Sonder did not conjure a second barrier immediately or lift the one she was standing on.
She wasn't just testing the strength of the construct beneath her feet further, but also listening and watching the world around her, listening to any shift that might betray that she had already been noticed.
Just to be careful.
But it seemed safe.
There was no sudden movement from behind her, no feelings of eyes on her, and no interruption on this strange island.
Only then did she begin.
Another barrier formed just above the first, thin as the one she stood on, barely visible even to her own eyes, and with a small adjustment of her will, the lower one faded away, transferring her weight upward in a slow, deliberate motion that avoided any sudden displacement of air or sound.
She repeated the process.
Again.
And again.
Each step upward was careful and measured.
Her focus was divided between maintaining the fragile integrity of the barriers and ensuring that their faint shimmer did not catch what little there was in the night.
Even the slightest glint could be enough to draw attention in a place like this.
Branches approached her as she rose, leaves brushing faintly against her shoulders and arms as she guided herself between them, angling the barrier ever so slightly to slip through the narrowest gaps rather than forcing her way through and disturbing the foliage.
It was slow but quiet, and quiet was what she needed and wanted.
When she finally broke through the canopy, the world opened around her.
She paused again. Not out of necessity, but out of caution.
From here, the manor was visible again. Its monotony cut into the foliage. It didn't belong to the land it stood upon.
She moved forward.
Below her, the canopy stretched out in uneven waves of darkness, broken only where the clearing around the manor cut through it.
She approached from the side, not directly from the front.
Her path curved, subtly, ensuring that she would not pass over any of the guards' lines of sight, even if they did not seem to look upward, because she did not trust that their blindness was as simple as it appeared.
The manor grew larger, and its roofline shaped into something sharper in the darkness.
Even from above, there were no openings that she could immediately see. No gaps, only stone.
But the blue thread was stronger than ever.
It was directly beneath her.
Her movements slowed until she was still, trembling faintly as she focused on keeping it steady at this height, where even the smallest lapse in control could send her falling.
She lowered herself.
The distance between her and the roof shrunk until she was close enough to see the texture of the stone clearly. Smooth in some places, rough in others, but all of it is intact.
She hovered just above it.
There was something-
There was that thought again.
Sonder wanted to think that it was evil.
But that wasn't right.
This place had something unwholesome about it, but not because of the place itself.
It must have had something to do with what was happening here.
If those guards were the same as the man in the ship's cell, then there was a good chance that they themselves were man-eaters.
That was evil.
She didn't want to think that they all were inherently evil, as she had only seen one of them.
He could just be an especially evil person. Killing, lying, and threatening.
She just didn't know enough.