“Yes, dear,” Helen said. “I believe that was exactly her thinking on the matter.” She paused. “Terrano?”
Kaylin withdrew and turned toward Terrano, who was pretty much holding hands with Sedarias and Allaron. Or at least they were holding on to his.
“I will not detain you or cage you. You are a guest, and in this house, guests are not prisoners. I won’t deny that cages do wait—metaphorically speaking—for those who enter without invitation or permission, but you are not one of them. Ah, speaking of which,” Helen added, “I believe you have a different visitor.”
“Who?”
“I would tell you his name, but I don’t think you could actually hear half of it. But I believe he said you named him Spike?”
She’d forgotten Spike.
“He apologizes,” Helen continued, “but he could not follow you into the Tower; he could not approach it following the path you took.”
“Wait, did you just say he’s in a cage?”
“It is a comfortable cage, but yes. I have the ability to make decisions of my own, and his story, whileverychaotic and jumbled, seemed to me to be true. He explained how he met you. I was slightly uncertain until he told me the name you gave him.” She looked mildly disapproving.
“He—his form here—is a kind of floating, spiky ball,” Kaylin explained.
“I’ll let him out, then. He seemed to feel that you wished his company, and he owes you a great debt.”
“Debt? Ummm, is he Immortal, by any chance?”
“I believe you would consider him so, yes. Why do you ask?”
“Because Immortals hate debt or obligation—it’s practically a threat.”
Helen smiled and drew Kaylin into the house, where she was no longer blocking the door. As the cohort filed into the foyer, Helen said, to Bellusdeo, “The Arkon has been using the mirror almost continuously. I believe he is concerned.”
Bellusdeo snorted.
“And Maggaron is quite unhappy, at the moment.”
The Dragon sighed. “Let me go talk to him. I shouldn’t have left without him, but it might have entirely depleted the elemental water if he’d come as bodyguard.”
Helen froze in place. Her eyes went the shade of color-flecked obsidian that was natural when she forgot to put effort into maintaining her appearance. “Have you spoken with the Keeper?”
“We’ve kind of been busy,” Kaylin said. “Have you?”
“Teela and Severn did, separately. The Keeper did not, as we hoped, ask the water to intervene. Nor did the Tha’alani. The water acted entirely on its own.”
Kaylin knew this.
“Understand that the Keeper exists for a reason. I do not know if all worlds have a Keeper, but I have often imagined they must. The Keeper harmonizes the elements; it is because they exist in his garden that the world is stable. Were they to range free, they would destroy each other, or try, and in the process, we would perish.”
Kaylin nodded, because this was more or less her understanding.
“The water clearly feels that the danger is great enough to threaten them all.”
“So: we have a Barrani war band, the threat of war, a High Court in revolt, Barrani Lords in collusion with a fieflord to enter Ravellon, and an elemental water that’s terrified enough ofsomethingthat she grabbed me and threw me at the West March. And at the heart of it all: Ravellon.”
“Yes, dear. You forgot the cohort.”
“No, I really didn’t.” Kaylin headed toward the dining room, followed by a quiet Severn. Bellusdeo, true to her word, had gone to apologize to her Ascendant.
* * *
The dining room was not silent, but Kaylin wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that she couldn’t hear a majority of the conversation. Allaron had released Terrano, and had pulled up a chair at the table; his posture was far more like Annarion’s than Mandoran’s. The table was the centerpiece of the gathering, but that was fair; it was the centerpiece of most of the discussions that took place while Kaylin was at home.