Kaylin couldn’t see a ward. “Please don’t tell me that the ward is bright green. No, let me amend that. I don’t want the ward that you can see and I can’t to be bright green.”

“Sometimes we don’t get what we want. What makes you think it’s green?”

“Because you’re green again, and...so are the marks.”

“I don’t look green to me.”

“No? What do my marks look like to you?”

“Colorless.”

“I really hate subjective reality. If you don’t mind, I’m going to try to open the door the normal way.”

“Door wards are the normal way.”

“Fine. The poor person who can’t afford door wards way. Better?”

“Slightly. Sedarias says she will chop off a hand if you let go of me.”

“Yours or mine?”

“She wasn’t specific. She always worries that I’ll get lost.”

Kaylin glared at him for a beat, and then reached out to touch the ghostly door. Because she was moving slowly she noticed that her hands, like the door, were pale and transparent, but that transparency was tinged green.

I’m not sure where this will take us, and I’m not sure we’ll remain in contact, she told Severn.

Severn didn’t answer. Using their bond, Kaylin risked a glimpse of the room she’d deserted; she could see that Azoria had learned the fine art of spitting, Wevaran style. Severn’s chain was spinning; the webs didn’t find purchase there. But they’d found purchase on random parts of the floors—and walls—and Mandoran’s shouted warning made clear that they weren’t just revolting blobs. No one was to stand in them, and no one was to be hit by them; he thought they’d teleport whatever body part they hit into a different place, while leaving the rest of the body behind.

Azoria, in the brief glimpse Kaylin took, had only sprouted two extra arms, but her face was no longer Barrani. It wasn’t Wevaran, either; it was like a flesh mask of a bad artist’s hastily crafted version of a Wevaran, if Wevaran had Barrani skin.

The eyes, on the other hand, were waving in the air at the height of their stalks.

Take the eyes out, Kaylin told her partner. We’ll hurry. She took a deep breath, prayed that the handle worked and the doorway wasn’t an actual portal, and reached out.

The handle of the door felt solid beneath her hand. She gripped it tightly, felt no magical blowback, and twisted the knob. The door, which should have swung open, dissolved instead; only the doorknob remained. That, and the oddly glowing frame.

“Yes,” Terrano said, although she hadn’t asked. “It’s a portal. Don’t let go of my hand.”

Kaylin nodded as Terrano pulled ahead, almost jerking her off her feet. She closed her eyes, which sometimes helped, and entered portal space.

She suspected, as lunch attempted to escape her stomach, that portals from one place in a building to another didn’t cause nausea because she remained in the same general space. She had very little hope that this portal would be like Hallionne portals, and indeed, it wasn’t.