The name that had once been Azoria’s life became weightless; it rose from Kaylin’s hand, spinning slowly as if it were sentient and needed to orient itself. It made no attempt to return to Azoria. Azoria cried out a single word then, her voice a Barrani voice.
Her name.
Kaylin didn’t recognize it, but knew the utterance for what it was. The word froze for one heartbeat, and then continued its circling motion. It then froze again. Kaylin whispered the name to no effect; it would never be used to control Azoria Berranin. The word leaped off her palm, flying away and fading as it departed.
It would return to the Lake, as almost all Barrani names did when the lives of the Barrani they had inhabited had ended. The Consort would accept it, if she noticed the return at all—Kaylin had never asked.
Azoria’s physical form shed body parts—extra limbs first—as if she were, absent that tenuous connection, slowly disintegrating. But the form reasserted itself in Kaylin’s eyes, the eyes on the stalks that adorned her skull now an odd, pale blue that was almost white.
Can you see her? she asked Severn.
I can. In this place, we can see more of the dead than we could if we were home.
Here, the dead had substance. Kaylin wondered then if Azoria had somehow built it that way, planning for the death that would interrupt her ambitions, her studies, her research. It didn’t matter.
Tell Mrs. Erickson that the end of this show is hers.
As if she had heard, Mrs. Erickson could be seen in the much enlarged doorway, Jamal by her side.
“Jamal,” Kaylin said, raising her voice. “She needs your permission. Because she promised.”
Jamal looked at Azoria, and nodded. “Just once,” he said. “Just now.”
Esme came to stand to Mrs. Erickson’s other side, and behind her, Katie and Callis. All eyes were on Azoria.
“I am the lord of this tower,” Azoria said, voice winter cold. Her Barrani eyes were the same color as the eyes on the stalks above her head. She gestured, and all four of the children froze in place as they were jerked off the ground. “The living and the dead obey me here.
“You are no longer welcome guests—begone!”
The entirety of the floor began to shudder; Kaylin bent her knees and concentrated on keeping her balance. Severn caught Mrs. Erickson as she stumbled. The walls to front and back began to fade in and out; the ground itself seemed to sag.
“Mrs. Erickson!”
Mrs. Erickson faced forward; Severn was behind her, and he managed—somehow—to keep her steady. She faced Azoria—or Azoria’s ghost—and said, her voice clear and loud, “Let those children go.”
Mrs. Erickson had seldom seemed like a person given to fury, but all people could feel anger, and this was clearly her moment. The smile lines around her eyes and lips were repurposed here, as was the timbre of her voice.
Azoria froze as Kaylin watched. “You—you do not know what you do here,” she said, struggling to speak. “There are things here that we can accomplish that even the Ancients could not!” Even as she struggled, the children once again touched what remained of ground.
“Jamal, get behind me,” Mrs. Erickson said. “And no, Azoria, this is not your home. It is my home. Your home no longer exists in our world. You are the intruder here, and you are not a person I would ever invite into my home as a guest.
“Stand down. You will not attempt to harm the friends I did invite, and you will release those poor souls you’ve murdered and trapped here.”
The floors stopped moving; the walls reasserted solidity.
Mrs. Erickson then turned to the children. “You can go home, now. Wait for me there if you can. And if you can’t, know that I love you all. You were the children we could never have. You made my life better, and I hope...” Her natural smile reasserted itself. “I have to speak with the rest of the people Azoria imprisoned, and...we have to figure out what to do with this place.”
“Will you send her away?” Katie whispered.
“Yes, dear. But not immediately. We’ll need to know who else is trapped here, and we’ll need to free them as well.”
Esme said, “We’ll wait. Jamal?”
“I want to see her gone,” he replied, voice so low it was barely audible.
Mrs. Erickson nodded. “I understand. But it won’t be immediate.” She paused, her shoulders relaxing; Jamal and the children were clearly unharmed—if that word had any meaning for the dead.
Jamal nodded. He looked up at the older woman, and said, “You won’t do it again?”
“No. Thank you for giving me permission this time.”
He nodded.
There were more trapped spirits within the halls Azoria had created—somehow—but the self-portrait that had hung on the wall was gone; the frame was empty, and the wall behind it visible. But there were other rooms and other paintings, some unframed and stacked in the dark. Azoria went through each one, Mrs. Erickson by her side. The dead Barrani woman had not yet accepted that she could not fight the compulsion; her answers were short and abrasive. They were also truthful.
