He shied away from that thought, inhaling sharply enough that Scoros turned to look at him with obvious concern. He didn’t ask Severn any questions, which saved Severn the effort of lying.
Ybelline was waiting for them in the open doors of a large, almost rectangular building. Compared to the houses they had passed on the way, this building looked almost normal. It would have been at home in any of the better streets of Elantra.
Ybelline, however, would not. Although she didn’t wear the robes that most of the Tha’alani citizens had made themselves visible in, she would always be possessed of the antennae that marked her race.
She offered Severn a very Elantran bow, but made the short burst of motion look graceful and natural. Her eyes were hazel, a blend of brown and subtle green. It was the Tha’alani equivalent of Barrani blue. Oddly, in the Tha’alani, green was the dangerous shade.
Severn returned the bow with less grace but more power. Her eyes had shaded toward gold by the time he rose.
“I did not expect to see you again so soon—and certainly not here. This is not normally where I receive guests. Helmat conveyed your request for permission to visit our quarter.”
He’d requested permission to speak with Ybelline, not the quarter—but in most cases, the quarter would be implied. Given the nature of his unspoken questions, he very much doubted the rest of the Tha’alani would become aware of his reasons for visiting.
Her eyes were now completely gold. “Your request for permission caused some difficulty on our end.”
“Ybelline,” Scoros said, in a tone that could best be described as long-suffering. “You were exhausted when you returned, and the Tha’alanari are very, very short-staffed at the moment.”
Her eyes lost some of their light. Severn was sad to see it dim. “I will not leave you standing at the door,” she said, ignoring Scoros’s spoken words, which had no doubt been uttered for Severn’s benefit. “Do you drink?”
He shook his head. He had never fully understood the lure of spirits, perhaps because they were expensive and unpleasant to taste. Had they been a delight to taste, the expense would have prevented it, regardless. He had nothing against necessary theft—if offered a choice between starvation and theft, theft was, and had always been, his choice.
But drink? No.
“I feel that perhaps I will require one. Come,” she said again, extending a hand. The hand froze in midair, and then returned more woodenly to her side. “Apologies,” she said. “I forget that our modes of polite interaction are not yours.”
“It would be impossible for your manners to offend me,” he said, smiling. “I grew up as an orphan in the streets of the fief of Nightshade.”
“Yes,” she said. “I know. You speak so formally when you speak, it’s easy to forget.”
“Not for me,” was his grave reply. He now offered her his hand, in the same way she had offered hers before she’d returned it to her side, and after a pause, she took it, eyes once again gold. He wanted, for that moment, for her eyes to remain that color forever.
They entered normal doors and walked through normal halls. Although the ceilings weren’t tall, this hall wouldn’t have been out of place in the Halls of Law. Doors, however, didn’t exist as demarcations for rooms; arches did. Beyond those arches, he could see desks of wood, with trays stacked to hold papers. Offices, he thought.
“You are wondering why this building looks as it does.”
Severn nodded.
“It is a reminder for those who are Tha’alanari that the work they do here is Imperial work; it is not life. It is not our life.”
He nodded again.
Scoros continued to walk by his side, which meant Ybelline led; the halls weren’t wide enough to comfortably fit three adults walking abreast. But the older man’s brows were a knit of creases, many deeper than they had been when he had greeted Severn at the gates that kept the citizens of this quarter safe from the citizens of the rest of the city.
The hall turned left; Severn followed Ybelline to a closed door, which stood out because, aside from the front door, it was the only actual door he’d yet seen.
“We do have rooms that are designed to baffle sound,” Ybelline told him. “While we are accustomed to constant background interruption, visitors to the Tha’alanari often find it taxing. Closed doors,” she added, smiling, “stop almost nothing among my kin.”
“Tell that to the parents of tired, screaming children,” Scoros said, his tone both wry and affectionate.
“It is possible I will soon have much in common with them,” Ybelline replied. “Another reason a closed door is useful.”
Alcohol, a golden honey color a similar shade to her eyes, was already in the room on the table. Severn found the multitude of different glasses in which alcohol could—or should—be served mystifying. There seemed to be an underlying set of rules. For himself, there was water and a sweeter, pink liquid that in other circumstances he wouldn’t have touched.
Scoros joined Ybelline in her choice of beverage. The older man’s eyes were decidedly hazel, but the flecks of green were stronger.
Severn, seated, suddenly found he didn’t know where to start. The drinking, the eye color, the slight tension across Ybelline’s lower jaw and shoulders, made it clear—or clearer—that they expected this session to be horrifying.
He hesitated as they watched him. The urge to apologize was powerful—but an apology, in his mind, meant he should never have come at all. There were questions he wanted answered, because hewantedto catch the person responsible for those deaths twenty years ago—the repercussions of which would always be with the Tha’alani.