“I am not raging,” Sanabalis said in rumbling, guttural Barrani. “But An’Teela is correct—I am uncertain that there will not be danger. Please remain by her side.”

“Should we leave?”

“I am not certain that that is now possible. There is a reason this room exists where and as it does, and in the event of catastrophic change, the door will not open for anyone or anything. I am included in that,” he added, before Kaylin could ask. He pushed himself up, toward the cavern’s height, his wings spread and moving. She had never understood how flight in creatures the size—and weight—of Dragons worked, but remembered hazily that Dragons required a world with certain levels of magic to do so.

This one clearly had enough.

“Corporal,” Mrs. Erickson said, far more urgency in her tone, “I will be safe. The ghost does not intend me harm. Kaylin—please, talk to her.”

Hope squawked as Sanabalis reached the height of the altar. To Kaylin, he added, What I can allow you to see is not all that Mrs. Erickson can see.

“Should we let her go?”

I believe that is wise—for you, and for your friends.

“But will she be safe?”

I do not know. I cannot see what she sees. Understand that. But there is movement in the miasma I can see, and it is not friendly.

Kaylin turned to Mrs. Erickson, who was now wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “Please, Kaylin. Trust me.”

Kaylin couldn’t say no. Teela could, but the marks on Kaylin’s arms were glowing, and the color of the altar’s light was the color of the marks. “Teela,” she said quietly, “keep the shield up.”

Kaylin—don’t. It was Severn.

She didn’t ignore him, but she couldn’t obey him; she could not turn away from what she saw in Mrs. Erickson’s face. She held out a hand to the old woman, and the old woman took it. Kaylin’s marks rose from her arms, from her legs, forming a sphere around them both—a sphere Kaylin thought only she could see.

And Severn, her partner, who was at a safe distance and could see what occurred only through Kaylin’s eyes.

Sanabalis didn’t come to land on the altar; he hovered there, his wings almost metallic. Kaylin couldn’t see his eyes from her position on the ground. The ladder was wide enough that both she and Mrs. Erickson could climb it together, if it came to that—it had been built with the density of Dragon weight in mind.

She wasn’t certain it would come to that, because as Mrs. Erickson, hand in hand with Kaylin, approached the base of that altar, the light above spread and changed; Kaylin thought she could see the amorphous form of wings—wings raised as if, somehow, the light could break free of the stone that anchored it or contained it.