“You don’t know what she’s like when she worries.”
“Believe that I do. Why didn’t someone take me home?”
“Gilbert thought it would be a bad idea to move you before you could move on your own.”
“Did he happen to say why?”
“Yes.”
Kaylin shrieked in frustration; it hid the noises her stomach was making. “Honestly, if my arms weren’t so weak, I’d strangle you. What, exactly, did he say?”
Looking, if it were possible, more smug, Mandoran repeated what Gilbert had said. To no one’s surprise, Kaylin couldn’t understand a word of it. “If it helps, he was talking to your familiar.”
“Not really. I’m guessing my familiar told everyone to leave me here.”
“Yes. Bellusdeo elected to stay. Gilbert was visited by another one of your Dragons last night.”
Kaylin wanted to cry. “Emmerian?”
“Lord Emmerian,” Severn said, both correcting and confirming the guess. “Bellusdeo chose to remain. She was not willing to leave the house without you.”
“Did you at least go home?”
Silence.
“So...Annarion is here, as well.”
“He’s downstairs in the parlor. I like that word, by the way. We have a bunch of questions for you.”
“Food first. If I don’t eat, you won’t be able to hear my answers over the noise my stomach will be making.”
* * *
Bellusdeo’s eyes were a steady orange when Kaylin made it into the parlor. She was standing; Kattea was asleep in the largest chair the room contained. Gilbert, however, was absent. “You look terrible.”
“I’ve been in the same clothing, unwashed, for two days, if reports are true. I haven’t eaten. I am terrified that Marcus is going to rip my face off.”
“Teela took care of that. Teela also dropped by your house and left word with Helen.”
“I heard Lord Emmerian was here?”
“He will be back shortly. I sent him on an errand,” she added, showing the first hint of a genuine smile—one that made Kaylin feel instant sympathy for the Dragon Lord. “Don’t look like that. I sent him to the market. With Gilbert.”
“On their own?”
“They were both beginning to annoy me.”
“Can I just go back to being unconscious?” Kaylin, however, entered the room and sat in the nearest chair. “Or sleep. I think sleep would be good. Did Teela say anything about the state of the investigation across the street?”
“Yes. In Elantran. And Leontine.”
Kaylin winced. Tilting her head back, she closed her eyes. She opened them again when food arrived and had the guilty impression that the interval between these two states wasn’t exactly short.
Lord Emmerian glanced at Bellusdeo when he entered the parlor; seeing the color of her eyes, he relaxed. Gilbert, however, paused in the doorway. He offered Kaylin a very formal, very ostentatious bow. He then went to the chair Kattea occupied and woke her. She yawned, stretched and then noticed that Kaylin had joined them.
“You sleep a lot.”
“Not usually.” She attempted to look at Kattea when she spoke, because otherwise, she’d be staring at Gilbert. She recognized the longer lines of his oval face, the straight lines of shoulders, the length of his arms.
He smiled, as if reading her thoughts. “I am well,” he said, voice gentle. “You have my gratitude.”
What he lacked was the third eye. Kaylin didn’t ask him where it had gone. Given Emmerian’s presence in the room, she thought it smarter to keep her own counsel.
“Do you have a working mirror here?”
“I do. I will take you to it after you have eaten.” Gilbert bowed again and left the room. Kattea leaped off her chair and followed, chattering in his wake.
Lord Emmerian’s eyes were shading to gold as Bellusdeo’s did. “You are well?”
Kaylin, wary, nodded. “Hungry,” she added.
“Do you expect more difficulty?”
“I didn’t even expect the last bit. But no, I’m not going to be trying anything I don’t understand in the next little while.”
He met Bellusdeo’s eyes. Bellusdeo wasn’t glaring, but it was close. “Then I shall depart. The Arkon conveys his best wishes and requests the pleasure of your company at your earliest convenience.” He bowed—to Bellusdeo—and left.
“He’s not much like Diarmat, is he?”
