The Dragon nodded, frowning. “This is where we exited the border zone.” Turning so that her back faced the border, she gazed out into the streets, confirming it for herself.
Kaylin was certain she was correct. That building with the broken fence—the third slat had been snapped in half at least a decade ago, by the looks of it—had been on that corner.
It was Hope who sighed and lifted a wing, smacking the bridge of her nose with it. “I think Hope doesn’t think this is the way in.” The familiar didn’t leave his wing across her eyes. Whatever he thought she’d see, he didn’t think was relevant enough.
The gold Dragon didn’t take this as a criticism. “If the Towers appear—or vanish—depending on the direction of our approach, this makes some sense.”
“You don’t think we’ll find it?”
“I’m not sure we have much to lose.” Which sounded very much like a no.
Kaylin did not make a bet—with any of her companions. But they walked down the streets she could see and Nightshade couldn’t, and emerged into the fief of Tiamaris. They then turned around and came back. Bellusdeo asked them to retrace their steps, and Kaylin realized, as she turned, that the damn street wasdifferentseen from this side.
It looked like the border zone. It did not, however, conform to the streets they’d just passed through. And it wasn’t a simple block or two, either.
But Bellusdeo insisted, and Kaylin—who wanted lunch—had developed a watchful fatalism. She wanted to get this over and done with. So they reentered the border zone from the fief of Tiamaris, the only Dragon fieflord. They walked down a different street, with different run-down buildings. From this vantage, she could see Castle Nightshade. On the way through the first time, she had seen Tara’s white Tower.
“The thing I hate about magic,” she said, “is that none of it makes anysense. It doesn’t seem to follow any rules. Or logic.”
Bellusdeo snorted but said nothing; it wasn’t the first time she’d heard Kaylin’s rants about magic, and this one was pretty clean. It was less clean when they emerged in Nightshade again, because they didn’t emerge in the same place they’d left.
Nightshade’s eyes had narrowed into slits of concentration. Bellusdeo’s eyes were a shade of orange that implied they might drift into gold. Someday. Severn was silent.
You knew.
I suspected. This conforms to my prior experience.
Did you ever exit and enter the same location?
No. I wasn’t exploring the border zone to explore. I had a goal in mind.
Did you think someone had fledintothe border zone?
It struck me as a distinct possibility. It still does. But the Towers are aware of their own borders, and it’s likely the fieflords are aware of breaches. I didn’t necessarily want to attract their attention. They’re laws unto themselves—accepted laws—and if someone flees to the fiefs, it’s likely that the fieflords are aware of them.
You think whoever you were hunting had permission?
Silence.
Sometimes, he said when silence had implied a break in the former conversation,the border zone does conform to expectations.
But more often not?
Fifty-fifty—but I didn’t spend much time experimenting. In the end, with the exception of Farlonne, it’s better to take the known bridges into the fiefs than it is to trust the border. I didn’t know the fiefs well enough to easily reorient myself when the displacement was several blocks.
Which appeared to be the case.
Nightshade had not yet given up. He did not attempt to enter the border zone from their first entry point; he turned immediately and reentered from the point at which they’d emerged.
He then crossed the border a half-dozen times. None of those times took him—took them, but Kaylin thought they were becoming increasingly irrelevant to the fieflord—to the large building that almost resembled a town hall.
“We will have to leave you,” Bellusdeo finally said, as disgruntled as Nightshade. “But I will do one aerial sweep of the border zone.”
“I do not advise that,” the fieflord said.
“Oh?”
“Given the changing shape and length of the area one traverses, it is a distinct possibility that you could end up emerging inRavellon’s airspace.”