“It’s a house,” she replied.

“You don’t feel nauseous? You don’t feel dizzy?”

“No. Except for in that one room.”

Bakkon began the particularly disturbing sounds that meant he was about to spit web, which was how the Wevaran formed portals.

“This house isn’t normal.”

“What precisely do you mean, not normal? We can all see it, and I walk into it the normal way. Mrs. Erickson lives here, and she can leave and return. And bake.”

Bakkon spit webbing through the doorway, aiming for the floor some two yards away from where Kaylin now stood. The web didn’t land. Between leaving the Wevaran’s mandibles and hitting the floor, it vanished.

“Can you do that again?” Kaylin’s words exactly overlapped Terrano’s.

“I can,” Bakkon replied, “but I think it risky. Terrano is correct. There is something very unusual about this ‘normal’ home if my understanding of mortal dwellings is not lacking.”

“Do you know where your web actually landed?” Kaylin asked.

“I am attempting to follow the strand—but I do not believe I will be able to answer that question; the strand is...entrapped, I believe.”

“Can someone follow it back to you?”

“A very good question. I will investigate the building from the outside. Serralyn?”

She nodded instantly and headed toward the door to join him.

The door slammed shut in her face.

24

Mrs. Erickson looked at the closed door. She then turned to her guests. “I’m sure it must have been wind,” she said, in the least convincing version of certainty Kaylin had ever heard. She turned toward the door, but Teela stepped in front of her, joined by Serralyn.

“I don’t believe the door should be touched,” Teela said, in official Hawk voice.

“Do you think it’s dangerous?”

“I think it could be.”

Mrs. Erickson looked doubtful. “Cookies?” she asked Terrano and Mandoran.

Mandoran smiled. “I’d love some.”

Terrano, however, was now staring at the door. His eyes continued red; his hands became transparent. “I really wish he hadn’t done that,” he said.

Serralyn was pale; her hands were in fists. “I brought him here,” she whispered.

“I think he’s trapped on the outside.”

Kaylin turned to Mrs. Erickson. “I need to open a window.” She hesitated, and then said, “No, Terrano needs to open a window.”

“You want me to tell Bakkon to go home?”

“Immediately, yes.”

“If he asks why?”

“Tell him it’s Starrante’s fault.”