“The library is never closed to the chancellor.”
“I’ve been told that no chancellor exists. Look—I was never a student here.”
“Demonstrably,” Kavallac said.
“I live in a sentient building. I’ve visited the Hallionne. I understand a bit about how they work—but at least my home doesn’t have rooms that have to be opened using magical books that areinsidethe room.”
“No, but your building does not exist in the primal ether.”
“It can, but that’s not where it’s rooted—and it’s irrelevant for the purposes of the library. If there’s no chancellor...” She frowned. “If Killian is sleeping, and there is no chancellor, how might he be awakened? The Arkon said—”
“The Arkon?” Kavallac said, voice sharp.
Right. Dragon. The Arkon wasn’t a person, but a title. “He’s the oldest of the Dragons who are currently awake. He was a student here, before—”
“When?”
“Toward the end. His name—or the name it’s safe to call him—is Lannagaros.”
“And young Lannagaros is now the Arkon?”
“That’s mostly what he’s called now, yes. He was a student—”
“I am aware of that. Even Androsse must remember him. Continue.”
Since it was Kavallac who had interrupted, her irritation struck Kaylin as unfair. Then again, so did life on some days. “The Arkon said that there was an emergency chancellor, a fill-in, when the chancellor of the time was drawn into the Draco-Barrani wars.”
“And it was under Terramonte’s stewardship thatRavellonfell?”
“I...think so?” Kaylin forced herself not to wilt, but her tone implied a wealth of ignorance, which was fair: she was ignorant. Her sense of history was so compressed and so vague that she had no clear idea of how that war had even started. She’d seen some of the cost of it in Teela and the cohort; she’d seen the fall of the High Halls.
But she had also seen their rise, their renewal. She had seen the cohort home.
If given time, she would sit down beside the Arkon—or at his feet—and try to separate the strands of that ancient history into something more closely resembling an actual timeline. She had known that the Arkon was old; she had never imagined that his distant youth would have encompassed the fall ofRavellon.
Her ignorance didn’t change facts. The facts remained, hidden and out of reach. It was her job to find facts, to sift through them to find those that were relevant or meaningful.
She lifted her chin, met Kavallac’s gaze, and said, “The Arkon is here. I told you that two Dragons accompanied me into the library. He was one of them.”
“Did he come prepared for combat?”
“I’m not sure what that means,” Kaylin replied. “He’s a Dragon. In the city as it exists outside of the Academia, being a Dragonisall that’s required for combat. Most combat.”
“Very well. That is not a promising reply, but it is acceptable.” She began to walk.
“Wait, where are you going?”
“I am going to speak with the Arkon,” Kavallac replied.
“To speak with the Arkon, we have to pass through the other three intruders.”
“No,” the Dragon replied. “We do not. Androsse?”
Arbiter Androsse grimaced. “I had forgotten how much I enjoy solitude.”
Kavallac began to transform.
Chapter 23