Kaylin shook her head.
“I’m not the Keeper—he is. And it didn’t make much sense to me, either, but I didn’t figure there was any harm in trying.” The familiar on his shoulder squawked—at Kaylin.
“Fair enough. Look—are we going to get soaked?”
“Not unless something’s changed in the last five minutes.”
“Time doesn’t pass the same way in the garden.”
“It does if Evanton’s really determined—but yes, it takes effort, and yes, it makes him grouchy. He says it gives him a headache.”
“I don’t envy you.”
“At least he’s not a Leontine who threatens to rip my throat out to keep me in line.”
“Or fire her,” Bellusdeo added. “He’s done that a few times as well.”
If the hall had been wider, Kaylin would have pushed past Grethan and into the garden just to escape the conversation she was sandwiched between. As it was, she counted. She’d been told that counting to ten was a way of cooling off. She was still skeptical, but apparently it only worked if you managed to reach a certain number.
Grethan could talk and open doors at the same time, and as the door opened, the room seemed to lurch out from around its frame to envelope the visitors.
Or rather, the water did. Like a hand made of liquid, enormous fingers reached out to wrap themselves around the Dragon and the Hawk. They seemed to ignore Grethan, but he was almost part of the garden, rather than a visitor. Or interloper. The water was cold.
“Remember,” Kaylin said, as they were drawn into the room, “it’s not my fault.”
* * *
The water pulled them in.
Kaylin took a deep breath as the shock of liquid hit her. She didn’t speak—she didn’t want a mouthful of water or more—but she could hear the sound of water, and all that the water contained. She could, as she did when she was in the grasp of the elemental water, hear the voice of theTha’alaan.
Kaylin?asked the Castelord of the Tha’alani, one of her favorite people in the world.What’s happened? What’s wrong?
Nothing?
Amusement and worry collided in Ybelline’s internal voice.You are with the water.
In the Keeper’s Garden yes—ugh.
...The water appears to be...agitated.
Yes, but she’s not mad at me. I think. There are no rocks here, and she’s not trying to drown us.
Us?
Bellusdeo’s here, too.
Kaylin, you need to open your eyes.
My eyes are—oh. Oh.
* * *
They were not in the Keeper’s Garden. Kaylin turned in a panic, the movement slowed by water’s weight, but her eyes found Bellusdeo, made less substantial when viewed through the water’s odd light.
Her eyes also found wooden floors, stone walls, arches that, carved, nonetheless resembled trees. She saw lights on the floor beneath her feet that seemed to emanate at regular intervals from the wood in which they shone. She thought she recognized those lights, because she had seen variations of them before.
In the Hallionne. On the way to the West March.
