The entire scene from start to finish is one of the most peculiar displays of magic that the Fool has ever witnessed--and he's seen the figureheads of liveships quickened to life by the deaths of others on deck, and journeyed through Skill pillars with no knowledge of where he might land once he stumbled out the other side. The magicks of the Bingtown Traders and the Six Duchies were subtle, the effects felt or seen, but the magic itself largely invisible. To see portals opening before him in the air to admit the presence of two fleshy beasts, living enough to have their life's energy sapped by the power of Trahearne's shroud, but not alive enough to feel pain--

The sight of their collapse into dust still tugs something hard in his chest, and his breath catches. The Fool briefly covers his mouth with one hand, taking a few small, deer-like steps forward before he stops himself. At last he turns to look at Trahearne again, searching his face a moment before he looks back to the piles of dust where his minions once stood. "Where do they come from?" he asks at last.