“No.”

Terrano cleared his throat.

“I can hear you clearly; your thoughts are the equivalent of shouting at great volume in an empty, stone room. They echo. But your companion’s thoughts are very murky.”

Serralyn’s eyes lost green. “How did she ask you to create these symbols? Did she simply visualize? Did she sketch? Did she show you the image by magic?”

“I fail to understand your questions, but there is an urgency to them. She had a very specific order in which the vines were to be laid—but the flowers at the center of the symbol were to be created both first and last. I can show you, if you are concerned.”

Serralyn nodded. “But not on the doors, and images only.” She frowned and then shook her head. “My apologies; I have been informed that my manners are appalling when I’m studying something too intently. I have no right of command—anything I say is a request, and if you are unable to accommodate it I apologize for asking for something difficult.”

“It is not difficult,” the Avatar replied, his eyes obsidian as he studied her face, her eyes, her expression. “But I am now concerned for other reasons. The Barrani—especially the elder Barrani—are careful to guard their thoughts or to hide them by emphasizing elements that would otherwise be considered gentle noise.

“You are not one of them. Terrano’s thoughts, as I said, could be heard clearly from any corner of my territory, but he is now as confused as you are.”

Serralyn’s eyes lost all green then. “Just what did she build here?” she whispered.

“That is a very relevant question. I would have answered: she did not build. I did. But there is an interference here that appears to be centered around the doors. And it is the doors that are your concern. You will, I think, become an important scholar in future.”

Serralyn should have been pleased by the compliment, but if she was, her eye color didn’t shift. “Please,” she said softly.

The Avatar nodded. Barrani buildings clearly had Barrani memory. Although the Avatar didn’t move, the space a yard in front of the doors began to shimmer in place. Absent the wood in which the pattern had been laid, the pattern began to form. As he’d said, he’d started with the flower at the center of the design. It was a flower Kaylin recognized.

“Was the flower that color when you began the making?” Kaylin asked, because the flower had color on the doors—it was the color of what she now considered a healthy plant.

“Yes.”

“But...it was going to be part of a door, and the flower on the door is...wood.”