.
There was no sunlight, no window into the external world. There were no obvious sources of illumination, and even had there been, Kaylin might not have noticed. What she noticed were the moving, swirling splashes of color that seemed to spread across the walls and the ceiling as if they were alive. It reminded her of Shadow, although each color was too bold, too definitive, otherwise. There was a conversation going on that Kaylin couldn’t hear, and this was its detritus.
Tain appeared to see what she saw, but color wasn’t what he was looking for.
“Teela!”
To Helen, Kaylin said, in a much quieter voice, “Is this the room Teela entered?”
And Helen said, “Yes.”
Teela was nowhere in sight.
“She is,” was Helen’s grim reply. “She’s with the boys. Those flashes of color you thought of as argument? She’s one of them.”
* * *
Tain stepped into the room, Kaylin practically hugging his back. He hadn’t drawn a weapon, but both of his hands were lifted. To Kaylin’s eye, everything was a blur of color, and none of that color was Teela. Or Mandoran or Annarion either, if it came to that. “Are they even here?” Kaylin demanded of Helen.
“Yes.” As she spoke, some of that color shifted, becoming less of a flat, moving splash against stone as it did. Kaylin was suddenly reminded of Annarion in Castle Nightshade and was glad that she hadn’t bothered to eat much.
“Guys,” she said, raising her voice to be heard. There wasn’t much sound in the room if she stopped to think about it, but something about the kaleidoscope of color implied shrieking. “There is no way you are going to the High Halls like this! There’s no way you could even enter a Hallionne in this shape or form!”
The slowest of the racing colors recombined; they came together in a way that resembled Annarion, had he been sculpted by someone who wanted to suggest his form artistically, rather than render it realistically. Even his eyes—which were very blue—did not look solid or whole.
“Your brother is coming to visit,” she told him. “And I’d really appreciate it if you’d give Teela back—Tain is about to explode.”
* * *
It took another five minutes before Annarion resembled his usual, breakfast-room self. Teela emerged more quickly, but her color was off. Kaylin would have been gray or green; Teela was simply pale. Her eyes were the same shade of midnight that Annarion’s were. Mandoran did not coalesce.
Tain was at Teela’s side the minute her feet were solid—and it was her feet that took shape last. In all, it was disturbing; it was not something that Kaylin had seen Teela do before, and she had a very strong desire never to see it again.
“Look, I appreciate that you guys had to learn how to talk to, and live in, a Hallionne. But Teela didn’t and she is not cut out for this. You’re guests here. I’m happy to have you. Mostly. But this has got to stop.”
Mandoran lacked a mouth to reply.
“No, he doesn’t, dear, but I don’t think I’ll repeat his answer.”
Kaylin folded her arms. To Annarion she said, “Your brother will be here soon. Anything you can do to become more solid would probably be good.”
“Oh great,” Mandoran said, speaking for the first time. “Tell him we don’t want visitors.”
Kaylin’s arms tightened. “If this is what you do when you’re upset or worried, you’re never going to become Lords of the High Court. I doubt they can actually kill you—but they can make you all outcaste if you push it.”
Bellusdeo dropped a hand on Kaylin’s left shoulder. Small and squawky curled his tail around her neck. He didn’t lift a wing to bat her face, and he didn’t press it over her eyes, either. If he could see Mandoran as he was, he didn’t feel it was necessary for Kaylin to see him, too.
“If you’re all outcaste, you’ll never take that Test. You won’t make it past the front doors.”
“They can try to stop us.” Mandoran’s disembodied voice again. The splashes of flat color across the room’s walls moved as he spoke. It was not comforting.
“Kaylin,” Helen began.
“They will try. But you’re not the people they’ll put pressure on first. Maybe you’ve got no friends and no living family. Maybe you’ve got family, and they don’t want to give your stuff back. But Teela has friends. She has allies. They’ll start there first, because they don’t have a choice. They’ve already started.
“Teela may be part of your cohort, but she’s lived in the High Halls for centuries, on and off. She’s the wedge in the door. She went to the green, and she returned. She fought Dragons. She did it well enough that she has one of the three damn swords.
“If they can kill her, they’re free to shut you all out.”
Tain
