The door rolled open. If it wasn’t warded, magic was nonetheless in use; Kaylin could feel her skin start to tingle.

“Of course,” a familiar—and disembodied—voice said. “I believe I would be considered almost entirely magical in nature.” Killian had arrived. “I’ve been with you since the administrative building,” he corrected her, still failing to physically appear. “Hello, Hope.”

Hope squawked. The squawking, while quieter than usual, was also longer. Suspiciously so.

“Are you waiting for an escort?” A low, rumbling voice came from the inside of the room.

“We have to go,” Kaylin told the invisible Killian.

The former Arkon occupied his desk as if it were very oddly shaped personal armor, his eyes a steady orange—not a terrible sign, but not a good one, either.

“How did you know I was coming?”

“Things have been too peaceful in the last fortnight,” was his deadpan response.

“Sanabalis?”

“The Arkon, and no. Why are you here?”

“I wanted to speak with the librarians, and I wanted to speak with Larrantin.”

“About what, Corporal?”

“Well, I think I’ve met a couple of people—humans—who seem out of phase, the way the students in the sleeping Academia were. They can’t be seen by anyone except one little old lady, and me if I’m wearing Hope’s wing as a mask.”

“And you weren’t drinking at the time.”

Kaylin rolled her eyes. “No. I mostly don’t drink unless Teela and Tain go out tavern hopping and drag me with them.”

“Where did you meet these people?”

“Near the well closest to Cross.”

“And you spoke with them?”

Kaylin nodded.

“Which means they could see you.”

“They could. I could understand them. I thought of the Academia, because it was locked down for so long, but...people like Larrantin sort of existed, as did Killian. Everything was here, but...not quite real. Larrantin knew a bit about it; Killian knew about it. I’m sure it’s not the same thing, but there could be some information that could be relevant to the two people I met.”

“How so?”

“Well.” She hesitated. “I think they might have been stuck wherever it is they are before the first Draco-Barrani war.”

Heavy brows rose; the chancellor’s eyes paled into a silver or an orange-white. Kaylin hadn’t seen that color before. “What makes you say that?”

“Killian—and the students trapped here—didn’t age. They were separated from the passage of time and from what we call reality in almost all ways. I think the same has happened to these two, because—” she inhaled “—they recognized the High Halls. As they are now.

“They hadn’t seen the High Halls as they existed for all of my life prior to that. I think they were put into this place as a way to preserve their lives; they seem very familiar with Barrani things, and it’s highly likely they were slaves.”