Darreno nodded, as if this was not a surprise. To Amaldi he said, “They can’t tell with the Barrani. One century or ten, the Barrani trapped wouldn’t age. We’re the only mortals they have.”
Kaylin nodded. “If we knew what would happen, we’d tell you. But right now, you’re alive.”
“Is that what you’d call it?” Amaldi surprised Kaylin; her voice was soft, low, a hint of anger beneath the surface of the words. Amaldi had always been the more social of the two. “Do you know what I miss?” It was clearly a rhetorical question. “I miss being able to hug people. I miss being able to help Mrs. Erickson with her buckets, to offer her an arm before she stumbles.
“I miss being able to eat. I miss being able to smell the baking she carries to the Halls of Law. I miss being able to sing so that other people can hear me—that was what I was known for in Berranin, before Azoria. I miss being visible. I miss what little relevance I had as a person in the world.
“Have you ever been so tired death seems like the better option?”
“Yes,” Kaylin replied, without hesitation.
“I’m almost that tired.” She didn’t ask Kaylin for any explanation of her own circumstances. “Being visible had disadvantages. I remember wishing I could be invisible when the Berranin halls were noisy. But I wanted that because in my daydreams I imagined invisibility would be under my control. I miss people. Even Barrani people.”
“I think she thought, initially, that she could preserve us for longer,” was Darreno’s quiet addition. “Had she given us immortality, or effective immortality, she would have been respected and sought-after by the Barrani who valued their aging slaves.”
“Not only the Barrani,” Kaylin said quietly, aware that during their time as slaves in the High Halls, Barrani were the only visible, the only important, people. That had changed; they knew it. But watching it wasn’t experiencing it. Watching it, when shelter and food weren’t necessary, was very different.
She wondered how they would manage were they to be introduced to Elantra as living, breathing people, and filed that away for future poking. It would only be a concern if they survived what the Avatar would attempt.
Amaldi joined Darreno, who remained standing. “Yes,” she said. “We’re willing to take the risk. If it helps Mrs. Erickson—if it saves Mrs. Erickson—I feel we owe her that. She’s the only person to whom we’ve mattered since we woke this time. And if it somehow helps Mrs. Erickson’s children, that would probably help her, too.”
“It would,” Kaylin said, rising as well. She understood that the concern of the Avatar was not a concern Amaldi or Darreno shared; if the Barrani perished, they probably wouldn’t care.
The Berranin suite remained as they had first encountered it, except the doors were now plain and unmarked. Amaldi and Darreno could follow the halls the Avatar laid out; there was only one point at which they shimmered in place. The Avatar frowned, apologized, and adjusted something entirely invisible to Kaylin’s eyes, and they resumed their walk down the halls.
“They’re different,” Amaldi said.
“Yes,” the Avatar replied. “These rooms no longer occupy the physical location they once occupied, and I have strengthened the...privacy defenses that make them impassible for all but the few I choose. I believe you will find the interior almost unchanged, but if you do not, I would be very interested to hear how it differs.”
Hope, somewhat indolent until that moment, sat up, complaining. He lifted a wing and placed it across Kaylin’s eyes as the doors rolled open.
The rooms were the same as Kaylin remembered, as was the hall, the T-junction, and the placement of both studio and gallery.
“Terrano has investigated the studio and its various tools; he believes that there is some enduring enchantment on some of the brushes, but it’s minor; one could easily pass them off as preservation magic.”
“Are they preservation magics?”
Terrano shrugged. “There are differences between this enchantment and Sedarias’s similar attempts. They’re subtle. I wouldn’t have noticed it had I not been looking. Serralyn agrees. The enchantment on the palettes, however, is different. It feels the same. If I weren’t paranoid, I’d consider it harmless. The paint itself isn’t enchanted.
“But...it’s not normal paint, either. Serralyn spoke with the Arbiters; Kavallac feels there might be a combination of paint and enchantment that creates a larger enchantment; it might bypass the cautious. Not all of the paint is augmented, but all has been preserved by the High Halls. Can you ask your friends—”
“Terrano wishes to know,” the Avatar said to those friends, “if you know how these paints were made. Serralyn—and through her one of the Arbiters—believes that some of the pigments, some of the base sediments, may be found in the green.”
