“What happened to them?”
“They encountered a trap.”
“That thing we saw? The Shadow?”
He nodded. “It’s not a complicated Shadow.” Glancing at Kaylin’s left hand, he added, “Spike is complicated. This one wasn’t. But we spent centuries figuring out ways around Alsanis and his various walls and cages. Sedarias realized what was happening just before it did happen, and they all managed to avoid it.”
“So...their state is voluntary?”
He winced. “None of them were as good at it as I was. And Sedarias isn’t—wasn’t—notably flexible. She and Annarion weren’t the best.”
Kaylin had seen Annarion alter his shape—without intent—before. She disagreed with Terrano, but kept it to herself.
He glanced at Kaylin again, exhaled, and said, “But she heard you when you called her name. They all heard you.”
“Did they hear me because Sedarias heard me?”
He shook his head.
“You’re certain?”
“They are.”
“If it’s possible,” the Dragon interjected, “could we have the rest of this discussion somewhere else? I’m not entirely certain we’re safe here.”
Unfortunately for the Dragon, who was practicing common sense, Spike said, “If you desire it, I can translate for you. I did not realize your hearing was so inadequate.”
* * *
Bellusdeo had had enough experience with Gilbert that she barely flinched when Spike spoke. And she had had enough experience with being a captive pawn to Shadow, or the Shadow in Ravellon, that she was willing—with effort—to see Spike as someone who was, when free, no threat to all of the rest of the living. But it was hard, and her eyes remained a steady, burning orange.
“If you’d like,” Spike continued, “I can attempt to alter the range of your hearing; you would not require—”
“No, thank you,” Bellusdeo said, her voice falling into draconic rumbling.
“Kaylin?”
“Could you do it safely?”
The question caused Spike to whir a bit as he considered it. Terrano clearly found this more amusing than pulling almost insubstantial people out of a cave.
“I do not understand the question.”
“Oh?” the Dragon asked.
“I do not understand how you are using the term ‘safely.’ I cannot do so without making some changes in the actual mechanism, no.”
“No,” Bellusdeo repeated, making less effort to be polite since it was clearly wasted. “If Sedarias and her friends now exist on a plane with which we would never otherwise interact, the hearing—for our kind—is not required.”
“But Kaylin desires communication.”
Bellusdeo snorted. Small tufts of smoke were twined around the exhaled breath. The familiar also snorted, but then proceeded to squawk at Spike. Several times.
“I don’t know about you,” the Dragon added, “but I consider the possibility that there are unseen things living in the exact same space as I am extremely disturbing.”
Kaylin shrugged. “If we can’t normally see, hear, speak with, touch or otherwise be affected by them, I don’t see why.”
“You mean that?”