“Have I wandered into another encroachment?”
This time, Helen didn’t respond immediately. Kaylin didn’t press for an answer, because she could see the Yvonnes. Kaylin’s eyes were open; she stood on the winding stairs that descended into a darkness unlit by torch or vision. The eyes of the Yvonnes were once again that odd shade of green, and they were focused on her as she made her way down the stairs, one hand on the wall. They formed a human railing, because these stairs had no rails or guideposts.
If they’d spoken at all, they’d be far less disturbing. They simply watched, their expressions neutral.
“Yes,” Helen said. Kaylin had to work to remember what her question was; the presence of the Yvonnes had driven it out of her mind. “Yes, you stand at the edge of an encroachment—but it’s not one our attackers are using. It is far more like the planes Terrano wanders; it feels natural, not constructed.”
“It’s the green,” Kaylin said, her voice a whisper. “The green is encroaching.” Maybe she shouldn’t have invited Yvonne to visit. But there was no doubt that An’Tellarus was helping the cohort. And Helen.
“Cediela is, and has always been, powerful in her own right. She is often bitter, and her resentment is undeniable. But she has, as she said, been forced to stand on her own feet and make her own way. In other circumstances, she would resent you—youare Chosen, after all. But I believe she has chosen to pity you instead.”
Kaylin would have found that infuriating in different circumstances.
“She has come to understand that being chosen is not the same as choosing, even if it has taken her centuries to fully accept that truth. She will not harm you here.”
Kaylin had taken that for granted until this moment. Nothing could harm her when she stood within the safety of her own home. But this wasn’t the first time Helen had been attacked. It wasn’t the first time the visiting cohort had had to defend themselves—and Helen—from forces that were ancient before Kaylin had ever been born.
This time, it was Barrani. That should have made things easier, in theory. Theory was often garbage. She continued down the stairs. She knew where she needed to be—but she wasn’t certain she could find it without Helen’s intervention. Helen didn’t have a room in the hall where tenants lived. She had a table beneath an evening sky where she might meet and interview possible tenants, but as she was meeting relative strangers, it wasn’t where shelived, if she could be said to truly live at all.
The heart of Helen was the words at her core, True Words, all.
What would happen to a sentient building if they couldn’t reach their own words? Would they die? Would the words sustain them? Would they be like the Consort, whose True Name sustained her life, but in isolation?
“No, as you suspect.” Helen’s voice was soft. “It has not happened to my knowledge—but all living things can die; it is the ability to die that defines life.”
“That’s pretty grim.”
“Is it? My tenants, as they aged, feared death less and less. Perhaps when it arrived, they greeted death with resignation, grace, and peace. Their only worry was that they would leaveme behind—because to them, I was always the one being abandoned.”
Kaylin could follow the sound of the voice. It brought her, finally, to the end of the stairs, rather than a door that opened up in the wall. The Yvonnes came with her, abandoning their positions as guideposts and railings.
Kaylin stopped. She realized that the Yvonnes intended to follow her, and she wasn’t certain this would be a good thing for Helen. “Can you guys stay and wait for me here?” she asked without much hope. She wasn’t surprised when they failed to acknowledge her words at all.
Would the real Yvonne have been able to reach them? Or would they have looked past her, the way they sometimes looked past Kaylin? She didn’t know what they were looking at. But she felt a very real fear because she suspected they were seeing Helen. Helen’s core.
The Barrani understood that this was the way to attack a sentient building. But reaching the words at the heart of that building was almost impossible. Had she led the Yvonnes here?
“Yes,” Helen said. “But it is not the ghosts that I fear. Come, Kaylin. Quickly. Whether they follow or not, they are not the gravest threat.”
Kaylin could see stone walls, stone floor; she could see the golden glow of her exposed Marks. She couldn’t see the connection that bound her to Nightshade but suspected it was no longer necessary. Her eyes were open. She wondered if she would see the Yvonnes at all if it weren’t for Hope’s wing; he’d spread it across both eyes as if he knew it would be necessary.
Kaylin Neya was the tenant Helen had chosen; in the parlance of sentient buildings, it meant Kaylin was master here, Helen servant. But that wasn’t what Helen wanted from a tenant, and it wasn’t what Kaylin wanted from a home. Shewanted Helen to be Helen, to be as much of herself as possible, even if Kaylin didn’t understand all of it. Or even most of it.
But she was certain that the goal wasn’t to kill Helen; it was just a means to an end. Killing or injuring Helen would allow the Barrani to kill Nightshade. She shouldn’t have brought him here. If Nightshade could be mortally injured by Barrani, there was an unknown power in play, and it was a power that even Nightshade didn’t understand. She shouldn’t have assumed Helen would be safe, that Helen wouldn’t suffer consequences.
Her choices exposed Helen to mortal danger.
“You did not command me,” Helen said, her voice much softer. “Had I refused, you would have found someplace to take him. Perhaps you would have risked the Barrani in the fiefs. If your decision led to this, it was my decision as well. I was, perhaps, arrogant; I assumed what you assumed. Come in.
“Come, Chosen.”
The Marks on her arms were glowing brightly; as Kaylin watched, they pulled themselves up, off her skin. This wasn’t the first time it had happened, and it wouldn’t be the last—if she survived. If she didn’t, the Marks of the Chosen would depart; they would, in time, be offered to some other person. Maybe someone who would understand what they meant. Maybe someone who coulduse them properly.
Kaylin took one step forward and found herself in the heart of Helen’s power, the words now risen from stone as if they were like the Marks of the Chosen. She saw no one here, no Avatar of Helen, no invaders. None of the cohort were here, either.
But Severn’s voice reached her; Helen hadn’t done anything to prevent it.We’re closer than you think, he said, the tone one that reminded her of speech that came from clenched jaws.
“Helen, I need you to ask Terrano—privately—if the created space our enemies are using can be safely collapsed. Is he standing in it, now? Are any of the cohort?”