Amaldi nodded. “We could, with effort, retrieve some of the plants in the green. They did not last long—not as they were. But she continued to make the attempt.”
“I think she managed,” Kaylin said quietly. “I’m sorry, are you both ready?”
Amaldi reached out; Darreno took her hand. To Kaylin’s eye, they looked more like children than they ever had. “Yes.”
The paintings were no longer shadowed by strange fog; they remained on the wall, where they had first been placed—but they were paintings now. Nothing remained within them. Only two were different when viewed through Hope’s wing: Amaldi’s and Darreno’s.
“We should have had Serralyn meet us here,” Terrano said. “She’s waiting at Mrs. Erickson’s, because she needs to be there if Bakkon is going to join us.”
“Why did we want a giant spider to join us again?”
Terrano rolled eyes. “Bakkon is worried, and he wants to examine the space; he thinks that Azoria may have learned things Starrante didn’t intend to teach her.”
That shut down any possible argument; an image of Azoria as a spider, eating the weaker to grow strong enough to leave the darkness was enough to destroy her appetite.
Hope bit her ear, but not hard enough to draw blood. Kaylin glanced at him; he pointed his snout in the direction of the two mortals. The command was clear; she walked toward them, moving behind where they had chosen to stand, which happened to be directly in front of, and slightly between, the two paintings that represented them.
Terrano approached the paintings, standing between them. He stopped, as he had the first time he’d attempted this deconstruction, just out of reach of the twin nimbuses of gray, and lifted his arms to hover to the left and right. This was fine. The third arm which protruded from the center of his chest was less mundane. Neither Amaldi nor Darreno could apparently see this.
“Is your friend going to join you?” Kaylin asked the Avatar, who stood to one side of the cohort member.
“It is not necessary. What he achieved the first time, I could clearly see; unless this is very different, I believe we should be fine. Serralyn, however, did what I could not easily do.”
Teela cursed—a Leontine word. Turning to Kaylin she said, “You’d better protect her.” Ah, no. It wasn’t to Kaylin she was speaking, but Hope. She then stepped behind Terrano, drew a deep breath, and placed her palm against the fabric of his shirt.
For some reason, watching Serralyn literally become an extension of Terrano hadn’t been disturbing. Watching Teela do it felt wrong. Teela was part of the cohort. Kaylin knew this. But on a visceral level, Teela was Teela.
Wrong or not, she did. She grimaced, wincing as if she’d picked up a piece of hot metal with bare hands. Kaylin took a step toward them.
No. You are where you need to be, and she is where she needs to be.
Kaylin swallowed words, nodding.
You cannot be what she is; you cannot be what they are. Accept that. You can be where they are, but what Terrano now does is...highly unusual. Necessary. I wish I had met Azoria while she still lived. I almost wish I had answered her call.
“Her what?”
Hope shook his head. Pay attention.
Kaylin nodded. She reached out with both hands and placed them on the shoulders of the two mortals who waited.
Terrano unraveled the binding that surrounded the canvas, just as he had the first time. He worked deliberately but slowly; any speed gained was due to familiarity. He had a much clearer idea of how to unravel the spell Azoria had cast. As before, the fog was separated into distinct colors; as before, some of those strands were obsidian. As before, once separate, they seemed to spread: shadow vines with shadow thorns.
But there was a third thread in this mix, one absent from the enchantments built around the Barrani portraits Kaylin had seen.
“Yes,” the Avatar said. “Yes, and no. Watch. Touch nothing.”
The third strand was a pale ivory surrounded by a patina of gold; it reminded Kaylin of her marks. She had never understood how they chose the color that they adopted when they started to glow. She stiffened when those strands began to struggle as Terrano worked. They then reached—slowly—for Amaldi and Darreno.
No, Hope said, as Kaylin’s hands tightened.
