At the two figures that had just disappeared through it — the Archbishop and the demon lord, walking side by side, not speaking.
"We wait," she said. "His signal was hold. We hold."
Aen looked at her.
"What did he see," Aen said.
She was quiet for a moment.
"The same thing I was reading from here," she said. "Plus whatever he reads at close range." She paused. "Caldris doesn't go in unless he's made a specific calculation. He made it."
"What's the calculation," Aen said.
She thought about it.
"That going in gets him something he can't get from out here," she said. "Information of a specific kind. The kind you only get from proximity."
"He's reading the settlement directly," Aen said.
"Yes," she said. "He wants to know if it's what it looks like."
"Is it," Aen said.
She looked at the wall.
At the ordinary morning sounds coming over it — construction, kitchen activity, the settlement doing what it did.
"It's exactly what it looks like," she said. "That's the thing."
