The upstairs yielded no children’s ghosts; the only room Kaylin didn’t thoroughly check was the room in which the painting hung. She did stand in the open doorway, but she didn’t enter. Mandoran cursed, and drifted slightly farther in; his curse wasn’t aimed at the two Hawks he’d been shadowing.

“This place is...really messed up,” he said. “Even looking at it is giving me a headache.”

“Why?”

“It’s like she’s taken a room and sliced it into layers and moved those layers into different planes, while insisting they visually overlap. It is really, really ugly.”

The room didn’t look like that to Kaylin—or Severn. “I’ve stood in that room before.”

“I don’t see how.”

“So did Teela.”

“Then we can assume the room has changed somehow. This would not be a safe place to enter at the moment—at least not for any of us. You might manage; Severn might manage. The scientist in me wants to tell you to give it a try and see what happens.” He winced again. Clearly one of the cohort didn’t find any humor in the suggestion, which strongly implied Sedarias.

“Fine.” Kaylin exhaled. She was worried about the children, which was ridiculous—they were already dead. But the worry had grown much, much stronger as they’d searched. It wasn’t like Jamal—who defined possessive—to be so absent when Mrs. Erickson invited visitors into the house. Esme was usually visible as well, but Katie and Callis were far more timid; had it only been the two missing, she wouldn’t have worried so much.

But Jamal? No.

“The children were terrified of this room; they wouldn’t enter it, but they wouldn’t talk about it, either. They’d just go almost catatonic for a while—according to Mrs. Erickson. She hasn’t said they’ve shown up, has she?”

“No.”

“Can you check?”

“Serralyn can.” Pause. “No. She’s worried. I mean, Mrs. Erickson is worried.”

“Can you ask Serralyn to ask Bakkon how he feels about the front door?”

“He considers it very unwise to touch it.”

She spit out a bit of Leontine. Why was life like this? “Ask him how he feels about us opening the door and leaving through it. I don’t think it’s going to take us outside the house—but I think further in might be our only option.”

“He asks why you consider this wise.”

“We don’t have a lot of choices. I suppose we could try to leave through the window—but Mrs. Erickson isn’t young, and she’s going to find it a lot more difficult than a door. I’m also really worried about the kids. There has to be some reason they’ve never been able to leave.”