Kaylin wasn’t worried about the water. “Yvonne didn’t try to harm you.”
“I’m not sure she was aware of me at all; the duplicates were, but only when I attempted to remove them. I wouldn’t have said they were Shadow at all, if asked.”
“They were Shadow,” Yvonne said quietly. “I could hear their voices when I was injured.”
“Did they speak to you in a way you could understand?”
She shook her head. “But the green didn’t, either.”
“You could hear the green.”
Yvonne nodded. “I don’t think I would have heard the other voices if there weren’t so many of them. Do you think that’s what Mrs. Erickson sees?”
That might explain why these ghosts weren’t like the rest of Mrs. Erickson’s many ghosts. The multiple Shadowy Yvonnes hadn’t been alive in the normal sense of the word.
“Let’s never mention this to Bellusdeo. Or the Consort. Or anyone outside of this room.”
“She does not bear Shadow within her,” Helen said quietly. “Were you to have asked me when she entered my boundaries, I would have said she was an entirely normal Barrani—something most of the cohort is not. They, to me, would be more of a danger than Yvonne. An’Tellarus is dangerous for entirely different reasons—but those I was built to counter at need.”
Kaylin walked to Mrs. Erickson’s side. “I don’t want you to try to hold their hands—if they even have hands in your vision—but are they trying to speak? Are they attached to Yvonne, or are they just, I don’t know, haunting her?”
“They’re not like Bellusdeo’s sisters.” Mrs. Erickson’s voice was soft but certain. “I would sayhauntingmight be the correct word.” She trailed off. “I’ve never seen the dead that way.If you asked me, I would say they aren’t quite dead at all—but there’s something there.” She spoke almost apologetically, as if she was afraid to offer insult to whatever it was she saw.
“I can’t see them,” Yvonne told her, understanding immediately the older woman’s gentle hesitation. “I can’t hear them. I don’t really remember Shadow—I remember swords, and threats. I managed to escape. My family didn’t. But I was wounded in the escape, and I remember just... crawling. But I crawled toward the voice I could hear—the one that didn’t sound like threats and death. Or screaming.
“Severn found me in the green—I knew that part. I didn’t quite know the rest.” Until now. “Am I danger to the Lake?” she asked, her voice so soft Kaylin barely heard the question. But it was the question that was uppermost in her mind.
This isn’t why she’d invited Yvonne to visit. She’d liked her instinctively—hells, she still did. TheLakehad involved itself, somehow. Yvonne had heard it, just as she’d heard the green when she’d been injured in the West March. She’d walked toward that sound, that voice, and found herself within the cavern that contained the Lake. Kaylin had often wondered why the Lake was situated in a cavern, surrounded on all sides by rock—but maybe that was the best way to protect it. Were the Lake open to sun and sky, it would be open to Dragon flights and magical, aerial attacks—at least, during the time when the High Halls had collapsed its focus in, toward containing the Shadow at the very heart of the Tower of Test.
If the Lake chose...
“Helen, could you let Ynpharion through?”
“I do not think that would be wise,” Helen replied, which sounded likeno.
“I need him to ask the Consort a question.”
“If you could control your thoughts, if you could block what you see or hear, it would not be a risk. You cannot. And you are well aware that if the Lady’s position is not political,that is only by Barrani standards. Should she feel something is a danger—a genuine danger, not a political threat—she will stop at nothing to remove it.”
Kaylin wanted to argue further, but knew Helen was right.
“So, where are we now?” Terrano asked when everyone had fallen silent.
“We’re trying to figure that out.” Kaylin once again turned to Mrs. Erickson. “You didn’t see the ghosts until the flowers appeared?”
Mrs. Erickson shook her head.
“I’m going to assume that the green has slender roots here at the moment. Could be because of Yvonne. Could be because of Severn’s weapon. Could be because of this damn dress. I’d say it doesn’t matter why, but it obviously does. I just don’t think we’re going to get answers to that right now.”
“If ever,” An’Tellarus said. “But if the dress is here and the Teller’s crown is here, they are an invitation to theregalia. Theregaliadoes not require an audience; there were early ceremonies to which very, very few were witness. What we understand is the green reveals its heart during those Tellings—but not even the Teller knows, before it begins, what tale will be formed or told.
“Somehow, the green has found purchase within the confines of Helen.” An’Tellarus’s smile was crooked, underlined by bitterness that no longer touched her voice. “Arcanists would envy you for eternity for what has been built here. The Arcanists of the past have tried.”
“Oh, believe we know that,” Kaylin muttered in Elantran. “What we need to know right now isn’t why the green is here—well, maybe—but why the Lake called Yvonne, and what the Shadow contained in the green actually was. Or is. If Yvonne was injured by Shadow years ago in the West March, and it happened because the former An’Sennarin wanted to capture or injure her badly enough to make Ollarin obedient,some form of Shadow is clearly connected to Lords of the High Court—and those lords are our enemies. But they can move in ways normal Barrani, even Arcanists, can’t move. They can slide past physical barriers or objects. We have some experience with that—but not the way they do.”
“We’ve been experimenting,” Terrano said, his expression far more serious. “They’re not doing what we do. I wouldn’t say it’s remotely the same. It’s more like they’ve created a portal tunnel through which they can travel.” He cleared his throat. “Or at least, that’s what we’ve come to believe they believe.”
“Serralyn’s research?”