24 #3
money in the process.” She exhaled. “The first time I wore this dress, it vanished after the regalia. I mean, not while I was wearing it—but it wasn’t there after I removed it. Teela said that always happens. The second time,
it . . . just appeared. My normal clothing was transformed while I was wearing it—and the transformation didn’t wear off.”
Mrs. Erickson said, “It’s a lovely dress. But Helen, when did you bring these flowers into the kitchen? They’re not from your
garden.”
Kaylin exhaled slowly. There were flowers in the kitchen—there were always flowers in the kitchen.
Helen could provide them, because Mrs. Erickson loved them; they made Kaylin sneeze half the time, so she was less thrilled.
But those flowers were in vases and in carefully tended pots, and they were chosen by Mrs. Erickson, because Helen had opened a garden for their growth.
Fallessian helped, too; gardening was long and tiring work.
Kaylin often wondered why Fallessian had taken so strongly to Mrs. Erickson. She’d never asked because it was impossible not
to like Mrs. Erickson. Conflict with the old woman would draw Helen’s ire more certainly than conflict with Kaylin, her theoretical
master, would. But if the cohort liked Mrs. Erickson, most of them hadn’t made themselves her personal assistant.
And regardless, Fallessian hadn’t helped Mrs. Erickson plant these flowers. There was no way he could. These flowers grew
in only one place: the green.
Mrs. Erickson recognized them. Kaylin recognized them. Yvonne recognized them as well. She was less certain of An’Tellarus,
a woman whose will and ambition implied that all forms of power were considered rivals or competitors; she wondered if An’Tellarus
had ever walked the green. Now was not the time to ask.
“Serralyn says they’re the same flowers we saw in the ruins of Azoria’s manse,” Terrano said. “She’s worried.”
“I don’t understand.” Kaylin turned to Helen. “They’re the same flowers. She’s right. But what are they doing here?”
“What is the dress you are wearing doing here? It is the dress worn when the green chooses to share its stories; those stories
cannot be heard without the medium of both Teller and harmoniste. The Teller bears the weight of the green’s power and intent,
but there is far, far too much in the story for even a Teller of power and will to convey. It is the harmoniste who allows
part of that story to be told in a way that listeners can comprehend.
“There is a story unfolding in this space.”
“But this isn’t the green!”
“You think?” Terrano snapped. He turned to Yvonne, and then from Yvonne to Severn, and then, finally, hands on hips, to Kaylin herself. “What did we do when we took Azoria down? What did we bring back with us?”
“There are no ghosts,” Mrs. Erickson said, her voice soft. She hesitated. Mrs. Erickson wasn’t one of nature’s liars—in that,
she was like Kaylin. She hadn’t lied. But she was hesitant, as if she herself wasn’t certain of the truth of her words.
“Terrano, ask Mandoran if—if Nightshade is awake.”
“We’d all know if he’d woken up. What’s the real question?”
“Is he wearing the Teller’s crown?”
“I really wish you hadn’t asked that question.”
“He is?”
“He isn’t.”
“Then why—”
“Because the Teller’s crown is now in his room. And Serralyn doesn’t think that’s the problem. She’s worried, did I mention?”
Kaylin nodded, as if worrying Serralyn was the worst thing that was happening.
“The green shouldn’t be here. It shouldn’t reach here.”
“But the green does touch the world outside its theoretical borders—Nightshade had the Teller’s crown before he set out to the West March. And the dress appeared in the closet of a Hallionne when I was on
the way there.”
“Serralyn says that’s only when the regalia is about to take place. It’s always been true. This is different.” He hesitated. “She says the green—like the elemental forces—is
a power beyond us, and if it is not contained, she fears what it might do. It has been contained; the green is in the West March for a reason.
“But the aftereffects of the overlap between the dead and the living, and the intrusion of the green—due, probably, to Azoria’s spells—are causing ripples in reality.
Yvonne is part of that. You’re part of that.
She thought, if he were awake, that Nightshade might be drawn into it.
” He exhaled. “Mrs. Erickson? I’m sorry I interrupted you. ”
“Oh, I wasn’t speaking, dear,” she said almost automatically, as if to deny she’d been inconvenienced at all. That was her
way. But Kaylin understood that Terrano’s apology was meant to prod her to continue what she hadn’t even started to say.
“You said there are no ghosts?”
Mrs. Erickson nodded, but it was a shaky nod.
“What do you see?”
Fallessian immediately interposed himself between Mrs. Erickson and the rest of the kitchen, which made it harder for Yvonne
to find refuge in helping the older woman.
“Nothing terrible will happen to anyone in this kitchen,” Helen said, her voice soothing, her expression the kind of soft
that implied what lay beneath it was made of steel.
Mrs. Erickson then stepped out from behind Fallessian, toward Yvonne. She leaned up—she had to lean up, as she was the shortest
person in the room—and whispered something to the young Barrani woman.
Kaylin could see Yvonne in profile, because Yvonne bent to catch the old woman’s words. But Severn was worried. No sign of
it crossed his expression, but he’d always been good at keeping his reactions to himself.
Yvonne’s eyes were wide and dark. It was to Helen she looked first, and then, past Helen, to An’Tellarus, whose expression
was rigid with denial. But it was to Kaylin she turned last, her eyes beseeching. “Why—why am I here?”
“Because something is happening with the Lake, with the Lady, with the future of the Barrani. And because,” Kaylin added,
exhaling, “I wanted to talk to you before I introduced you to the Consort. If I thought it was safe. If—as I believed—you
never intended harm.”
“Why is the harmoniste’s dress here?”
“I don’t know.”
“And the flowers? The flowers are singing. The green is close.”
“I don’t know. If I had to guess, the green has slender roots in this space.”
“Because of you?”
“And because of Mrs. Erickson. Because it was Mrs. Erickson who wore a wreath made of these flowers, and Mrs. Erickson who . . .
touched the dead. She can see the dead, and she can speak to them as if they were children.”
“What kind of a home is this?” Yvonne asked, bewildered. “I feel like I’ve walked into a story—and I’m not certain it isn’t
Barrani in nature.”
Terrano snorted. “She means noble death and destruction and tragedy, in case that wasn’t clear. If we’re bit players, we’re
all dead, but we don’t get good deaths. Well, maybe An’Tellarus might.”
“What would I be?”
“Don’t ask. There’s a reason Barrani children don’t get much in the way of stories—not the way humans do.”
“That’s because we don’t need pointless fiction to ennoble ourselves,” Sedarias—mostly silent until this moment—snapped.
“Given the High Court? We could certainly use something.”
Yvonne coughed; it was the kind of cough that emerged when someone was surprised into laughter they definitely shouldn’t share.
But the coughing stopped. “Severn,” Yvonne said, voice almost a whisper. “Can I trust them?”
Sedarias rolled her eyes in disgust, which was only funny when paired with An’Tellarus’s equally disgusted expression.
“I do,” Severn replied.
Yvonne turned to Mrs. Erickson and said, “Tell them. Tell us.”
“But is it really okay?”
“If things become more dangerous,” Helen told her friend, “Yvonne can remain with us until the danger passes. Imelda—you have never caused harm. Even when speaking with Bellusdeo’s ghosts, you helped both Bellusdeo and her sisters to heal.
But if I understand anything now, it’s important that we have as much information going forward as we can; without it, we can’t even begin to ask the right questions. ”
“I see the dead near Yvonne.”