Sedarias, Teela, and Terrano remained; Serralyn and Bakkon joined them.
Kaylin was exhausted. She wanted to go home, but she didn’t trust Azoria. Mrs. Erickson might have command of the dead, but she’d had no training. Clearly Azoria believed this was a weakness as well—but the commands themselves appeared to be absolute.
Kaylin didn’t understand enough about the dead to understand why this particular space could house and retain them. But the ghosts that had formed lamps and other household accessories could leave, now. They walked through the door that led to Mrs. Erickson’s house. Mrs. Erickson didn’t ask them to stay, either. She did ask them if they would be all right, because she wasn’t certain they knew where they were going—but she had to confess, with some embarrassment, that she didn’t know, either.
The dead did. Kaylin could hear their whispers of gratitude. She could see their tears of relief. And she could see them slowly fade from view—or at least hers—as they stepped across the threshold.
There were many, many questions that Sedarias wanted Azoria to answer. Serralyn wanted answers, too, but in a different way.
Mrs. Erickson, however, shook her head. “It’s not right,” she told them firmly. “We can’t keep her here indefinitely.”
“Why not?” Sedarias all but demanded.
“Because, dear, she’s dead.”
“She wants to stay.”
“It’s not that she wants to stay as she is now. She doesn’t want to be dead. But she is. And it’s time for her to leave. I don’t know where she’ll go,” she added, a hint of worry in the words. “I don’t know how she’ll get there. She is one of a kind.”
“For which we’re extremely grateful,” Kaylin snapped.
Mrs. Erickson looked at Kaylin and shook her head. Kaylin had seen that gesture before, but it had been aimed at Jamal. She reddened.
“I understand that there are many, many questions she might answer—but I don’t believe that those answers serve a useful purpose.”
“And your questions did,” Teela said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. The children have been trapped in my house for the entirety of my life. That shouldn’t have happened. I’m grateful for it, which makes me feel guilty, but...it shouldn’t have happened. By the time I understood that they couldn’t leave, even if they wanted to, I had no idea how to free them.
“I’ve been worried about it for the past two decades. If you hadn’t come to my house, they’d be trapped there for...as long as Azoria lived. She can’t hold them now.”
“But you could hold her here,” Sedarias began. “And there’s so much knowledge and research that we’d lose—”
“I think that’s the point.” Teela’s voice was wry. “Mrs. Erickson doesn’t think that research serves any good purpose.”
“We don’t know that.”
“I think we do. Look at her now,” the Barrani Hawk added, voice softer. “What do you see?”
To Kaylin’s surprise, what she saw was a young Barrani woman. Hair a spill of black, the usual four limbs, the usual two eyes. The eyes were the wrong color, if they could be said to have color at all. All of the embellishments Azoria had made had faded. She looked young, to Kaylin’s eye.
This wasn’t justice. So many people had died because of this one woman. She struggled once again with her anger, her need to see Azoria punished.
Mrs. Erickson laid a hand on Kaylin’s arm. “You’re a Hawk, dear. Justice—imperfect as it is—is your duty. But there is no justice you can hand down when the criminal is dead. And I don’t want to keep the children waiting any longer. There is also someplace they have to be, and I want to be able to say goodbye.” She turned to Azoria. “Come with me,” she said, her voice gentle. “It is time for you to go where you must.”
“Where is that?”
“I don’t know. I won’t know until I’m dead. But I’m certain there’s a place beyond this one.” She offered Azoria a hand. There was no command in the gesture, but Azoria took that hand, and Mrs. Erickson turned toward her familiar front hall. “I don’t know what will happen to this house,” she said. “But I suggest that we leave it. I think, when Azoria crosses the threshold, things might collapse.”
Terrano said, “I doubt it. But it won’t be connected to our world in the same way.” He had that I’m really curious look. Sedarias grabbed him by the shoulder, her eyes a martial blue. “What? I could find my way back!”
“No.”
Kaylin looked to Bakkon and Serralyn, the two late arrivals. Bakkon clicked a bit, and then found his Barrani. He seemed to be shuddering. “Let it collapse.” His eyes were red. “It is an evil place; can you not feel it? It has the atmosphere of the birthing place, but no new life will come from it.”
Serralyn nodded. There was genuine regret in her expression, but it blended with a quiet determination.
