“You believe their entrapment was somehow rooted in the High Halls itself? Or the sentience that once governed it?” The chancellor directed the question at Severn, with far less rumble and annoyance than most of the questions he threw at Kaylin.

“I have no beliefs, at the moment; too little is known.”

“Can you introduce me to them?” Terrano asked of Kaylin.

“I’m not sure you’ll be able to see them.”

He once again employed the rolling of eyes. “If I can’t, I can’t. But I’m pretty good at detecting boundaries—I have to be if I’m going to find cracks.”

This wasn’t why Kaylin had come to the Academia, but...it made sense. She was hesitant only because Terrano could be so unpredictable.

“He is reckless with his own safety,” Killian agreed.

“He doesn’t really pay attention to anyone else’s, either.” This was Serralyn.

Terrano was probably going to sprain his eyeballs, given the amount of rolling they were now doing.

“Is this something you could do?” Kaylin turned to Killian, brows slightly furrowed.

“As I have not met your phased people, I cannot answer the question. I would think Helen would encounter the same difficulty, but she is more accustomed to the way you think.”

“You can hear everything I’m thinking.”

“True; your thoughts tend to be very loud. But I do not hear them unless you come to visit, and my exposure is not the equal of hers. I can imagine situations in which I might achieve what was done to your friends—but I cannot imagine, having done that, that they would somehow be freely roaming the streets of your city; what I could achieve would be confined to the Academia itself.

“I believe your Helen would have the same difficulty. We have almost total control of what occurs within our physical boundaries—but those are transcribed with words. The High Halls as they once were was a sentient building; it, too, had control over only its immediate environment.

“You wished to speak to Larrantin, and to the librarians.”

Kaylin nodded.

“Chancellor, with your permission?”

“Larrantin is teaching now. Perhaps visit the library first.” He looked down at his desk. “Dismissed.”

The library was both part of, and separate from, the rest of the Academia. Killian had no control over what occurred within the library’s confines. He could forbid students from attempting to enter, as the door was on Academia property. She often wondered if the librarians were happy to surrender that responsibility to someone outside of their purview.

“Not always, no,” Killian replied. “But they were also once professors, and they know what students can be like. They accept that, inasmuch as it is possible, I will keep the library safe from external enmity.” He looked up at nothing Kaylin could see. “There appears to already be a visitor.”

“It’s a library,” Kaylin said, shrugging.