“Thankfully not.” Bellusdeo exhaled. Given her expression, Kaylin was surprised not to see smoke. Or steam. “What happened?”
“I tried to heal Gilbert. I think I mostly succeeded.”
“You have certainly altered his appearance. He looks vaguely Barrani.”
Mandoran coughed.
“He looks more Barrani than he does human. I think it’s his skin. Or his ears.”
“His skin?”
“It is remarkably flawless. His eyes, however, are not Barrani—or Dragon—in nature; I do not believe they have changed color once. What is he, Kaylin?”
“I don’t completely understand it myself.” She glanced at Mandoran. “Do you?”
He shook his head. “You’ve changed him, I think.”
“Is that good, or bad?”
Mandoran shrugged. “What Bellusdeo sensed in him when she first met him, she does not sense in him now.”
“I do not necessarily find that comforting,” the Dragon added. “It merely means that it is hidden—and if that is so easily done, it raises questions of security.”
“Define easily.”
Bellusdeo snorted. She walked over to the chair Kaylin occupied, bent and said, “You look terrible. I suggest we go home.”
“Can I eat first?”
“Given how quickly you cram food into your mouth, that won’t take long.” She grabbed Kaylin by both shoulders and shook her gently. For a Dragon. Kaylin was surprised her teeth didn’t fall out. “If you want to have a conversation with Gilbert, have him come with us.”
“Can we bring Kattea, too?”
* * *
The first words Helen said—to Kaylin—when she entered the safety of her own home, were “I surrender. I have managed to create a relatively safe containment sphere which will accept mirror transmissions.”
The first words Kaylin said to Helen were “I’m sorry.”
Helen’s frown was glacial, but she opened her arms. “Welcome back.”
Kaylin walked into her hug. “I didn’t mean to worry you—”
“No, of course not.” Helen smiled, looking careworn. She lifted her head, released Kaylin and stepped back. It might have been a trick of the lighting, but Kaylin thought Helen actually reddened. “I have entirely forgotten my manners. You have guests.” Her expression froze, and the normal, mortal brown of her eyes drained from them as she looked to the occupied doorway.
Kaylin turned to Kattea, who had walked through the door, and Gilbert, who had not. “This is Kattea, and her companion is Gilbert. Kattea, this is Helen.”
Kattea smiled up at Helen, who had, once again, let her manners slip; she didn’t appear to see the child.
“My apologies for the intrusion,” Gilbert said, when Helen failed to speak. He turned to Kaylin. “This was possibly not the wisest of ideas. I believe you won a bet with Kattea; she is willing to answer your questions. I will wait.” Turning to Helen, he asked, “If that is permitted?”
“Where did you meet Kaylin?”
“In my current residence. She came as a Hawk.”
“Are you responsible for her absence?” Helen’s eyes were now obsidian.
“To my regret, I am. I am in her debt.”
“Kaylin?”
Kaylin was embarrassed. “I tried to heal him. I think I mostly succeede
d. We still have a bunch of questions to ask him, and at least some of them are important to Annarion. They’re about his brother. Gilbert didn’t invite himself over.”
“No. He wouldn’t.”
“I invited him. Do you think we can have the rest of this discussion in the side room?”
Helen’s black gaze turned to Teela. “You did not inform me of all of the facts.”
“I don’t have all of the facts,” Teela replied, shrugging. If Kaylin was worried or intimidated by the Avatar of her home, Teela wasn’t. Nor was she about to start.
Kaylin turned to Helen. “Do you recognize him?”
“I am not certain.” Not a good answer. Helen’s memories of her early life—and her early duties—had been irreparably damaged sometime in the past. “He is not the first of his kind I have encountered.” She exhaled. “I cannot read him. I do not think this visit wise. I have spoken to you about the sorcerers of my youth.”
Kaylin turned to look at Gilbert, who still hadn’t moved.
“Well...” Kaylin said, considering. “Unless he tries to harm you—or anyone else—while’s he in the house, I’d like to take the risk.”
