23 #3
Yvonne stepped forward as Mrs. Erickson lifted a tray—it was hot enough to require oven mittens and concentration. Before
Fallessian could step in, Yvonne did.
“May I help you with that?” she asked, her tone far more warm, far more musical, than Kaylin had ever heard it.
Mrs. Erickson turned to look over her shoulder at the guest, her smile instant and welcoming. “That would be lovely. There
are mitts on the far counter, and you’ll need them. The trays are hot. I’m Imelda.”
“Yvonne,” Yvonne said instantly. She retrieved the aforementioned gloves.
Fallessian’s expression cracked a bit as Yvonne took his place: she helped Mrs. Erickson pull trays out of the large rounded
oven.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you before,” Mrs. Erickson added. “But I’m terrible with names.” This was a bald-faced lie.
“So am I,” Yvonne replied, cheerful now that she had something to do with her hands. “But my name’s not all that important,
and I don’t have to pretend to be offended when you don’t know who I am.”
“Some of that,” Mrs. Erickson said, “is not pretense, sadly. Not in my experience. Are you one of the guests?”
“She’s the guest,” Kaylin said.
“Oh dear. And here I am putting guests to work.” But she didn’t panic, and she smiled as she said it—as if she knew that Yvonne
helping in the kitchen was the best comfort she could offer. Yvonne certainly wouldn’t find Sedarias or Teela comforting,
and An’Tellarus, whom she clearly respected, was too prickly. Or maybe, Kaylin thought, An’Tellarus, like Sedarias, felt the
need for comfort was a weakness that could be easily exploited.
Kaylin exhaled. “Yvonne offered, and I think she’s more comfortable here than she’d be in the parlor. Hells, I’m more comfortable here than I’d be in the parlor, and I live with the scariest person in it.”
Yvonne laughed. “I don’t think An’Tellarus disliked you, but I’ve never seen her quite so unsettled. Helen seemed to recognize
her.”
“An’Tellarus is old. Helen’s older than both An’Tellarus and Teela, but at one time, Helen was home to a sorcerer. Or an Arcanist.
I really can’t tell the difference between the two.”
Hope squawked.
“Hope thinks you should be able to differentiate,” Yvonne said politely.
“Anyway, Helen doesn’t speak that much about her prior tenants.”
“Tenants?”
Kaylin grimaced. “Masters, if you prefer. Especially not the older ones. She’s a bit of an unusual building.”
“She’s like the Hallionne. I mean—they’re all different, but they all take care of their guests. And they hear what their
guests think.”
Kaylin nodded. “Helen will hear what you think unless you’re good at misdirecting.”
“Which I’m not. I’m not afraid of that, though. I always wanted to spend time in the Hallionne, but Alsanis was . . . not accepting visitors for most of my life.”
“He did have visitors,” Fallessian said. If Kaylin’s eye color could change with surprise, they’d be that color now. “Mostly,
it was us. For centuries.”
Yvonne’s brows rose. “You—you’re one of the children who were forced into the green!”
Fallessian’s expression rippled, but he nodded. “We were with Alsanis for a long time. He worried about us and cared for us,
but he wouldn’t let us leave. And he wouldn’t let anyone else visit us, either. We were younger, then—it didn’t really occur
to us to care about Alsanis’s other friends.”
“But you did leave.”
Fallessian nodded, glancing at Mrs. Erickson before he spoke again. To Kaylin’s surprise, Mrs. Erickson’s gentle smile was
accompanied by a nod—wordless encouragement. The idea that Fallessian cared about Mrs. Erickson wasn’t a surprise; he’d have
to, to spend so much time with her. But that he could somehow take direction from an old, mortal woman?
“We left on the day of the regalia. The regalia trapped us; the regalia freed us. The harmoniste on the day of our release was Lord Kaylin. She wore that dress. Her hair was far less refined, though.”
“I wish I’d seen that. I imagine the Lords of the West March weren’t really happy about it.”
“They weren’t. But the green chooses—both harmoniste and Teller. Lord Kaylin was chosen as harmoniste, and the Teller was
Calarnenne.”
Yvonne frowned. An’Tellarus would not have—she’d’ve recognized the name.
“He’s outcaste,” Kaylin said, voice soft.
Yvonne’s eyes grew gold again, but surprise fled more quickly this time. “The green chose an outcaste lord as the Teller.” It wasn’t a question. She didn’t think Fallessian was lying. “And a mortal as harmoniste.”
“Probably because of these,” Kaylin replied, lifting an arm. The Marks of the Chosen were faintly luminescent, even in the
bright lights of the kitchen. Mrs. Erickson liked natural light, but not to bake by—at least not according to Helen.
“That probably caused a lot of noise as well,” Yvonne replied, acknowledging the probable truth. “I think you’re the only
mortal the green has ever chosen for that role.”
“Well, the only one in recent history—I get the sense that history about the green is scattered and not entirely reliable.”
“Because it isn’t necessary.” Yvonne’s answer was far firmer. “The green is the green. We can serve the green at the edges
of its domain—but only with permission, and the service itself is akin to gardening. With extreme care. Some Barrani cannot
enter the green. The gates are there, and the Warden is willing to guide them, but the green is not willing to entertain them.
“But sometimes the green will sing. And sometimes it will tell stories. The regalia. The stories offered by the green are transformational. They can change lives and sometimes do—but never in a completely
predictable way.” She turned back to the oven to rescue the last of Mrs. Erickson’s trays. While she did, she continued to
speak.
“The green decides, but it doesn’t tell us its decisions. We have to guess. One of its decisions is, was, and will always
be: no children at the regalia. No children exposed to the full force of the green’s primal stories.
“But you were. Everyone in the West March knows An’Teela’s story. Everyone. But we also know that she wasn’t the only child
who was sent to the green. The Lords of the High Court thought they could experiment with their own kin; they thought to learn
about the green, to use it.”
Fallessian had fallen silent.
“Yvonne,” Helen said, her Avatar appearing in the kitchen. “An’Tellarus is now very alarmed.”
Yvonne was confused. “But why?” She set the tray, with its pastries, on the counter, and carefully removed the mitts.
“I cannot say, but she feels this is not the conversation you were meant to have when you accepted the invitation. I should
warn you she is on her way to the kitchen as I speak.”
Yvonne’s eyes took on a disturbing shade of blue. Something about that color reminded Kaylin of Teela at her most terrifying.
“The green is protective of the children it almost destroyed,” Yvonne said, her voice louder and far more resonant than it
had ever been. “I intend Fallessian of Torcannon no harm.”
Nothing about the voice, the sudden shift in posture, the darkness of the eyes, reminded Kaylin of the Yvonne she had met
in either the Tellarus rooms or the Sennarin rooms.