Cast in Flame

by Michelle Sagara

  “It was during this time that I became acquainted with mortals. I knew of them, of course, but they had never been relevant to my existence in any practical fashion. One of the servants was mortal. Ah, no, three were. But there was one. She was an older woman—older than you, dear—with gray hair; it was quite, quite long when she let it loose, but she always bound it and kept it off her neck. It got in the way of her work, she said.

  “And it was such odd work. She swept the floors. She washed them. She washed the mantels—where they existed. I once put a small statuary in her way—and she cleaned that as well, although perhaps her language was a little on the colorful side at the end. She often said, ‘I’m not young anymore!’ while she worked.

  “She came with flowers and branches and leaves; she came with small things—carvings, mostly, but sometimes small blown-glass figures. I broke some of them to see what she would do—I was younger myself, and less civil—and she swept up the pieces and removed them. Only once did she show some reaction. She was very, very quiet. Very still. She gathered those pieces by hand, one at a time.”

  “What was it—what was the figure of?”

  “Another mortal, I think. A child.” The woman said, “If you would like to see it, I kept it.”

  “You said you broke it.”

  “Yes. I did. But—her reaction made me look at it more closely. I could see no discernible merit to the figure; it seemed much of a style with the rest. But for some reason, it was personal to her. And one day, in apology, I gathered the broken pieces, and I fixed them. And then, in case the figure should happen to break again, I made more. Many more.” She smiled as she spoke, her eyes that kind of faraway that meant memory. “I left many of them in the room in which she slept. It was a small, dark room, with a single high window and a very narrow door; it was meant as a closet, at one point.

  “When she returned to her room after a day’s work, she found the room changed. I didn’t think the lack of light would make my gift clear enough, so I altered the window. And the window itself was so flat it almost seemed like a prison window; I changed that. I did not change the size of the room, or otherwise alter its shape—I didn’t want the changes to be noticed easily by anyone but her.

  “Her name was Hasielle.”

  “What did she do when she saw what had happened?”

  The smile deepened. “She froze in the door and stared at the window. I think it took her a while to notice the small figures that were on the sill, the light from the window so captivated her. She was not used to living in light—only working in it, always. She told me later she didn’t mind the dark, because in the dark, there was silence and peace. But—yes, she saw the figures after she managed to take her eyes off the window, all of them. She covered her mouth with her callused hands. She might have cried—I am really not allowed to say.”

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?” Mandoran asked. If Kaylin had been sitting beside him, she’d have kicked him. He’d have the most bruised shins in the city. “What? It might be relevant!”

  “She’s protecting the person’s privacy, idiot,” Kaylin said. “She doesn’t mean Hasielle is going to threaten or hurt her if she talks.”

  “She lived here. I did nothing for her for years. I made her life harder, rather than easier. But...she didn’t tell her masters about the figures—or the window. She kept the place clean; she cleaned up after them if they’d been particularly destructive. She was here for years before she injured her shoulder and her back.” The smile faded. “And then, she didn’t come for months. The others came. New people. New mortals. They were not like her. They didn’t bring me things. They didn’t bring their flowers and their curtains and their small, fragile figures. They didn’t hum while they worked.

  “I was...sad. Not angry, not enraged—but sad. It was not a new feeling; I understood it; it was familiar. But I had no memories of feeling it before. I was particularly unfriendly during her absence—it was really unfair to the people who replaced her, because they had no choice in their work. They were terrified, by the end of two days; they had to be forced to enter the building at all.

  “But their masters had mishaps as well, and of a kind which made the fears of their servants more relevant. I thought they would give up. I wanted them to give up. I wanted them to leave.” The last word was spoken with a force that none of the other words had contained; it caused Kaylin’s skin to tingle.

  The small dragon rose, wings lifted; he roared. Sadly, it came out as a longer, louder squawk. Kaylin reached up and put a hand over his mouth. “You are going to deafen me,” she said, pointedly. He bit her hand, but not hard enough to draw blood. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting intruders to leave, either. Just—stop.” She turned her attention back to the landlord, whose eyes had shifted into a decidedly nonmortal appearance.

  “I’m sorry, dear,” she said.

  “It’s all right. Tara has problems remembering her eyes, too.” There were a lot of questions Kaylin probably should have asked next; the landlord seemed to expect some. But at the moment there was only one question she wanted answered. “Did Hasielle come back?”

  The landlord smiled. Her eyes had once again become normal human eyes; at this distance they were an indeterminate shade of brown, lighter than Kaylin’s. “Yes. But she came back after I was no longer anyone’s responsibility. I was so surprised to see her,” she said, her voice softer. “I knew she was mortal. I thought she had died of her injuries.”

  “Injuries don’t always kill us,” Kaylin said.

  “No. She looked much older, and her gait was so changed I almost failed to recognize her. She was afraid. Fear is so strong it taints the air; if someone is afraid of me, it’s often the first thing I hear. And she was afraid. But...it was a different sort of fear. She was anxious; she kept looking back over her shoulder—at the perimeter of the property. I could hardly believe it was her.

