“You mean with your antennae.”
“Yes. She doesn’t think it’s a good idea...”
“Neither do I!”
“...but she thinks it might be necessary. Apparently she’s been having visions that have grown increasingly dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“She doesn’t come out of them until she collapses. She has almost died of dehydration twice in the past year. Master Sabrai brings no supplicants to her; he asks no questions of her.”
“But he let us come.”
“Yes, because Random had a vision. In the drawer in that desk, the middle drawer where the large sketches are, you can see the sketches she did recently.”
“You’ve seen them?”
Ybelline nodded.
“And she’s okay with me touching them?”
Ybelline nodded again. Severn left his chair and headed toward the desk. He opened the flat, but long, middle drawer. The first sketch on what appeared to be a stack of sketches was of Ybelline. Ybelline was wearing the dress that she’d chosen to leave the Tha’alani quarter in. Even without the coloring, it was clearly the one she was now wearing.
Severn in the sketches was not wearing the clothing that he had chosen—the clothing Elluvian had decided was appropriate for a high-class servant in the High Halls. He was wearing something darker and less fussy. He appeared to be wearing a belt made of a single row of chain links—which was fanciful and ridiculous—and wielding what looked like two oddly shaped swords.
He lifted that sketch, set it aside, and looked at the rest. “Are all of these relevant?”
“She felt they were. There are no sketches in that drawer that she doesn’t feel have a tenuous connection to our visit, or the reasons for our visit.”
“This is Elluvian.”
“Yes. Oddly dressed, but yes. He looks grim,” Ybelline added. “Helmat looks angry.”
Severn lifted a sketch of an older Tha’alani man with a slight beard and a stoop to the shoulders.
“The castelord,” was her quiet reply. “Mine, not yours.”
“And this?”
“Barrani. From his clothing, either a lord or one with the desire to be perceived as lord. Note his servants.”
“This one isn’t so much a sketch—it has color.”
She nodded. “It’s possible the colors are necessary. But she made two stone sculptures as well; they’re on the table.”
“When will it be safe to sit down?”
Ybelline exhaled. “I don’t know.”
“Should we collect things she might need if she’s having a vision?”
Silence. A beat. A longer beat. “...No.”
Severn froze. He had lifted the colored sketch. Beneath it was a picture of a young woman. Not a child, not anymore. Her arms were exposed, and her back, and she wore a revealing green dress that she certainly didn’t own now; he could see familiar marks across the skin of arms and back. She was looking over her shoulder, her eyes wide with desperation, and behind her he could see trees and a stone tower.
His sudden stillness drew Tha’alani attention.
Ybelline recognized her as well—but she would, wouldn’t she? It was his memory of Elianne, and the terrible lengths he had gone to to save her, that were at the heart of the answers the Wolves had sought.