Amaldi and Darreno couldn’t see what Kaylin could see. They didn’t apparently notice when those strands began to twine around them. At first it was a single thread, but more threads followed. All of the threads that Terrano teased apart, all of the gray and the black that he slowly stripped away, were at heart pale ivory and gold. She could see that light only as the darker colors thinned; in some cases, they shattered, shards floating into nothingness, no doubt at the intervention of the Avatar.
Only pale gold remained, and all of those strands, all of the components of that cocoon, now reached for the two mortals. Kaylin’s hands were white-knuckled; they were now the only thing she could clearly see. The golden strands didn’t touch her.
Kaylin.
She inhaled, bracing herself; exhaled and forced her fingers to relax. This was the decision Amaldi and Darreno had made, forced on them in the end by Azoria, by the Barrani, by their existence as slaves in the very distance past. She lifted her hands, stepped away, and lowered her arms, her hands becoming empty fists.
“Terrano,” the Avatar said. “Step back.”
“I’m not sure I’m finished—”
“You are finished. Step back now.”
“I’m really not certain it’s done—”
“An’Teela, please.”
Teela grimaced, pulled her hand out of his back—literally—and then grabbed him by the arms and carried him away from the paintings before he had time to struggle or escape.
“Thank you,” the Avatar said. He then turned toward the two.
Hope lifted the wing that had been plastered to her face for so much of the day. Even without the wing, Kaylin could see the golden lights that stood in the hall as if they were two glowing cocoons. As she watched, the light tightened, molding into the shape of limbs, body, neck, head—all familiar.
“Breathe,” Teela said.
Kaylin exhaled the breath she hadn’t even been aware she was holding. The strands that had been drawn tight by an unseen hand slowly became transparent. She could see Amaldi and Darreno appear as they faded entirely. Amaldi blinked. Her hand remained locked in Darreno’s; for the first time, she tried to disentangle them. Darreno’s hand tightened.
Kaylin approached them as they both blinked. Hope’s wing was no longer plastered across her face, but she could see them clearly. “Amaldi?”
Amaldi turned toward Kaylin, her eyes bright and wide. She spoke. Kaylin couldn’t understand a word that came out of her mouth.
“No,” the Avatar said. “You would not; the language has not been spoken among your kind for a very long time.” He turned to them and said, “You will find it helpful if you speak High Barrani instead.”
“But she always understood us before,” Amaldi then said—to the Avatar, and in the requested High Barrani.
“Yes, and that is a question for scholars. You will need to become proficient in her tongue the more traditional way. I believe it will be necessary; An’Teela believes understanding of High Barrani is not common among your kind.”
Teela spoke two words; Kaylin immediately felt the sting of the Barrani Hawk’s magic as a full-body slap. “Apologies if this is uncomfortable,” she told Amaldi.
Amaldi blinked and took a step back, into Darreno, who had not moved. “You—you can see me?”
“I can see you now, yes.” Teela turned to the Avatar.
He shook his head. “They are mortal, to me. Entirely, utterly mortal, in a way Lord Kaylin is not. We can assume, then, that the enchantment was harmless to mortals.”
Kaylin’s nod was slower. “We can assume that it was harmless to these two. I’ve got four dead children as a counterargument. Maybe she was attempting to re-create this spell; maybe she had an entirely different motivation.”
“They are unharmed, and unaged; physically, their bodies appear to have been perfectly preserved. I believe, however, that their presence—in spirit—was essential.”
“Why?” It was Teela who asked.
“You could not see the enchantment as it unraveled. The power of the Halls and the power of Shadow were entwined around the...lives of the two mortals. It was not the same enchantment that entrapped the Barrani in their portraits; there, the two powers were not binding a third power. If life itself can be considered a power.”
“It has been considered power historically. The Emperor frowns very heavily upon research related to live sacrifices.” Teela glanced at paintings that no longer contained people. “Do you believe that she somehow gained power from the two mortals?”
“No more than she might have gained from her servants, although the invisibility might allow for undetected surveillance and the gathering of information.”