“Very well.” Helen nodded stiffly. “Give me a moment to prepare the room.”
* * *
Kattea asked Helen if she wanted help in the kitchen. Time in the kitchen was not, strictly speaking, a requirement for Helen; Kaylin was surprised when she didn’t say as much. Most of the sentient buildings of Kaylin’s acquaintance were not famously good at lying.
“But you’re a guest,” Helen said.
“I like kitchens,” Kattea replied. She had the earnest look of a puppy—a scruffy, underfed puppy who had not yet been kicked in the face enough that it had lost the ability to trust.
Helen hesitated for a moment longer and then nodded. “But if I tell you not to touch something, you have to listen. Certain items in the kitchen are not entirely safe for you.” She led Kattea out of the room.
Gilbert offered his apologies again.
His deference clearly amused Mandoran; Annarion was silent and watchful. Teela lounged—there was no other word for it—across the largest free space in the room; Tain took a patch of wall instead and leaned into it. Severn sat in the chair closest to the door, facing inward.
Gilbert sat to Kaylin’s right; Bellusdeo camped to her left.
In all, it was not a very comfortable room.
“You’ve been in buildings like this one before,” Kaylin said.
“I am of the opinion that I have never set foot in a building such as this. You called it Helen?”
“If you mean did I name her, then no. Helen is her name. She’s in charge. I live here, and I can ask her for things—but I can’t enforce obedience.”
Both of his brows rose. “And it—she—cannot enforce obedience from you?”
“I imagine if she bent her mind to it, she could.”
“She’s certainly been doing a number on Annarion,” Mandoran added. Annarion glared, but said nothing.
Gilbert looked about the room. “She reminds me of my youth. We once lived in homes such as these—places that heard our voices and spoke with their own. But we knew their names. It was one of the many ways in which we communicated our desires.” His eyes were a curious shade of brown, almost rust in color.
“It was,” Helen’s disembodied voice said, “the chief way in which control was exerted.”
“And such control was unpleasant?”
“Was it not unpleasant to you?”
Gilbert frowned. “It was not possible,” he finally replied. His eyes darkened. They weren’t, then, like mortal eyes. Until this moment, Kaylin hadn’t been entirely certain.
“What wasn’t possible?” she asked.
“For our names to be known. I understand that your names are not like ours,” he added.
“We don’t—Kattea and I—have names.” Her frown mirrored Gilbert’s. She understood why immortals resisted being healed. It was almost impossible for the healer not to see the thoughts and emotions of the healed, to some extent. “When I tried to heal you...” Her thoughts weren’t solid enough to form useful questions.
Gilbert’s nod was quiet. “You almost lost your life.”
Kaylin shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time.” She hesitated and then said, “I had no idea what I was doing. And having done it, I still don’t understand. When you say knowing your name is impossible, what do you mean?”
He turned his head, his gaze fixed on nothing.
The nothing squawked.
“It is impossible for you or any of your companions. I am told it is impossible for any who live as you live.”
“But you have a name.”
Squawk.
“There is some misunderstanding. I am an earlier iteration of life. An earlier design. The Ancients were my creator; they were my parents. I do not, cannot, have children in the fashion I am assured you do. Children such as yours—any of yours—would not have been considered possible or desirable on the eve of my creation.” His smile deepened as Kaylin’s confusion grew. “I am not so very different from your Helen.”
“He is mistaken,” Helen said.
“Am I? You were created to serve a specific function. I do not know what that function was or is; your story is opaque to me. I sense its presence, but I cannot read it. I cannot hear it. I was created to serve a specific function—but that function did not rely on others. You cannot move from the space you occupy; to move would destroy you. In that, we are different. But in all else, I believe we have more in common than I have with any of your inhabitants.”
“Your name—it’s like the names of the ancestors,” Kaylin said.
Gilbert frowned.
Kaylin turned to the empty space that Gilbert had been addressing. “Can you explain the ancestors to him? Please?”
