case anyway. You’re my home,” Kaylin added, “but you’re not my slave. Most people don’t have sentient homes. You speak, think, interact like a person—because you are one. Moran won’t be able to see you as some part of me. I don’t, and can’t, own you. You’ve decided, for your own reasons, to let me live here; you’ve decided that you’ll accept my guests—even Imperial ones. You go out of your way—”
“It is part of my essential function—”
“—to make those guests feel safe and at home here.”
“Mandoran and Annarion were willing to die to protect me,” Helen countered. “I could not in good conscience offer less. I would even be willing to house your Teela, but she is...less comfortable with my presence. She does trust me where you’re concerned, but she is afraid that the fact that she is not you, and not like you, would tell against her where I’m concerned. She thinks that I am very like Caitlin.”
“And you’re not?”
“I do not think so. I have not yet met your Caitlin.”
“You’d like her.”
“I hope, for your sake, that she likes me,” Helen replied. She led the way into the dining room.
“Shouldn’t we use the parlor?”
“This is a much larger room, and the windows are both bigger and brighter.” She frowned.
“Problem?”
“Teela and Mandoran are speaking to Annarion; he is not responding. Or rather, not well, and not with words. I should go.” Helen’s voice could be in two locations at once; that ability did not extend to her full, physical Avatar. Tara could, and the Hallionne could. But there was a lot Kaylin didn’t know about Helen and her capabilities.
“I’ll wait.”
The small dragon squawked, loudly, in her ear, and Kaylin said, “But he’ll go with you, if you don’t mind.” More squawking and one spiteful snap at the stick that kept Kaylin’s hair in place later, the small dragon was gone, flapping around Helen’s departing head in a circle of irritability.
Kaylin took a chair and folded her arms on the tabletop; she dropped her head onto her forearms. She was exhausted. What she did know about Helen was simple enough: she trusted her. Everything else could wait.
* * *
The first person to enter the dining room was not Helen. Nor was it Moran, Teela or the other two Barrani. It was Bellusdeo. She was accompanied by Severn and Tain, who looked decidedly ill-at-ease.
“The Arkon wants to see you,” Bellusdeo said without preamble.
Kaylin lifted her head. She wondered how long she’d slept, because she had that slightly fuzzy brain that meant sleep had just been broken. “I like the Arkon, but when he wants to see me, it’s usually because he has a thousand questions. None of which I can answer. When I can’t answer, he gets cranky. He’s pretty much never cranky at you.” Unlike Diarmat. It was possibly the first kind thought she’d had about Diarmat—and that was upsetting in an entirely different way. She looked up; Bellusdeo was smiling. Her eyes were gold.
Tain’s eyes, on the other hand, were blue.
“Teela’s here,” Kaylin told him, although he hadn’t asked. “She’s arguing with Annarion.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Mandoran’s on her side.”
“You think that’s going to change the outcome?” Tain snorted. “I honestly do not see the appeal of children.”
“They’re not exactly children.”
“I’ve lived with them. That’s exactly what they are. They might not appear to be young in the fashion of mortal children, but they have the fecklessness of Barrani youth, coupled with far too much power.”
Kaylin remembered what Mandoran had said about living with Tain; he’d likened it to a dungeon, but less dark. She coughed to cover her amusement, because laughter wasn’t going to make Tain feel any better.
“What are they arguing about?”
“Nightshade.”
Irritation drained from Tain’s expression. “What is Annarion going to do?”
“Best guess?”
Tain nodded.
“He’s going to head into the fiefs.” She smacked herself in the forehead. “That’s what I forgot!”
“You don’t intend to tell Annarion what Gilbert said, surely.”
Kaylin blinked.
“If you don’t want him charging into the heart of the fiefs, you’ll keep it strictly to yourself.”
“I think it’s too late.”
Tain pinched the bridge of his nose. This was the Barrani equivalent of smacking himself in the face.
“I didn’t tell him—I haven’t seen him since I got back. I visited Evanton and endured a faceful of raging Leontine sergeant, and I’m trying to convince Moran that she wants to stay here instead of living in the infirmary for three months. If Annarion knows, it’s because Teela told him.”
“If Teela told him, she has her reasons.”
But if Kaylin told him, she wouldn’t? Kaylin glared at Tain; Tain ignored it. “I can’t think of any other reason they’d be arguing. Helen had to go downstairs to help out; she thinks Annarion’s close to losing it.”
This did not change the color of Tain’s eyes any.
“What were you thinking, bringing them back from the West March?”
“I didn’t bring ‘them’; I brought Mandoran. He would have come on his own anyway, because Annarion was here. I didn’t expect—” She exhaled, thinking about Moran, and the Hawks that had not survived the ancestors’ attack. “I was thinking that they were Teela’s friends, that they were people she trusted and that she’d thought they were lost forever. I was thinking that it would be as if they were let out of jail after a really, really long sentence.
“I didn’t understand what they were—or weren’t. But neither did Teela.”
Bellusdeo said, “Leave her alone, Tain. What’s happened has happened. There was no malice or ill intent.”
“They weren’t your losses.”
“No?” Bellusdeo drew herself up to her full height, which was much more impressive than Kaylin’s.
To Kaylin’s surprise, Tain looked away first. “Apologies,” he said—and even sounded as if he meant it, although Barrani were very capable liars. “I am worried—”
“About Teela, yes. I imagine she appreciates it about as much as I would.”