  “And I knew—I thought I knew—what she was looking for. I moved the earth, for her—literally. I changed the front doors. I changed the stairs—they became a ramp, with a rail, so that she might walk up more easily. I unlocked the doors. I knew—I knew she would hate the rubble and the splinters that I’d allowed myself to gather, to become—so I swept them away.

  “And the entire place had become a bit of a maze. It was only suitable for vermin, really—but that had been deliberate on my part. I considered all the visitors vermin, at that point. They were carrion creatures. They considered themselves, of course, somewhat differently. People always do.

  “But—for the first time since Hasielle left, I saw myself as she would see me. She had always taken some pride in my appearance, no doubt for her own sake. She had such odd notions about tidiness, cleanliness, and order. I had never spoken a word with her. I felt that I couldn’t. I was not her master, but neither was she; she owed loyalty to the men and women who searched for the remnants of the Sorcerer’s research.

  “So what she knew of me was slight, indirect. I had to rearrange everything before I could open the doors to admit her. But there was one room I hadn’t changed. I sealed it off when it became clear to me it would no longer be lived in. And it wasn’t. I would not allow the others to use it, you see; nor would I allow them to take anything from it. Anything at all. I wanted to preserve her things. I wanted to preserve them until she returned.

  “I think—I think she must have known. I think they must have told her what I’d become—if I’d had the time to think it through, I would have realized this. But I didn’t, of course. I was excited. I was...happy. I was in such a rush to get everything done before the door was opened.

  “And I finished. She opened the door. She walked in. She could see my front hall—but it wasn’t truly mine, by then—do you understand?”

  And Kaylin did. “It was hers. It was the hall she cleaned and tidied. The rooms—they were her rooms. She left flower
s in them. She changed curtains. She didn’t know, until the glass figures, that there was anything special about you, but she did all those things anyway. Until she was injured. How was she injured?”

  “I don’t know. She fell, I think—but it was outside. Outside where I can’t go. It didn’t occur to me to resent my lack of mobility—and I didn’t. Not immediately. But they brought me no word of her. And she did not come.

  “You can imagine what her reaction was when the doors did open.”

  But Kaylin shook her head. “Actually—I can’t.”

  “What would you have felt, dear?”

  Kaylin met Helen’s gaze.

  “If you opened the door to the home you thought destroyed, what would you have felt?”

  Kaylin closed her eyes. “Suspicious,” she said, quietly. “Because it would be impossible.” But...she had opened a door in the heart of a Hallionne which lead to the apartment which she knew she’d never enter again. And suspicion hadn’t been her first thought; it hadn’t even made the list. She opened her eyes. “I don’t have words for it, Helen.”

  Helen smiled. “I didn’t coalesce; not as you see me now. She had never seen me. I was her home, but I wasn’t part of the way she viewed it. But I was waiting. I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so nervous. I have, of course, been worried; I have known fear, and anger, and even rage. But this type of nervous? No.

  “But—she was nervous, too. I could almost see her straighten her shoulders as she entered my hall. She had the frown she wore when she was certain there was work to be done. I think she might have been disappointed to see everything so tidy. But—it was her tidiness. It was her order. I didn’t have flowers for her, though. I had the vases but they were empty. Flowers are difficult, for me.

  “I had her small glass figurines. I put them everywhere she might have left flowers. I didn’t write her letters—although I could have. I held my breath. Hasielle held hers. And then she closed the door firmly behind her and marched toward the small room she’d occupied when she was my caretaker.

  “And when she opened that door, and she saw her room—with the windows I’d given her on that day—she cried.

  “I didn’t know what to do with her tears,” Helen added, lips folding in a fond smile that held a touch of pain. “She was happy. But she was not happy in a way I’d experienced before—not from any of the many masters of this house, and not from their guests. It was so strange, so odd, and so entirely like her.

  “I wanted to talk to her, then. But—I may have mentioned I was nervous. She’d been gone so long, and I knew that she could just turn around and walk out the door again.”

  “You could have prevented that,” Annarion said quietly. It was the first time since Helen had started that he’d spoken.

  “Yes, of course. I could also prevent any of you from leaving.” She frowned, and then added, “Perhaps not you and your friend. But the rest, yes.”

  The dragon squawked.

  “Yes, dear, I know. But you know I wasn’t referring to you.”

  “Imprisoning her wouldn’t give you what you wanted,” Kaylin said. “Because then you wouldn’t be a home. You’d be a jail.”

  “Yes, dear.” Helen smiled. “I didn’t appear to her. I watched her, of course. I was worried. She was older and frailer. I made certain everything was solid enough that nothing would hurt her. I was almost afraid to have stairs.” The nervousness, of course, had long since faded, and she recalled it with affection.

  Kaylin, recalling her own nerves and their often catastrophic results, wanted to be old enough that she could look at them the same way. It was an odd thought.

  “But she was there in the morning, in her bed. She woke early, as she always did. She made the bed. She cleaned the room. She headed into the kitchen, and she fussed about, cleaning things that didn’t really require cleaning. She was very quiet. She had never done any cooking on her own before—and none of her masters lived on the premises. Cooking for one, she later told me, was not really cooking.