“Do you think the bodies would have been released when the enchantment was broken?”
“I do.”
“Would they have remained empty?”
“Yes.” He paused, and added, “Here. Is that now your concern? Do you believe that enchantments were broken in such a way that the bodies were then occupied by something else?”
“I think that’s the only possible explanation for what occurred. But...I can’t see how that would have been of value to Azoria. If power couldn’t be gained by human sacrifice—and I wouldn’t put that beneath her—I don’t understand what she was even attempting.”
The Avatar nodded.
“But if we don’t understand what she was attempting, we won’t understand where it went wrong.”
“I think you must visit this phantom house,” the Avatar replied.
Kaylin frowned. “You think there are paintings in it?”
“No, that is what you suspect. I am, however, uncertain that you will be able to do what Terrano and I have done here. If it is true that your children cannot leave your Mrs. Erickson’s small home, it is unlikely that you will be able to take them to the location in which they were once trapped.”
Kaylin shook her head. “They’re not like Amaldi and Darreno. They’re dead. They’re trapped. Humans aren’t like Barrani or Dragons—they don’t live forever. I don’t know where the dead are supposed to go, but we don’t return to the Lake or whatever the human analogy might be. We don’t have words at our core. And most of us don’t get trapped the way they’ve been trapped.”
“Interesting. Do you not believe mortals require bodies?”
“Of course we do.”
“But these ones don’t?”
“I told you—they’re dead.”
“But present.”
“Demonstrably.”
“It is always a conundrum,” the Avatar then said. “So much of the horror visited upon us happens because we do not accept what we are; to live peacefully, that acceptance is necessary. But if we accept limitations without question, we never excel.” The Avatar gestured. “I will keep these rooms as they are; Serralyn wishes to visit when things are, as she puts it, back to normal.
“I do not believe that same decision should be reached with regards to the phantom house.” He turned to fully face Kaylin. “Spike will continue to accompany you, and I will see that Amaldi and Darreno are offered rooms here.” He frowned. “Spike, please assume a less visible form.”
Spike seemed to notice that Hope was allowed visibility, and clearly felt this unfair; there was an exchange of clicking—speedy clicking—before Spike trembled indignantly and...vanished. She knew where Spike was because the noise continued.
Kaylin shook her head as the clicking diminished. “While they try to get their bearings, they can stay with me.”
“Kitling, maybe you should ask before making decisions on their behalf—they are not children, and they may have preferences.”
Darreno said, “We are not children, no. But we would prefer—if possible—to avoid residence in the High Halls at this time.”
The walk home made clear that neither Amaldi nor Darreno were accustomed to actual, physical presence. Darreno didn’t tend to move out of the way when people approached; he expected that they would pass through him, which was awkward. Amaldi seemed to adapt more easily; her excitement was stronger than her fear.
Helen was waiting at the door when Kaylin returned home with her two guests. She was standing in the doorway, her eyes their usual brown, her lips turned up in a welcoming smile.
“You must be Amaldi and Darreno,” she said to the two visitors. “I’ve heard so much about you both.” Her smile deepened. “Kaylin has asked me to prepare rooms for you, if you wish to accept her hospitality; you are also free to refuse. I am Helen, Kaylin’s home.”
Darreno frowned but said nothing.
Amaldi, however, stepped forward, extending a hand; Helen clasped it in both of hers. “Yes,” she said gently, although Amaldi hadn’t spoken. “I am a bit unusual. Speak in any language you like while you are here.” She then lifted her head. “Dinner is waiting, if you are hungry.”
It was a revelation to watch Amaldi eat. Even Darreno seemed moved by food—or rather, by his ability to actually eat it. Kaylin joined the two, but the rest of the cohort didn’t; the dining room was therefore less crowded. Helen had the ability to make it smaller, but didn’t; Kaylin wasn’t always comfortable with shifting, unpredictable architecture.
When Terrano, impatient as always, appeared in the dining room doorway, she rose. “I’m sorry,” she told her two newest guests. “I have to leave now, unless you want to listen to Terrano complain.”