Sedarias wanted to argue, but Mrs. Erickson was a wall. A wall that Kaylin would defend with her life, if necessary. She acquiesced. Kaylin imagined the cohort would get a figurative earful about the wasted opportunities and possibilities later.
Oh, well. People were allowed to complain.
Bakkon returned to the Academia. Serralyn went with him. Terrano, Mandoran, Sedarias, and Teela left by the front door, because when they opened the front door it once again led to Orbonne Street. Hope, in his small form, was flattened across Kaylin’s shoulder as if exhausted.
Severn said, “I’ll wait on the porch,” and left the house.
Kaylin turned to join him, and Jamal said, “We want you to stay.”
When she raised her brows, Jamal added, “It’s the last time you’ll see us. You can’t even say goodbye?”
“Jamal.”
Kaylin knew he was doing it on purpose, but relented. She had some suspicions.
Callis was distracted; his gaze seemed to travel through Mrs. Erickson. And walls. Katie, Esme, and Jamal, however, were present, and at least one of them was tearful. No one pointed this out, because that child was Jamal, who had the ferocious pride of a child his age.
Mrs. Erickson crouched in front of the children. “Thank you. Thank you all so much. You’ve been my older siblings, my best friends, and even my children. I would have been so lonely without you—but you were here and you gave me purpose. Do you know where you have to go?”
Esme nodded. “I wish you could see it,” she said, her eyes shining. “It looks like home—but better.” Kaylin didn’t ask which home; neither did Mrs. Erickson.
“You won’t get lost, will you?”
“No. I don’t think it’s possible. But what about you?”
“I can’t join you yet. I would, if I could.”
“We don’t want you to join us!” Jamal practically shouted. He then turned to Kaylin. “You have to take care of her.”
Kaylin nodded.
“You have to promise to take care of her. She doesn’t always remember to eat, you know. And she’s a terrible sleeper. Sometimes she sleepwalks. And she is way too trusting.”
Kaylin nodded again. Jamal held up one hand and crooked his pinky.
Kaylin lifted hers in response. “I don’t think the neighbor will bother her anymore,” she told the children.
“It’s not about that jerk. It’s about everything else. She’s never lived alone. You heard her—she’ll be lonely without us. She won’t know what to do with herself.”
“Jamal.”
“I won’t leave if you don’t promise.”
“Jamal!” Mrs. Erickson’s voice now contained an edge of either anger or panic. Or both.
He ignored her; his gaze focused entirely on Kaylin. Kaylin looked at the other three, content, as they had been for their existence here, to let Jamal do the talking for them, when the talking was difficult. He hadn’t said they would all stay; she was certain they wouldn’t. But she was also certain that Jamal would, somehow.
“Jamal, after all Corporal Neya has done to allow you all to be free, this is unacceptable,” Mrs. Erickson said, her voice firm. “It’s a very, very poor expression of gratitude.”
“We’re grateful,” Callis whispered.
So was Jamal. But his concern for, his protectiveness of, Mrs. Erickson had always given his presence a strength the others hadn’t achieved. She had no doubt that he would keep his word. If he did, would he wait until Mrs. Erickson passed on? Could they then go wherever it was the dead went together?
She considered it, but she was afraid that Mrs. Erickson’s resulting guilt might cause her to pass on early. Mrs. Erickson had the ability to force Jamal to go—but she would never use it against Jamal. Everything else relied on persuasion, and Jamal was not in a mood to be persuaded.
“I promise,” she said, thinking of Helen. “I promise that I will take care of Mrs. Erickson.”
“Will you live here?” The edge in his voice was so sharp it should have cut him.
“I’m not sure Mrs. Erickson would enjoy that; I tend to get mirrored at all hours of the night if there’s an emergency. And it’s her house—it’s not your offer to make.”
“Then how?” He was such a suspicious child.
“I have a home. It’s not the home Mrs. Erickson grew up in, and she might refuse, but I will offer her rooms in my house.” Kaylin hesitated, and then said, “My house isn’t like yours. It’s not like Azoria’s, either. But it is a sentient building. Mrs. Erickson has already met Helen, the core of my house, and Helen approved of her.
“If Mrs. Erickson was willing, we’d both be delighted if she came to live with us. Would that be enough for you?”
Jamal nodded, and turned to Mrs. Erickson, whose disapproval had been replaced by anxiety and guilt. “Same deal,” he said. “I’m not leaving you alone.”
