Her marks were small enough to fit across her arms. But she knew enough now to know that how those marks were perceived varied by observer—one of them being Kaylin herself.

“Hope—does the building itself look like a word to you?”

What does it look like to you?

“Like...an attempt at a word, or an attempt at several words.”

But not a True Word?

She shook her head slowly as the import of the question grew roots. “This isn’t a word,” she finally said. “It has the right components, the right...parts, but it’s not a True Word. It’s...an attempt at creating a True Word.”

“With delusions of grandeur,” Terrano added, his tone implying agreement.

“But there’s a word here somewhere. A real one. It’s that that we need to find.”

Terrano nodded. “I think that’s your job,” he said. “I don’t see words the way you see them.”

Kaylin placed her hand flat against the part of the structure that felt disturbingly fleshlike. “I can’t see the word; I can only see the larger structure. But...it has to be here.”

Barrani—some Barrani—hated the existence of their own True Names, because the names that granted them immortality were a weakness that could be used against them, rendering them slaves to the will of another. Attempts to free themselves from those shackles had not historically gone well. Kaylin couldn’t tell if this was another attempt to do the same, but doubted it.

This was different. Azoria had taken something from the Wevaran, something from the Ancestors; she had learned enough to place her home in a pocket space that was attached to Mrs. Erickson’s home or land. She had learned enough to somehow capture the souls of living mortals and bind them, as if they were equivalent to Barrani names.

Kaylin wondered if some of the dead were here, in the outlands; if those she had devoured or those she had murdered had become the clay out of which this edifice of words had been built.

Where would Azoria’s name reside? At the heart of the structure. At its center.

Kaylin withdrew her palm because she needed it. She unsheathed her dagger.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Terrano helpfully asked.

She wasn’t. But she was angry and she knew it. “If you’ve got a better idea, I’m all ears. Short on time, though.”

“I think I could fit in there, if it’s passable.” Passable to Terrano didn’t mean the same thing for Kaylin.

“And I think that would be about the stupidest idea ever if you don’t want to become part of a large, fake word.”

“What?”