Page 186 of Cast in Conflict

“If he’s like any other librarian you’ve ever met, I don’t see how you have a choice.”

The Wevaran headed toward the books that Mandoran had been dusting, for want of a better word.

“I think—if we can leave here at all—we can take him with us.”

“I think that’s about as good an idea as enraging a Dragon.” Mandoran grimaced. “You’re worried because he was crying.”

She nodded.

“You don’t even know why he was crying. And no, I’m not asking him. Or her. And I’m not sure we can leave.”

“I’m sure we can—the outcaste and his deformed Aerians did.”

“You can’t fly.”

This was true. “Candallar’s Tower let the Barrani carrying Spike pass through the border. He wasn’t flying, either.”

“And that doesn’t make you more suspicious?”

She exhaled. “It makes me worried, yes. But the Towers didn’t stop us from reaching the streets. I think, if we can return to those streets safely, we can make it out. I’m worried,” she added.

“Which would be smart if you were worried about yourself. Or us, even.”

“What if someone else gets hit by one of those spears?”

“None of the cohort will. Not now.”

“They’re not the only people there.”

Bakkon cleared his throat. The sound was very loud. “Perhaps,” he said, in the Barrani neither Kaylin nor Mandoran were using, “you might have the rest of this discussion when someone who cannot understand it is not present. In my day—which clearly far precedes yours—it was considered rude to speak a language that all people present could not understand.” The ground shook beneath their feet, but Bakkon didn’t sound angry.

Kaylin could see the mark that had detached itself from her body; it floated—very slowly—toward Bakkon.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Mandoran said—in Elantran.

“As much as I ever do.”

“That’s bad.”

“Apologies for my terrible manners,” she then said, to the Wevaran, and in Barrani. “We were discussing the chance that we make it out of here alive. Ummm, what are you doing?”

“I am gathering volumes of particular interest.” Which is what it looked like he was doing. He paused to spit a glob of webbing. From here, it looked almost opalescent. “There are books here that you will find nowhere else—not even in the vaunted library girded by the Academia.”

Her heart, such as it was, sank. If he had simply pulled a couple of books off the shelves, she would have been fine—but if he intended Kaylin and Mandoran to carry these, they’d be staggering down streets heavily overburdened. Running would be out of the question. She opened her mouth. Closed it.

“He doesn’t mean for us to carry those, does he?” Mandoran asked, in Elantran.

“You could ask him,” she replied—in Barrani.

The Wevaran began to move more quickly, scuttling up the sides of shelves to pluck a single book or two from the heights; he vanished around the corner without bothering to come back down to floor level.

“What’s happening now?” Mandoran whispered.

“I have no idea.” She glanced, once, at the word that had separated itself from her skin; it was growing in size. This, too, she had seen before—but not usually in someplace as physically solid, as real, as this.

“There is no reason to shout,” Bakkon said, his voice carrying from wherever it was he had scuttled toward.

“I was not shouting,” Kaylin said, raising her voice. “Bakkon—what are you doing?”

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