Liya hesitated,and then knocked on the stone door. The noise bounced up high in the rafters of the hall, sounding empty. She waited nervously, looking around.

The hallway was mindblowing just in how gigantic it was; it had to be several stories on its own. The house she had lived in in Violetta would have fit easily just in one of the high arched windows, which were set in with single colossal panes of sheer perfect glass, and were framed on either side by black stone pillars thicker than tree trunks. These shot to the ceiling and bloomed out into stone rafters--all one strange perfect piece, with no seams, no supports.

Across the river of a marble floor--cobalt shot through with brighter blue and amber, almost electric--huge white statues sat up against the far wall. Their heads were in the rafters, and Liya found it difficult to determine exactly what they were, but they had sleek doglike bodies and long, long jaws like she'd seen so often on crocodiles back home. Each of their carved toenails was as large as she was. They sat at attention, and from their jaws hung absolutely enormous polished oval stones--emerald, maybe? She had no idea--wrapped in a thousand coppery cords that the animals held daintly between their teeth.

She cast the statues a skeptical look, running a hand through her untied hair. Again she glanced at the note, wondering if she'd gotten the place wrong somehow.

Suddenly a voice called, as though in the distance, "Come in!"