She felt his brief amusement. I believe my teacher felt that my will was not strong enough to force the weapons to conform to my personal ideal, yes. The amusement faded. Mrs. Erickson’s “ghosts” imply heavily that the weapon conformed to the ideal of some prior wielder. I don’t know a lot about the history of these weapons, and I know nothing about the other hands that wielded them.

What do you know?

Barrani who wanted to wield them came and went; none succeeded; most survived.

Most, she thought. Not all.

“Do either of you experience the passage of time in the way you might have when people could actually see you?”

They exchanged a glance. It was, to Kaylin’s surprise, Darreno who answered. “Not entirely. We’re aware that time has passed. Amaldi told you that we sleep sometimes, but when we wake the world around us has shifted. Sometimes the shifts are simple: the buildings are slightly altered. There are more—or fewer—people.

“Sometimes the shifts are far greater. We recognize almost none of the buildings, and the people are...different.”

Amaldi immediately leaped in. While Darreno continued to be cautious—he seldom looked away from Severn—her natural gregariousness was clearly difficult to keep suppressed. “This time, when we woke, there were so many people. People like us. We can still see Barrani, and we can see the Barrani High Halls—but most of the streets are full of people.

“This would have been paradise for us, once. There’s so much here, so much to see and do—and people like us are doing most of it!” She glanced at Darreno, who had given up on attempting to keep her in check. “There are winged people as well—mostly like us, but not quite—I love to watch them. Sometimes I chase their shadows across the ground.”

Kaylin might have once done the same were it not for the very real people in the streets—but Amaldi wouldn’t have that problem.

“Where do you live?”

Some of the light in her eyes dimmed. “Here,” she said. “We don’t have a home, if that’s what you’re asking. Any home we might have had was destroyed long before our birth, and the crèche we grew up in was destroyed in one of the Barrani wars.”

“With the Dragons?”

Amaldi shook her head. “I don’t think it was the Dragons. We didn’t ask. Some of my people were used as subordinate soldiers to their masters; Darreno and I were considered too weak or too young. We had been trained to other things, and our master considered our deaths on the battlefield a waste of all her cultivation efforts.”

Kaylin was silent for a long beat. She glanced at Mrs. Erickson; Mrs. Erickson nodded.

“Can you travel anywhere you want?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can you leave the city?”