“Jamal, I’m—”
“Younger than we are, even if you don’t look it. I trust Kaylin. She cares about you. You have to trust her, too.” When Mrs. Erickson failed to answer, he said, in a slightly gentler tone of voice, “It’s not only the dead who are capable of loving you as you are.”
Kaylin was beginning to understand why Jamal could get away with breaking random things when he lost his temper; he was just one side of manipulative. The wrong side. Nor did he seem to care.
But she understood his fear, his concern, and the reason he was being a demanding little extortionist. If he looked—and mostly acted—like a jealous child, he had seen her born. He had seen her crawl, walk, learn to speak. The reason he had come to her side didn’t matter, either to Mrs. Erickson or Jamal himself. He had grown to love her, just as she had always loved him. If the love changed with time on both sides, it nonetheless existed.
In his position, Kaylin thought she would have been the same. But...she wasn’t a child; she wasn’t a lifelong friend. If pressure was going to be brought to bear, it was Jamal’s pressure: he was family. She therefore said nothing.
Mrs. Erickson looked at Kaylin in mute appeal.
“You’re thinking we don’t really want you?” Kaylin asked. She held out both of her hands. “Helen is old. She genuinely liked you. Her first tenant liked to bustle about the kitchen, and I think Helen misses that; I don’t really touch the kitchen much. Helen gets lonely, and right now, she has a houseful of children. I mean, you met Terrano. He’s a lot like Jamal.
“I try—but I’m not quite the company her earlier tenants were. I might become that as I get older, but I doubt it.”
“I would have doubted it at your age,” Mrs. Erickson said.
“Did you find Helen intimidating?”
“No, of course not!”
“Did you find her company unpleasant?”
“No. She reminded me of...” Mrs. Erickson didn’t finish the sentence.
Kaylin surrendered then. Maybe she was too much like Jamal. “It’s partly for Helen’s sake that I’m asking. She’s trapped in herself; she can’t leave the building because it’s her body now. It wasn’t always. She once housed Arcanists, possibly Sorcerers, but she had no choice in that. The first tenant she chose was an older woman who had been brought in as a servant. A woman without power, without obvious ambition, and with no desire to control a living entity. She was, according to Helen, gentle. And tidy. She liked to garden. She liked to cook. She liked to take care of the house.
“Helen doesn’t need a housekeeper; she can clean without a second thought. Or practically a first one. She doesn’t need tenants, either. But she gets lonely.
“I think she’d be less lonely if you agreed to live with us.”
Jamal’s glint of approval made Kaylin feel guilty. Yes, definitely too much like Jamal, but nothing she had said was a lie.
“Jamal,” Mrs. Erickson said, voice firm. “If I promise to speak to Helen to make certain Helen wants me to stay, will you leave?”
Jamal looked past her to Kaylin; Kaylin nodded.
“Yes.”
“You could follow her if you wanted to be sure,” Kaylin told him, before she could shut her mouth and bite back the words.
Jamal frowned, brow creasing. “I can leave.”
“You can leave. I’m not like you. I don’t know if there are natural limits—I mean, I thought ghosts were supposed to haunt the places in which they’d died.”
“I’ll go.” He turned to the other three. “I’ll see her off. You don’t have to wait for me.”
At least one wouldn’t, in Kaylin’s opinion. Katie was already almost gone, her body a shimmering transparency, quivering as if in intense joy.
“You’re sure?” Callis asked.
Jamal nodded. “I want you to go on ahead of me. Someone has to.” He held out one hand to Mrs. Erickson. “You don’t have to move all the stuff right now, but...I want to meet this Helen.”
Mrs. Erickson nodded.
Severn was silent. Kaylin paused on the porch to really look at him. You’re injured.
It’s minor. If it were serious, I wouldn’t have stayed. He smiled. Good work, there.
You don’t think I was being a bit pushy?
You were, but you were pushing her in a direction I think she wanted to go. It’s hard to lose companions of a lifetime—it’s hard to lose family you know. And there are ghosts in your house that no one but Mrs. Erickson can touch.
Kaylin had almost forgotten about them.
I think it would be best for Mrs. Erickson for other reasons, among them the Dragon Court. Her power is dangerous. Had Azoria fully absorbed it...
Kaylin thought of the Ancient then, and shuddered.