“I don’t mind.” Amaldi’s voice was bright.
“I do.” Darreno’s was less so.
“They’re exhausted,” Helen said. “I will see them to their rooms when they’ve finished eating.” To Amaldi, she added, “You will need sleep and food going forward. Normal sleep.”
Mrs. Erickson was chatting with Serralyn and Severn on the front porch of her home when Kaylin and her companions arrived. Mandoran and Terrano were present, as was Teela, and Terrano had chattered so much on the walk from Helen’s that Teela was audibly grinding her teeth. Mandoran didn’t help. By the time they reached Mrs. Erickson’s house, the sun had fully set; the moons were high.
Kaylin poked Hope, who sighed and lifted a wing to place it across her eyes.
“Do you see it?” Teela asked softly.
Kaylin nodded. In the darkness, the moons could be seen shining through the transparent outline of a much larger building.
Mrs. Erickson rose. “The children weren’t comfortable with guests tonight, and the weather was nice. I’ve just been chatting with Serralyn.”
Terrano headed for the door, which was ajar; Teela attempted to grab him by the shoulder, but her hand passed through him; he turned and stuck his tongue out. Kaylin would have been impressed by this sterling display of maturity had she not had her own behavior in the past to compare it to.
“Terrano,” she said. “It’s not your home.”
Terrano shrugged. To Mrs. Erickson, he said, “Is it okay if I go inside?”
“Of course!” the old woman said.
Serralyn rose as well—there were only two rickety chairs on the porch—and said, “I’ve been explaining what we hope to do to Mrs. Erickson.”
Teela’s eyes darkened, although in the evening light the difference wasn’t as marked.
“Bakkon is going to join us, and most people have never seen a giant spider.”
“He is not a spider,” the Barrani Hawk said.
“Well, no, of course not—but he looks a lot like one, and I don’t want his presence to cause such a huge shock that...” She trailed off, but Kaylin understood: she didn’t want Mrs. Erickson to have a panic attack—or worse. “He really is a gentle person, and he wanted to come because he has some suspicions about what was done here—or what was tried.” To Kaylin, she said, “Mrs. Erickson has been telling me about her friends.”
“Have you seen them?”
Serralyn shook her head. “I might be able to do it if I follow Terrano—but it gives me a terrible headache, and I’m not sure that will be helpful.”
“Why doesn’t Terrano get headaches?”
“He is a headache; he doesn’t get them,” Teela said.
Mandoran laughed. He approached Mrs. Erickson and offered her a very correct bow, or correct if she had been Barrani. “Kaylin has said a lot about you.”
“Oh, dear.”
“No, it was all good. She also said you bake?”
Mrs. Erickson’s smile deepened. “It happens I do, and I didn’t manage to get to the High Halls today. Come, I made cookies. I hope you’ll all eat them—they really don’t age well.”
“Please wait a moment,” Serralyn told the old woman. “I’ll let Bakkon know that we’re all here.”
“I don’t have a mirror,” Mrs. Erickson began.
“I don’t need a mirror—Bakkon’s attached a bit of web to me, and all I have to do is pull it. He’ll follow the strand here, without walking through the streets.” She glanced at Kaylin, and added, “The Halls of Law get really busy when people are afraid, and a lot of people are afraid of garden-variety spiders that are utterly harmless. A Wevaran is going to generate a lot of panicked reports.”
“That makes sense. I admit I’m curious,” Mrs. Erickson replied.
She was also nervous, to Kaylin’s eye. To Kaylin’s surprise, she could see the thread Serralyn mentioned; it was bound around her wrist, so slender she’d missed it on first glance. Serralyn tapped it gently, as if afraid it would break.
Bakkon emerged from thin air, two legs at a time, as if he was carefully cutting a hole in reality through which he could step. She couldn’t see what lay behind him, and wondered if he could just...spit web that could portal him back to the Academia.
Kaylin, being petty, hoped the neighbor was spying through one of his windows.
