The Dragon then lifted her chin. “You were not the only one to enter.”
“No. I had two Dragons as companions.”
“Either your ability with numbers is deplorable, or you did not bring the other three with you.”
“I’m trying hard to avoid catching the attention of the other three,” Kaylin whispered. “They’ve already set a fire trap—” She slammed her jaws shut before more words could escape.
Neither of the Arbiters said a word for one long, unfortunate beat. “You are concerned about the presence of the other three?” the Dragon finally asked.
“We sure as hells didn’t set any traps. We don’t want to have any fight here.”
“You said you entered through a stone wall.”
Kaylin nodded.
“And your friends—the Dragons—entered with your permission.”
Breaking a hole into a wall—however it was done—wasn’t exactly permission, but Kaylin nodded anyway.
“Androsse,” Kavallac said, although her gaze remained on Kaylin, “perhaps you had better tell me the rest.”
“I would prefer to wake Starrante first to avoid pointless repetition.”
“I had not noticed that you had any disinclination to repeat yourself.”
Hope snickered.
Arbiter Androsse did not. He did a pretty good imitation of an ice sculpture. To Kaylin he said, “Lead the way.”
Since Kaylin had no idea where Starrante was, this caused a few seconds of confusion for everyone, and annoyance for Androsse. He resumed the lead; the ghostly form of Kavallac drifted to Kaylin’s left—the arm in which she carried both books.
Hope was rigid, his wing plastered to Kaylin’s eyes. She wondered if she would see the two Arbiters at all if he lowered it. She didn’t ask him to experiment.
Kavallac said, “This is not good.”
Androsse, however, had stopped. Kaylin didn’t run into his back because the Dragon had spoken. The first Arbiter turned to face the second.
“His book is missing?” Kaylin asked.
“His book,” Androsse confirmed, “is missing.”
Kaylin had no hope of finding the missing book; Kavallac and Androsse moved ahead and began to search—which mostly involved standing in place and lifting and lowering their gaze.
“If someone else was holding this book,” she said, “would I be able to see the Arbiter it contained?”
One ghostly stream of irritated smoke accompanied the curt answer. “No.”
“So you’re not really here?”
“We are not, as you put it, really here. Unless and until you have the three Arbiters gathered, our ability to interact with the rest of you is limited. Some flexibility exists for the Arbiters if they are wakened individually.”
“Can you tell if Starrante has been wakened?”
“No. But in general, it was Starrante who was wakened first. It was,” she added, “Androsse who was generally last to arrive.”
“Would that have something to do with positioning in the library itself?”
“Yes. I am uncertain why the library is not accessible to the student body; perhaps the chancellor felt that there was enough of an emergency that it had to be secured.”