“I’m here. I’m almost blind, but I’m here. Give me a couple of minutes. Also: don’t touch the door.”

“What do you see?”

“It’s trapped. There are strands woven into the surface on this side in a pattern. So far, only the door seems to be problematic.”

“Yes. It almost slammed shut behind you.”

“I think it’s safe to enter—I can’t promise we can get out the same way. I think the door opens and closes a portal.”

“It’s not a portal,” Kaylin said. “Or not a normal one. I don’t feel anything like portal space. Teela?”

Teela walked into the foyer. “You’re right. There’s no portal.”

That would explain a few things—chief of which was the portrait room that no one, until Kaylin and Teela, had entered for decades. Somehow the buildings remained connected, even when the front door exited onto the porch.

“I’ve got a painting further in,” Terrano said.

“Enchanted?”

“Not in any way I can see. It should be safe to look at. Serralyn can hear me; so can Sedarias, which means I can hear her. Bakkon doesn’t want her to follow, though.”

“Why?”

“He’s afraid the door will close, trapping us all in what he now calls Azoria’s web.”

25

“He wants her to stay behind to open it if it slams shut?”

Terrano nodded. “While it’s true the door is likely to open to the porch and the street now, he believes he can interfere in a way that would allow Serralyn to open the door to this place. Or reopen it, if we’re stuck here.”

Kaylin glanced at Teela. The Barrani Hawk shook her head. “If I were willing to remain here, I could keep the door wedged open. I can maintain the spell from a distance, but not indefinitely, and it would take some concentration.” Given her expression, it was a long way of saying she wasn’t willing to be a living door wedge.

“Can we, I don’t know, pull up one of those stairs or something and physically wedge it open instead?”

Severn coughed into his hand.

“We could try. It’s a remarkably mundane solution.”

“I’m a remarkably mundane person.”

Mandoran laughed.

“It’s not like Azoria can storm into the Halls of Law and accuse us of property damage.”

“True. It might be easier to find something in Mrs. Erickson’s living room than it would be to disassemble parts of the stairs on this side.”

“Mrs. Erickson?”

Mrs. Erickson nodded.

“Severn will go with you; he can carry whatever furniture you choose to risk.”