Mrs. Erickson watched with interest as Bakkon emerged. He lifted his foremost legs, and traced a pattern in the air. If Kaylin remembered correctly, that was the Wevaran version of a bow.
Mrs. Erickson returned a human version of a bow in response. Clearly Serralyn had explained enough about Wevaran to the old woman. Serralyn might have been impatient, but Kaylin was now grateful that the excursion to the High Halls had taken so long.
“I am pleased to meet you. I am called Bakkon by your kind.”
“I am called Mrs. Erickson,” she replied. “Although before I was married, I was Imelda.”
“Interesting. We do not have your social customs. Which name would you prefer?”
“Serralyn tells me you are quite, quite old.”
“Yes, I would be considered ancient by your kind. Or imaginary.” He clicked a bit, which Kaylin interpreted as a chuckle.
“Mrs. Erickson is a name given to elders—it’s a sign of respect. I wouldn’t feel right, asking you to do that.”
“Respect is not independent of age?”
“It’s complicated. Please just call me Imelda.”
“Very well. Imelda.”
“Do you eat?” she asked. “I don’t have a full meal, but...I have snacks, if you’d care to join the boys.”
“Boys?”
“She means my friends—Terrano and Mandoran.”
“Is Severn not a boy?”
“No, he is.”
“Is he not your friend?”
“He is. Mrs. Erickson thinks of Severn as an adult.”
“I find this very confusing,” Bakkon replied. “Severn is younger than either of your friends. Or is ‘boy’ not a term for an immature male?”
Teela coughed into her hand. “It is, and in this case, it is appropriate.” Looking up, she said, “They take no offense, Mrs. Erickson; they are determined to remain immature, regardless of actual age.”
The door to Mrs. Erickson’s home had not been designed for Wevaran. It was wide enough that enterprising carpenters could maneuver their wares into the house, but Bakkon wasn’t furniture. He frowned; he could retract his side legs to a certain extent, but the doorframe was too narrow.
“If you could move away from the door,” he finally said, “I will enter the house in a slightly different way.”
“Bad idea,” Terrano said, coming out of the kitchen. His eyes were red and black; from a distance it looked like they were bleeding. These weren’t normal Barrani colors, but that was fair; Terrano wasn’t normal Barrani, either. “Very, very bad idea.”
Bakkon froze. “Let me test something. It will cause no damage to your home, Imelda.”
Bakkon stepped away from the doorframe, allowing Kaylin, Severn, and Teela to enter; Terrano, Mandoran, and Serralyn had already followed Mrs. Erickson in.
“Please move away from the door.” A series of clicks enveloped Bakkon’s syllables.
“What do you think he meant to do?” Kaylin asked Terrano.
“Portal past the door,” Terrano replied. He glanced at Kaylin. “Do you feel comfortable in this house?”
“It’s a house,” she replied.
“You don’t feel nauseous? You don’t feel dizzy?”
“No. Except for in that one room.”
Bakkon began the particularly disturbing sounds that meant he was about to spit web, which was how the Wevaran formed portals.
“This house isn’t normal.”
“What precisely do you mean, not normal? We can all see it, and I walk into it the normal way. Mrs. Erickson lives here, and she can leave and return. And bake.”
Bakkon spit webbing through the doorway, aiming for the floor some two yards away from where Kaylin now stood. The web didn’t land. Between leaving the Wevaran’s mandibles and hitting the floor, it vanished.
“Can you do that again?” Kaylin’s words exactly overlapped Terrano’s.
“I can,” Bakkon replied, “but I think it risky. Terrano is correct. There is something very unusual about this ‘normal’ home if my understanding of mortal dwellings is not lacking.”
“Do you know where your web actually landed?” Kaylin asked.
“I am attempting to follow the strand—but I do not believe I will be able to answer that question; the strand is...entrapped, I believe.”
“Can someone follow it back to you?”
“A very good question. I will investigate the building from the outside. Serralyn?”
She nodded instantly and headed toward the door to join him.
The door slammed shut in her face.