We introduced ourselves to the girl, whose name was Caul of Zanzu's brood. She was a little scared, but she was young enough to still have some belief about the omniscience of adults. We gave her a rundown of where we were and what had happened to her, and promised we'd try to get her back to her family as quick as possible.
“You know it's possible her family thought she was dead a couple of centuries ago,” Prometheus criticized. “You think your sister will agree to take her in?”
“Have to check with her Matriarch first, but if she doesn't want to go back, I'm sure Harm will step up to the plate.”
By the time we'd filled the kid in, we were down to about ten minutes left on this side, and I worried for a second about Caul not being pulled back with us, but Ranson nixed that.
“The 'Smoke's Portal is two way, she'll be fine, and we should probably take Laughing Boy with us, as well.” In the rush I'd forgotten about Math, although the thought of him dissolving into the Void still spellbound did have a certain appeal to it. Ranson used a spell to wrap the Ancient in a spidersilk cocoon, and Avani towed him along, since she had a strength booster enchantment on her armor.
With its 'foundation' undermined, the Court of Dreams began to slowly collapse. The first sign was the floor going spongy, like walking across a soaked bathmat, so we decided against trying to clear anything else out of the Redoubt, figuring that between the collapsing structure and the probable ephemeral nature of anything in it we'd be wasting our time. We ended up just sitting on the throne room floor and talking while we ran out the clock.
“So what was up with that inhaling-a-tornado stuff?” Avani asked. “You broke that trap like it was made out of paper and cobwebs.”
“Haven't the foggiest,” I lied. “I knew we were stuck, no way out, and something in me just snapped , got hungry, and chowed down.”
“Sounds like a Dragon trick, not a Drakine one.”
“I know. Any chance you guys could keep it to yourselves?” I asked.
“Not a problem for me,” she said. “Last thing I want is for you to get pissed off and come after me,” she said with a nervous laugh. “You think the dream-binding will snap when this place goes?”
“Definitely, if it wasn't already broken by him breaking Math and pulling the kid loose,” Ranson gave his more experienced opinion. Probably for the sake of the arachnophobe, he'd shifted away the extra eyes and arms, and the Reeve followed suit. “Better, I was feeling overdressed.”
“Me too. Get all geared up for a battle, and surprise, anticlimax.”
“You should have seen the Fae Clanheads when I came in riding on Pegasus,” I said just to change the subject. They took the bait, and I got about halfway through the story of the Wild Hunt before a shimmering took shape in the air.
“You'll have to ask Aunt Bitterness about the hunger and what it means, Tam, I can't tell you any more than I already have.”
“When you do cryptic, you really do cryptic,” I commented as we hustled ourselves, Math, and Caul across the Portal and back to the Marketplace.