Kaylin nodded. “The Swords will be screaming for my head if I happen to escort a giant talking spider through the city streets. And they’ll have some cause.”

“I think Larrantin might have knowledge I lack,” Serralyn said. “And he was one of her teachers.”

“Yes. But the teachers who would be the most useful to interrogate are actually Arbiters who mostly can’t leave the library.” She thought of Androsse and made a face. “We might be able to get Bakkon—but I really don’t want the Swords to come after me when he causes screaming panic and fleeing crowds.”

Serralyn frowned. “I think I might be able to help with that. But I’ll have to meet you at Mrs. Erickson’s—I won’t be able to join you in your hunt for the two mortals.”

“Sedarias thinks that’s a good idea,” Terrano told Kaylin. “But Serralyn thinks it should be relatively easy for Bakkon to...kind of attach a nascent web strand to her, and use it to portal himself to where we are.” Before Kaylin could speak—and she’d opened her mouth to point out flaws in this possible plan—he lifted a hand. “Returning to the rooms he now occupies shouldn’t pose any difficulty.”

“He’s staying at the Academia?”

“Liatt has offered him residence, and he’s accepted the offer in theory—but I think he hopes to spend at least a decade chatting with Starrante, and doesn’t wish to waste time and energy by going back and forth.

“Are we ready to go?”

“Almost,” Kaylin replied, around a mouthful of breakfast.

“If you’re not ready in five minutes, you’ll have way more company than you want.”

She ate quickly.

Amaldi and Darreno were easy to find; they were in the first place Kaylin chose to look: by the well, where she’d first met them. Darreno was standing; Amaldi was crouched over a huddle of children who seemed—at this distance—to be playing with dice. They were a bit too young to be betting, and were gleeful in their triumphs and angry in their losses—normal children, in other words.

Amaldi seemed to be trying to intuit the rules of play, but she looked up as Kaylin’s shadow crossed the children’s game. The children also looked up, one with a guilty start; she could guess who’d brought the dice.

Not wanting to immediately appear unhinged to a group of children by talking to the air above their heads, she asked if they had seen a woman who exactly matched Amaldi’s description; given she was a strange adult, the children were both relieved and willing to answer, the answer being no.

“If you do see her, can you tell her I’ll be waiting to the west of the fountain?”

The kids nodded.