LITMIR.BIZ

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of the borders—would have to be literally falling down before it remained empty, and this building was no exception; there were two families, at best guess, living on the first floor. The second floor, however, appeared to be empty.

      They took the stairs cautiously; Severn gave Kaylin the lead because frankly, these stairs didn’t look as though they would support a lot of weight. When she reached the second story, she froze. “Severn? Come up the stairs slowly.”

      The stairs creaked as he climbed them. The halls were narrow, the ceiling, which looked dangerously warped, low. Neither of these were remarkable, or at least they wouldn’t have been in Nightshade, the fief with which they were both most familiar.

      “What is it? What did you see?” was the soft question asked when Severn joined her.

      “A mage was here,” was her flat reply.

      “Is he here now?”

      “If he is, he’s not casting. My arms don’t ache. But—there was magic here. I guess whatever it took to disguise himself as Michael involved a decent amount of power.”

      “Which would make some sense, but a spell of that nature would generally be cast on either Yvander or the impersonator, not a hall in the middle of a run-down building.”

      “It’s not the hall,” she replied. She didn’t argue with anything else, because all of it was true. “It’s the door.” Lifting her arm, she pointed toward the room at the hall’s end. There, against its closed door, was a sigil, an echo of the identity of the mage who had cast the spell. She frowned as she drew closer. There was an obvious sigil, but around it, or beneath it, lay a far less distinct mark.

      She recognized them both. She’d seen them before, in her apartment, just after her home had been destroyed by an Arcane bomb.

      * * *

      The door looked ordinary, for the fiefs; it was old and slightly warped. The hinges were, of course, on the other side, but Kaylin didn’t expect them to be in perfect repair, either. She approached the door with care, noting how utterly silent the rooms to either side were. It was possible they were entirely empty—it was the right time of the day for that—but she felt her heart sink a yard, regardless.

      Severn nodded as if she’d spoken, and opened a door to their right. Kaylin paused and watched him enter. The door wasn’t locked, but frequently, doors in buildings of this nature weren’t. A lock guaranteed violence if someone actually wanted to enter; it didn’t keep them out. People in the fiefs understood squatters’ rights: the stronger person had them. Kaylin and Severn had moved several times, with very little warning, in their early years in Nightshade, but they’d moved unharmed. They’d put up no fight, because the result of a fight was a given; in return, the people who’d kicked them out simply waited for them to walk through the door.

      Maybe that had happened here.

      Severn returned. “It’s empty.”

      “No sign of who’s occupying it now?”

      “None.” He walked straight across the hall and opened the opposite door, entering more quickly. He left more quickly, as well. “Empty.”

      He then backtracked down the hall. Kaylin turned to look at the door at the end of the hall, and at the familiar sigils that sat in its center. When Severn returned, she said, “They’re all empty.” It wasn’t a question.

      “Yes. The downstairs wasn’t. Whatever happened upstairs didn’t make a lot of noise.”

      Kaylin nodded. “Or it happened more than a week ago.”

      “Strong magic?”

      She shook her head. “Weak now. Whatever it was meant to do, it did—but the mages left signatures.”

      “Michael wasn’t working alone, then?”

      She frowned. “One of the sigils is almost illegible, it’s buried so far beneath the other.” The frown deepened. “I’ve seen a lot of sigils. The stronger one looks normal, to me. The weaker one…” She shook her head.

      “You recognize them.”

      “I’m not likely to forget them; they’re what the Arcane bomb splashed across what was left of my home.”

      His jaw tensed; he didn’t. “Don’t touch the door.”

      “Wouldn’t dream of it. Tiamaris is an Imperial Order–trained mage. He might see something here I don’t.”

      * * *

      The good thing about an enspelled door was it forced Tiamaris to let go of his Dragon form; he couldn’t fit through the entrance to the building otherwise, unless he planned to make a much larger hole in the supporting wall. His eyes had shaded to orange, but it was an orange that was very close to red. Tara, in gardening clothes, still sported obsidian eyes. They entered the building with Kaylin; Severn chose to scout the ground floor while Tara listened in. She could do that and move.

      The stairs creaked ominously under Tiamaris’s weight; expecting it, Kaylin waited until he’d cleared them before stepping onto them herself. A fall like this wasn’t likely to cause a Dragon trouble, but it wouldn’t do much good for her.

      Tiamaris strode straight down the hall and paused a yard from the closed door. “You didn’t open it?” he asked without looking back.

      “No.”

      “Is magic now active?”

      As Kaylin had magic detectors built into her skin by default, she shook her head. Her skin didn’t hurt. When Tiamaris repeated the question, she said, “Not that I can sense.”

      He did something that was definitely magical in response.

      “That’s you?”

      “It is.” He reached out and opened the door.

      Kaylin cried out in shock and pain, half expecting the door to explode outward at the sudden force of magic she felt. It didn’t. It was still in one piece, still attached to its hinges. It didn’t appear to have harmed Tiamaris at all.

      But it hadn’t opened into a normal room, either, even by fief standards. It opened into fog and gray, dark shadows. Or smoke without the obvious fire to cause it.

      Tara said something sharp and harsh in a language Kaylin didn’t understand. The door flew shut before Tiamaris could take a step into the room itself.

      “Lady?” he said, turning toward her, as Kaylin said, “Tara?” They spoke with the same inflection.

      Her eyes were obsidian; wings had once again sprouted from between her shoulder blades. “Do not open the door,” she told her Lord softly. “It does not lead to any residence within the fief of Tiamaris.”

      “Where does it lead, Lady?”

      “To the outlands,” was her soft reply.

      “To the Shadows?” Kaylin asked. “Outlands” was not a word she’d heard Tara use before. “To the heart of the fiefs?”

      “No. No, Kaylin. If there was such a place in my domain, I would know.”

      “But—”

      “This is not the same,” she continued. “Not for the purpose for which I was created. It is, however, as much a danger to my Lord’s people.” She didn’t mean the Dragons.

      Tiamaris’s eyes had shaded to a cooler orange; Kaylin was willing to bet that was as calm as they’d get today.

      “Do you know what she means by ‘outlands’?” Kaylin asked.

      “No.”

      “Tara, do you think it’s likely that the missing people walked through that door?”

      “I think it very likely,” Tara replied.

      “Where did it take them?”

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