“Why do you think you saw it today and not yesterday?”

She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “I reacted a lot quicker this morning. Maybe I looked in the right place at the right time? Maybe it helped that it was outside, and the sun was shining? It was a lot brighter than it was in our bedroom. All of this is speculation, of course. Your guess is as good as mine.”

Tiago said, “There might not be only one of them. There could be more.”

Graydon pinched his lower lip. His daughter rested on his lap, her tiny rosebud mouth open, occasionally making a slight squeak as she snored. “Why move things around and collapse the building site? Is it—or are they—trying to get our attention, or are they like cats and knocking shit over for the hell of it? If they want to get our attention, they’ve achieved that. But what are they trying to say?”

“That’s assuming they’re the ones that made the building collapse, and we don’t know that either. Let’s get back to trying to identify it,” Dragos suggested. “That might give us some idea of its motive. What is it?”

Niniane lay on the floor, curled on her side as she played with Niall’s plump fingers. She remarked wistfully, “It sounds like an angel.” When everybody fell silent to stare at her, her expression turned self-conscious. “Or at least, it sounds like how I imagine an angel might look.”

Bel’s smile deepened. “In ancient Elven lore, there are creatures called the seraph that are not quite of this world. They are, we believe, the origin of the angelic beings described in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Personally, I’ve never seen one.”

Dragos’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, not quite of this world? I don’t much care for the sound of anything that I can’t see, hear, touch, taste, or kill.”

Once Beluviel had hated and feared Dragos, as he and the Elves had a long, acrimonious history, but now she gave him a look filled with, Pia could have sworn, sincere affection. “Of course, you don’t. The Great Beast is very much grounded in the material world.”

Pia said suddenly, “Every Other land is in another dimension from Earth, and they’re all connected with crossover passageways. What if these seraphs are in yet another dimension that comes very close to overlapping the ones we live in? We already know we live in a multiverse. Earth is not in the same place as Rhyacia, or Adriyel, or Ys. So by that logic, wouldn’t it be possible for the seraph to exist on yet another neighboring plane?”

“You’re making my head hurt,” Niniane said cheerfully.