“I think Alsanis will miss them.”
“I am certain, in a fashion, he will. They did not resent him, in the end. He did what he could for them, for as long as he could. But Kaylin, they are all aware that you carried them for the last stretch of that road. You are not of them, but they consider you one of theirs. It is part of the reason Annarion has been so aggrieved.”
“Nightshade wanted me to do what I did. I mean, he didn’t know precisely what it would be—but he wanted to rescue his brother.”
“Yes. And I believe Annarion understands that. But you know better than anyone that there are some prices for rescue that you are not willing to pay.”
Kaylin fell silent. Severn glanced at them both and then waded into the room. He pulled out a chair at the less crowded end of the table and took it, relaxing slowly into a seated posture that was very similar to Terrano’s. On Severn, however, it didn’t look unnatural.
Kaylin was about to join him when Spike came careening through the hall, like a ball thrown by an angry drunk. He came to a staggering stop inches away from Kaylin’s face. Helen cleared her throat. Loudly. The familiar, however, looked bored and tired; he lifted an eyelid, looked at Spike, and let it close, his entire posture suggesting that nothing about this was an emergency.
“I am here,” Spike said, as if the obvious needed to be stated. Kaylin stared at him, trying to figure out what he wanted. In the end, she lifted a hand—the left hand, because she was still capable of some caution—and let him settle into her palm, spikes and all. The spikes, however, didn’t hurt, and he weighed next to nothing. She could probably injure herself if she closed her own hand, but Spike didn’t seem intent on making her bleed again.
“He injured you?” Helen asked. Except that her voice was colder and harder, and the question came across as a demand.
“Probably my fault,” Kaylin said quickly. “I asked him if he could find me again. We kind of—never mind. You can just read my mind.”
Helen presumably did. Her eyes had gone obsidian again, but nothing else about her appearance changed; she was staring at Spike as if vision alone would answer any remaining questions she might have.
“Oh, it won’t,” Helen replied, although Kaylin had said nothing.
“I’m not sure why he cut me. I kind of wish he’d cut my hand, instead; I can patch up the shirt, but...” She shrugged. She was lying; she’d given up on salvaging this particular shirt, but had not yet done the math that would allow her to afford a new one.
“I understand why he cut you,” Helen said. “He wished to be certain that he could find you again.”
“And he can find anyone he—”
“Whose blood he has consumed, yes. He, by the way, is perhaps not the appropriate word. And no, he does not consume it the way your vampires would.”
Kaylin flushed.
“He is evaluating the metrics of the blood itself in a way that means he can be completely certain of his identification.”
“You don’t do that.”
“No, but it is not required. I have other methods of identifying you that Spike does not. If you would not mind, I would like to converse with Spike.”
“Go ahead.”
Helen’s voice shifted; she lost words, or rather, words as Kaylin understood them. Here or there she caught a syllable, but in the end it became almost painful to listen to—it was like the droning buzz of a bee hive, except that as more words were added, more bees arrived. In the end, Kaylin lowered her hand from the underside of Spike’s body, covered both ears with her hands, and retreated to the dining room.
She figured Spike wouldn’t find the retreat insulting; she covered her ears whenever Bellusdeo spoke in native draconian—or at least she did if she had two free hands—and Bellusdeo didn’t.
But the cohort were now craning their heads toward the door as Kaylin entered.
“Can you understand what they’re saying?” Kaylin asked, as she retreated to the wall farthest from that open door.
Sedarias shook her head. “But I think, with time and Spike’s input, we probably could.”
“Can you ask for lessons when I’m outside of the house?”
Mandoran laughed.
Sedarias, however, took Spike’s presence as a sign. It was time to get serious. Kaylin watched the transformation of the cohort’s expressions. “Teela is at the High Halls,” she said, which was not what Kaylin had expected.
“Is she under house arrest?”
“No. At this late stage, they would not dare. They are, however, very interested in our arrival.”
“Interested in an aggressive way? Or politely, politically, fictively interested?”
“Our method of arrival has not been disclosed; questions are, of course, being asked, and possible explanations given.”
“There are no good explanations.”
“That just makes the proceedings more entertaining.”
“Is Teela the one making stuff up?”
“No. Teela is very angry, and when she is angry she is on her best—her most exquisite—behavior.”
“Is Tain with her?”
“Tain is with her. As one of four guards. He is not present as a Hawk, and he has no standing in the High Court. Teela is there as a Lord, and she is surprisingly adept at it.”
“Surprisingly?”
“Teela was always unusual.” Sedarias turned to the cohort, although it wasn’t necessary. “But while we were away, she grew. She’s angry,” Sedarias repeated. “And it’s never completely safe for Teela to be angry.”
“Safe for who?”
“Anyone, but mostly Teela.”
Mandoran turned to Kaylin, his expression unusually grave. “We’re here for her. We’re here for each other. When our families threw us away—”
“I wasn’t thrown away,” Sedarias said.
“When the rest of our families threw away people too sane to demand the right to go to the regalia, we found each other. Teela doesn’t want Annarion to take the Test of Name because she can’t go. She’s a Lord of the Court.”
Kaylin frowned. “But that means—”
“Yes. You can’t go, either.”
Helen came into the room, Spike floating by her left shoulder. “I think,” she told the cohort, “I should show you to your rooms. At the moment, Annarion and Mandoran are sharing. I was uncertain whether or not you would want to do likewise.”
“Not if you let Mandoran design the room,” Serralyn said, pulling a face. But the cohort rose almost as a single person, and followed Helen as she led them out of the dining room and to the room which would become their temporary home.
Terrano did not follow. He watched until the last of the cohort—Sedarias, as it happened—had exited the room. Only when she was gone did he sag in his chair, as if he’d been fighting to hold himself upright. Or together. Kaylin had no idea what to say to him; she only knew that she should say something.