Squawk. Squawk. Squawk.
Gilbert’s expression shifted with each screeching syllable. “Where did you encounter these ancestors?”
“In Nightshade’s Castle.”
Squawk. Squawk. Squawk.
His eyes shifted color as Kaylin watched; they were a true brown now. As brown as Kaylin’s, although they had darkened so much she could no longer see pupil. He was rigid by the time the invisible familiar fell silent.
“Yes,” he said. When Kaylin’s forehead creased, he added, “My name is very like the names of those you call ancestors. They are not,” he added, “ancestors, in the Elantran meaning of that word. Their names are not as complicated as mine. I thought them gone or contained.”
“The two we met were sleeping. They woke up.”
“They heard Annarion.” It wasn’t a question.
Annarion looked about as comfortable with this statement as Kaylin felt.
Gilbert glanced at him. “I heard you when I first attempted to leave my home. I followed the sound of your voice...but I could not hear you when I finally arrived in this Elantra. I could not hear you when I first met Kaylin. I can hear you now. I can hear your friend. It is...distracting. Distracting and compelling.”
This didn’t increase Annarion’s comfort level; it also added Mandoran’s discomfort to the mix.
“We hear your pain,” Gilbert continued. “We hear your loss. We hear your fear. We do not understand its cause, but we understand that you are here, that you are real. Your voice is that strong.
“In a bygone era, your voice would have been one of thousands.” He hesitated. “You were not created as I was. You were...born. You have not been altered by any will save your own. The word at your core is so simple, so singular, I cannot hear it. And yet, Annarion, I hear you. I hear Mandoran.” He grimaced. “I hear Kattea.”
“She is engaged in her kitchen duties,” Helen’s disembodied voice inform
ed him. “Refreshments will not be offered immediately; I think it would break her heart if all of her work was wasted. But...I confess I am mildly confused. Gilbert said he found Kattea in the fief of Nightshade.”
“I did.”
“And according to Kaylin, that was weeks ago—a handful of weeks.”
“Yes.”
“Her behavior, and her knowledge of, among other things, food, is not consistent with that claim. Her experience in Nightshade does not mirror Kaylin’s. One would, of course, expect some differences; no two mortals have identical histories or experiences.”
“Is Gilbert lying?” Kaylin asked quietly, noting the shift in the color of both Dragon and Barrani eyes.
“No, dear. Kattea’s memories are consistent with Gilbert’s version of events.”
“What is the difficulty you perceive?” Annarion asked Helen.
“The fief of Nightshade that Kattea was found in is not the fief in which Kaylin was born.”
Chapter 16
Silence.
Kaylin was uneasy. Everything Helen had just said mirrored thoughts—doubts—Kaylin had also had. The silence stretched until Kaylin broke it. “How is Kattea’s Nightshade different?”
“She was not starving. She was not terrified of her neighbors. She lived in a modest house. The Ferals she feared were not—as they were for you and Severn—a simple fact, like sunset or sunrise. There was a functional market within walking distance of her home. She learned to cook while aiding her mother and her aunt.” Helen hesitated.
Kaylin marked it. “What else aren’t you saying?”
“I am not mortal,” Helen began apologetically. “I may misunderstand. But Kattea believes that the Elantra in which you live and work is in her past. She believes that the city as it is now disappeared very shortly after she was born.”
“She thinks she’s from our future?”
Helen hesitated again. “She did not speak of this out loud, and perhaps, as guest, I should not...”
Gilbert, however, said, “Yes.”
* * *
Kaylin turned to Kattea’s guardian. “You told Kattea you needed her.”
“I do not live as you live. I do not travel as you travel. My home was—and is—Ravellon. Ravellon is unlike your city. If the Ancients can be said to have been born at all, it is Ravellon that was their birthplace, and it is in Ravellon that they came of age. In Ravellon, they designed and argued and built. In Ravellon they learned to see, and speak, and sing.
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