"Oh, Rafe and Merlin built a mirror-hall just yesterday," Dexter said in a dismissive way Solomon could well imagine was accompanied by a hand-wave. "Ghastly and I were kind of drunk by the time we got there, which made it really interesting to walk through, but it was actually something about training the younger generations? Anyway. It's not far out of Dublin."
Solomon thought of Rafe's assertion they should let the sorcerers define their own world, of the Rubik's cube in the shape of a castle, and snorted. "Of course they did. Corrival has been buying as many statues as he can from the masons since we came up with the idea, China. We had a few transported here directly." Solomon turned, holding out his hand to indicate he needed Dexter's shoulder again, and a moment later it slid under his palm.
"Why, Solomon, you're such a gentleman," Dexter said winsomely as he sidled out, but Solomon gripped his shoulder hard and tugged him away from the door.
"Ladies first," he said blandly and with undercurrent amusement. His gaze, however, remained on China. There was something more than just the impending satisfaction of a job well done. Now the lifestream was muted, it was oddly sharpened too--as if he was no longer dazzled, and so could see details. It was like wearing metaphysical sunglasses.
It looked ... like something that was specific to China, or at least the way in which it was broadcast did. Her web, spinning outward, reaching for things that weren't quite there. One of them reached for him, but tentative. Solomon felt sure he should be able to recognise it, but he couldn't think of what it might be.
The pure-white gleam of dewdrops on thread, on the other hand, he did recognise. There was only a handful of them--a tiny collection on the edges of that hole, smaller than it had been before.
Hope. Hope for what, he didn't know--but it was there.
"They're in the first storage-room just down the hall to the left," he added just a little absently, in the way he wasn't aware he'd started to do when he was concentrating on reading someone: head just slightly tilted as if to see or hear something better, brow furrowed, and eyes piercing in ways that weren't normal.
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Solomon thought of Rafe's assertion they should let the sorcerers define their own world, of the Rubik's cube in the shape of a castle, and snorted. "Of course they did. Corrival has been buying as many statues as he can from the masons since we came up with the idea, China. We had a few transported here directly." Solomon turned, holding out his hand to indicate he needed Dexter's shoulder again, and a moment later it slid under his palm.
"Why, Solomon, you're such a gentleman," Dexter said winsomely as he sidled out, but Solomon gripped his shoulder hard and tugged him away from the door.
"Ladies first," he said blandly and with undercurrent amusement. His gaze, however, remained on China. There was something more than just the impending satisfaction of a job well done. Now the lifestream was muted, it was oddly sharpened too--as if he was no longer dazzled, and so could see details. It was like wearing metaphysical sunglasses.
It looked ... like something that was specific to China, or at least the way in which it was broadcast did. Her web, spinning outward, reaching for things that weren't quite there. One of them reached for him, but tentative. Solomon felt sure he should be able to recognise it, but he couldn't think of what it might be.
The pure-white gleam of dewdrops on thread, on the other hand, he did recognise. There was only a handful of them--a tiny collection on the edges of that hole, smaller than it had been before.
Hope. Hope for what, he didn't know--but it was there.
"They're in the first storage-room just down the hall to the left," he added just a little absently, in the way he wasn't aware he'd started to do when he was concentrating on reading someone: head just slightly tilted as if to see or hear something better, brow furrowed, and eyes piercing in ways that weren't normal.