Terrano muttered a brief word in mangled Leontine. He knew what Teela knew, but actual pronunciation took a bit more practice. “Here, can you see this?”

She shook her head. “It looks like stone, to me.” The stone in question was a vertical line that rose far above their heads, possibly to support a horizontal line at the height. “But I couldn’t see the door in the painting, either. Is it a door?”

“Not exactly.”

“What exactly is it?”

“I’m not certain. From one angle it looks like a crack.”

Kaylin couldn’t see a crack, but given Terrano’s color at the moment, that wasn’t surprising. “Hope, do you think you could go back to normal size?”

I do not think it necessary. What Terrano perceives as a possible crack, you are capable of sensing on your own.

Spike, however, whirred and clicked; if Hope was reluctant, Spike wasn’t. Kaylin held out a hand, and he came to her palm immediately, the protrusions for which she’d named him biting into her palm. He then proceeded to melt there, vanishing into a vaguely metallic puddle.

Kaylin joined Terrano. He lifted a hand, but she shook her head. “Hope says I should be able to sense it on my own, and I don’t need any more complaints about my weight.”

Terrano grinned, but lowered his hand as Kaylin reached out to touch the column.

Hope was right. If she couldn’t see a crack, as Terrano, still tinged vivid green, could, she could feel a sudden difference in texture. It wasn’t door width; it was only person width if the person was a starving four-year-old. But it was warmer than stone, and when she pushed against it, it had give.

It reminded her of the unseen ground that occupied most of the outlands.

“Spike, is this where the connecting thread is?”

He whirred and clicked in response, which was the largest disadvantage of small-Spike form. Hope, however distant he might have been, said, “He does not understand your question.”

“We see a very, very large structure in the shape of a word.”

Click. Whir.

Spike sees a word. The thread is attached to the word. I do not believe the stone structure both you and Terrano see is visible in the same way to Spike.

Which made no sense, but the outlands, combined with an almost dead Arcanist, was a place where sense was always going to be in short supply. And that was unfair. Spike could see clearly enough to bring them here at great speed. What he could see or sense was real.

“Is the word Spike sees as large as the one Terrano and I see?”

He does not understand the question, but says that it is like your marks.