Mandoran remained green, although the color flickered across his skin as if reflecting very ugly flame. Terrano, green, looked normal, except for his eyes, which were disquietingly large in an otherwise properly proportioned Barrani face.

“It’s nice of her to give us a warning,” Kaylin said.

“Make certain you hold on to your children and your new friends,” Sedarias told Mrs. Erickson, as she turned to face what remained of the door. Azoria Berranin might be dead, but if she was, she’d clearly managed to take some of her power with her.

The moaning, low shriek that had been looming background noise became focused and rougher, the voice almost grating in its texture. In it, Kaylin could hear words, but the words were harshly voiced, the syllables almost breaking in the wrong place.

Terrano’s livid green dimmed into a more natural nausea-induced green as his feet once again touched the same floor as Kaylin’s feet did. “Serralyn says: Bakkon is going to strangle Starrante.”

“How does he think he’s going to find a Wevaran neck?”

“With less difficulty than the rest of us would?”

“Bakkon thinks Azoria’s been where Wevaran start. She’s vocalizing the way Wevaran vocalize,” Teela added.

“He doesn’t think. He knows. He is absolutely certain.” Terrano paused; Kaylin assumed Serralyn was feeding him urgent information. “He thinks she’s been in the darkness for a very long time—she’s not out of it yet. We have an advantage. There are no Wevaran young. No Wevaran clutches.

“If there had been, she’d be responsible for genocide.”

Instead of mass murder.

“So...she wants to somehow eat us?”

“Anyone here who has a name, yes. Bakkon feels that the imperatives of the birthing place drive her now. He’s uncertain that that’s always been the case—but he’s very unhappy at our inclusion.”

“Inclusion?”

“We’re now where she is.”

Kaylin knew almost nothing about Wevaran beyond the superficial appearance. But she had thought that the birthing place, the place where the hatched little spiders ran around in almost mindless hunger, had been like a dark cave. A space empty of anything besides little proto-Wevaran.

“Serralyn says the Wevaran birthing places are extensible, individual to the parents. If you were expecting darkness and caves, you’ve failed to understand that. Bakkon is certain that the space we are now in is one such space. He wants Serralyn out of Mrs. Erickson’s house.”

And she wouldn’t leave. But Kaylin was certain Bakkon—outside of the house—wouldn’t leave, either. Not until he knew what the outcome would be.

“Ask Bakkon—”

“Eat or be eaten.” Teela had clearly asked the first question on Kaylin’s mind.

“How do we eat? And, ummm, are we supposed to consume each other if we want to leave?”

“The good news: no. We just have to make sure that we’re not eaten.”

“What, exactly, constitutes being eaten?”