  “But she worked. I thought she might inform her masters that I was safe again. She didn’t. I’m not sure she knew quite what to do with herself. I certainly didn’t understand what to do for her. I wanted her to stay.

  “And she wanted, in the end, to stay. I am not quite like your Tara. I think I was damaged enough in the wars that I do not always see clearly or understand what I see.”

  Given Tara’s interpretation of the thoughts she could easily read, Kaylin thought Helen was wrong.

  “Within a few weeks she was less hesitant. And she started to sing while she worked. I didn’t clean everything for her, because she liked to have something to do. I did clean things that required too much lifting or too much crawling. She settled into her routine here. She would go out and come home with food. But she began to work in the garden, as she called it. It was not so much of a garden at that point. I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t leave enough for her to do in the house—but I think she liked to help things grow.

  “And she grew flowers, that first year. She brought them into the house, as she had before. They made her smile. They made me smile. I remember the night she first placed them on the table—the dining room table, which she never used. She was expecting a guest. She didn’t have clothing suitable for a dining room, in her own opinion. But she wore the best clothing she had, and she made dinner—for two. She used the plates that were used by her masters—never for herself, of course.

  “And she served her first course, and water, and wine—which she herself couldn’t abide, she found it so bitter. It was all so very strange. I watched the door. I knew she expected someone important—but no one arrived. I had never asked her if she had family; she had never once thought of them where I could hear her.

  “But no one arrived. The candles burned, wax melted; I kept the food warm while she waited. And she did wait. I think two hours passed while she waited, and then she rose. I thought she would leave. Instead, she turned to the mirror and said, ‘I know you’re here. You’ve been here all along, haven’t you?’ There was nothing in the mirror but Hasielle’s reflection—that, and the table, the candles, the flowers she had brought. She wasn’t looking at herself.

  “‘You were here when I served the Sorcerer and his subordinates. You were here while they searched. You were here when I fell. I thought you’d left. I heard about the difficulties the Sorcerers began to face in my absence. They replaced me, of course—I couldn’t do the work. And the building fell to ruin—stairs broke. The chandelier in the front hall. The stairs that lead both toward the tower and toward the basements. The floors themselves wore; the boards thinned. Windows shattered.

  “‘I was certain you must have left,’ she continued, for I didn’t know how to respond. ‘And I grieved. I shouldn’t have. You never showed yourself to me, after all. You made me no promises. You weren’t like me; the Sorcerers spoke of you with respect. Well, with what passes for respect from their lot. But...you understood that my small glass child was important to me. When I broke it, you somehow fixed it. I couldn’t believe that you would let the house fall to such ruin in my absence, but the women they hired to replace me spoke of all that had happened.

  “‘And I had to come back. But—you were here. You were waiting. My home was waiting for me. I was so afraid when I walked through that door. I didn’t want to see ruins and destruction and neglect. And I didn’t. We’ve never talked,’ she continued. ‘And I would like to. I am told that if you wish it, you can speak to me as if you were like me.’

  “And she was right, and that night, I did.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “She was my first tenant,” Helen said, when no one spoke. “And if that first night was awkward—and oh, dear, it was—it was only the beginning. And I have learned that no matter how much we desire beginnings, all beginnings have awk
ward moments. Fear makes us awkward. But trust dispels fear, in the end.

  “You meant to ask, when you arrived, to see the apartment I had for let; you meant to ask me how much I intended to charge you, and how I wished to be paid. Is that not true?”

  Kaylin nodded.

  “And were I a more traditional landlord, I would have answers to that question. I would, of course, have some flexibility. I would ask you in turn how you intended to pay; I would ask you about your place of employment. I might, as a matter of course, ask for references. But as you see, these are not meaningful questions, on either of our parts. You are, clearly, someone who can give me what I require. If this is an interview, you have impressed me with your suitability.

  “What questions do you now have for me?”

  Kaylin hesitated. The small dragon did not. He squawked enough for an entire flock of birds—when they were fighting over the same crusts of bread.

  Helen’s brows rose, although her eyes retained their more-or-less normal appearance.

  “He would be living with me,” Kaylin said quietly, when the dragon paused—probably for breath—and Helen had failed to speak.

  “Yes, he’s made that quite clear.”

  “What is he saying?”

  “You are really going to have to do something about your linguistic difficulties,” Helen replied. “At the moment, he is asking about my rules.”

  “All that was one question?”

  “He is informing me of his. They are interesting. I am not entirely certain they are in keeping with what you would expect of a home.”

  “I’m not sure I’m in keeping with what you’d expect of a tenant. I don’t keep regular hours. Gods know I’ve tried, but it doesn’t generally work out as planned. I’m not particularly tidy; I don’t let food rot in the open air, and I don’t track mud—or worse—in through the door, but I’m not exactly a gardener, and I’m really not a flower person. I also don’t own very much at the moment, and I don’t have any furniture or other useful things.