“In case you hadn’t noticed, Severn isn’t a big talker, and he has his hands full. Sedarias can’t hear Severn the way she can hear me, and she wants me here.” Terrano wasn’t sprinting, so he had no trouble finding the breath for words. “You couldn’t see the door. I’m here to help with that.”

While Kaylin believed he could help, she was willing to bet that wasn’t the primary reason he was here. He’d wanted to open that door the moment he saw it, and he now had an excuse.

The first thing Kaylin noticed as the painting came into view was the lack of its central figure. Azoria Berranin, framed and larger than life, was no longer in it. The painting’s former background was now foreground. She had thought the outlands more vivid, more real, than the woman to whom they had served as background, and in her absence, that impression solidified. The painting appeared to be a portal, or a window into the outlands.

But this wasn’t a sentient building. She was certain of that.

No. No, it is not.

Azoria had used the High Halls’ connection to the outlands, and the High Halls were definitely sentient. Azoria had clearly learned how to reach that space without tapping into the roots of the High Halls or any other sentient building.

Terrano came to a stop to Kaylin’s right; he offered her a hand. Kaylin grimaced and took it. She glanced at her shoulder, but Hope wasn’t on it; he was at her back in what she thought of as his Aerian form.

Terrano cursed in Leontine. “I have no idea,” he muttered, “how Mandoran manages to move you. You’re like deadweight.”

“What the hells does that mean?”

“Don’t distract me—he’s trying to explain it. Just...let me know when you see the damn door.”

Kaylin muttered a Leontine imprecation and continued to stare at what remained of what had once been a portrait. Something flickered directly in front of her, and as she turned her head to look at Terrano, she caught a glimpse of something that might have been a door from the corner of her eye. She turned to the painting and lost it. “Almost there—I can see something out of the corner of my eye, but I can’t see it when I look straight at it.”

“Yeah. It’s like faint starlight. I’m not standing in the right place yet, but closer. Do not let go of my hand until you have the door in sight. Sedarias says: or at all. Seriously, you don’t want any of our names—you’d never get away from Sedarias.”

Kaylin grinned in spite of the urgency of the situation. “That’s it—I can see the door. It’s very faint, more like the ghost image of a door than a door.”