“This is why they’re banned from Baha-char,” I told her. “They trap beings with their riddles and when they don’t get the right answer, they absorb their minds. Your body will live on, but you will not. Don’t say anything. Don’t even cough. He can’t touch you until you make a sound.”

She clamped her lips shut.

I had to save her. I had to do something.

Sean had a familiar contemplative look on his face. There were many species Sean could kill with a knife, but a battle with the sphinx would be incredibly difficult. No, we needed to beat him on his own terms. We needed…

Wait.

“I’ll be right back. Sean, don’t do anything until I come back.”

I took off at a run. Behind me the low rumble of sphinx’s chuckle rolled through the Old Arena.

I dashed through the streets, veering left and right. Here’s hoping he hadn’t left yet.

The side street spat me out onto one of the main thruways. I crossed it and climbed the stone stairs on the side of a building leading up to a terrace above. The Tooth of Shver, a massive ivory fang twelve stories tall and carved into a terraced palace, rose to my left, and the sapphire glass tower was straight across. Okay, I knew where I was.

I jogged along the terraces, crisscrossing the streets on narrow bridges, turned right, jogged for another four blocks, turned right again, and finally emerged onto a wide street.

A towering tree rose in front of me to a hundred and fifty feet, its bark hard and smooth, more stone than wood and swirling with deep red, gold, black, and creamy white as if it were made of brecciated jasper. Its thicker limbs were a full twenty feet in diameter, its thinner branches were about five feet across, and most of them were hollowed, punctured with windows and ornate doors. Balconies curved around the entrances, cushioned in the tree’s foliage.

I headed to the entrance, a ten-foot-tall door in the thick trunk, and knocked.

Twin cameras swiveled toward me from above, looking like two dandelions on thin stalks. A high-pitched voice emanated from a hidden speaker.

“What do you want?”

“I’m here to see the First Scholar.”

“The supplicant hours are not now. Come back tomorrow.”

“I must see him. It’s an emergency.”

“The First Scholar is busy. He has no time for you now. Come back tomorrow.”

Oy. “The First Scholar knows me.”

The voice let out an exasperated chirp. “Human! The First Scholar is very important. Very busy. You are a not-important stupid human. Go away!”

If making a good impression wasn’t crucial, I’d have been hopping up and down from sheer frustration. “Tell him Dina of Earth is here to see him.”

“Dina?” A voice asked from above.