To Kaylin’s eye, the more visible marks remained determinedly black-gray, the color she associated with quiet.
Spike clicked a few more times, his visible body undergoing small, popping contortions as spikes protruded and retreated in something that looked almost like a pattern.
The Consort’s eyes remained blue, but she lifted them from Kaylin’s hand—and Spike—to Kaylin’s face. “Please. I look forward to your explanation.”
Kaylin almost punted the question to Severn, because Severn seemed to have recognized the Barrani lord in question. She didn’t. Instead, she said, “Spike, can you show the Lady the man who enteredRavellonand carried you out?”
“Yes,” Spike replied in perfect, if somewhat flat, Elantran.
Kaylin stepped away from the table as the air just above her plate began to thicken with silver-gray fog. “Maybe not at the table.”
“Helen has been teaching me,” Spike said, “about your furniture and how you view the world. It is enlightening, but extremely frustrating.”
“Yeah, I hear that a lot. Except not about furniture.”
Ynpharion.
Silence.
You must have seen Spike. We were in contact while I was in the West March.
The contact was very intermittent, Ynpharion replied, his words almost as flat as Spike’s. In Ynpharion’s case, that meant something.
Did you know?
She could feel his sudden frustration and disgust.No, he said, his internal voice acid.I’m stupid and unobservant.
After this is all over, you and I are going to have a long talk.
Wonderful. Might I remind you that you need to survive?
Right. She cleared her throat, but it wasn’t necessary; the Consort was no longer watching Kaylin. She wasn’t watching Spike, either. She was looking at the man, in his nondescript clothing, none of which was suitable for Court. He wore a hood, but the hood itself gathered around his neck; his face was exposed.
This time, when Spike began to build a setting around the man, it was clearer. Helen had obviously been successful in her attempts to teach him about normal perception—or at least normal for Elantrans.
“When did this occur?” the Consort asked.
Spike was silent.
“Please answer the Consort,” Kaylin told him.
“Apologies. Your concept of time is difficult and narrow. It is not my intent to remain silent.”
He began to speak in whirs, and after a lot of them, Helen said, “If I may translate, I believe this occurred before Kaylin’s visit to the West March.”
“By how much?”
“According to Spike, very close to the same time.” Helen’s answer was hesitant. “Spike’s ‘very close’ could vary, in my opinion, by years.”
“But not by decades or centuries?”
“Perhaps the outside of a decade. Not centuries, however.”
“I believe it would have been more recent,” Sedarias said quietly. She did not look to, or otherwise implicate, Terrano. “And Spike said or implied that he—Spike—had been ordered to attend the man who came to collect him.”
“By who?”
“Someone or something inRavellon. He doesn’t give it a name—and if he could, I wouldn’t suggest using it, regardless. You believe that this man is somehow implicated in the task you wish us to perform if you believe it will not destroy the High Halls.”
