Cast in Honor (Chronicles of Elantra, #11)(119)

He can’t.

Can he hear you?

Yes. He is shouting for Evanton. I suggest—

Got it.

“EVANTON! EVANTON!” She stopped. “It just occurs to me—if he’s actually alive and he’s not trapped and he’s doing something finicky, that’s going to piss him off.”

“Too late.”

*

Angry, cranky Evanton was the definition of No Fun Whatsoever—but the relief Kaylin felt at the pinched irritation of his voice made the risk of actually encountering him up close and personal seem tiny.

“Evanton?”

“I heard you the first time.”

“Can you—can you see me?”

“I can see something moving, yes.”

“Great, keep talking. We’re kind of walking around in darkness here.”

“She’s walking around in darkness,” Mandoran said, correcting her.

“Mandoran. Kaylin thought it was a good idea to bring you here?”

“Actually, technically, Gilbert wanted us to tag along, and the Arkon brought us here because Kaylin insisted on visiting you before we went to the actual disaster.”

It was hard to forget the visceral fear that had driven her here when her friends were in unknown trouble. She pushed them out of the way—barely—and said, “The water shouldn’t have been able to rain—or flood—your store.” As she walked in the direction of his voice, the dark outline of the Keeper finally resolved itself, as if he were simply part of the Shadow that had chosen to solidify.

“Yes.”

“I think the water—the water that brought Kattea and Gilbert here because it could—exists in a place where there is no Garden. In the future that Gilbert and Kattea come from, the water wasn’t confined.”

“You have spoken to the elemental water outside of this garden before.”

She nodded. “One of those places was beneath Castle Nightshade—which is where Kattea and Gilbert met the water. But...the water brought something of itself from Kattea’s time, and I think that something is the reason containment of water has become...difficult?”

“Difficult is too mild a word. The water is attempting to communicate something to me, and I am clearly unable to translate.”

“Did the water do this?”

“No.”

“Then what—”

“I did it,” Evanton replied. “If you refer to the phasing here, it’s a choice I had to make. There is something that is attempting to attack the foundational stability of the Garden in ways you cannot perceive.”

Gilbert said, “I can.”

“I thought,” Evanton said, “you might be here.” There was a thread of very, very dry humor running through his colossal understatement. “Is Grethan with you?”

Kaylin answered. “I’ve attached myself to his arm; he’s probably having circulation problems. If I—if I let him go, will he be where we are?”

“Where does he think he is?”

“In the Garden. The normal Garden. I can see it if I look through my familiar’s wing—and that’s what he’s doing now.”

“Are you certain?”

“I was, when I walked in.” She poked the small dragon; he snapped at her finger, but not hard enough to draw blood. His annoyance didn’t prevent him from lifting his spare wing and setting it against Kaylin’s upper face, however. She saw Evanton, standing in the rock garden, his apron askew, his robes of office absent. Mandoran vanished, as did any evidence of Gilbert and his innate darkness.

“Grethan, can you see Evanton now?”

Grethan’s entire body relaxed. Answer enough.

She asked the familiar to lift his wing from Grethan’s view. The Tha’alani tensed again.

“Now?” Kaylin asked.

He squinted. “...Yes. Yes, I can see him now. He looks like a shadow.” She then asked the familiar to let her see without his wing, and he folded it in silence.

A pale Grethan stood by her side in a dark and almost featureless landscape. The only thing the two views had in common, beside some variant of Evanton, were the stones of the rock garden. But not all of the stones.

Here, there were four, like little monoliths. Kaylin walked Grethan to Evanton; the older man caught the younger man by the shoulder and moved him into a position that was central to the standing stones. She asked the Keeper one question. “Is there a reason you’re in the rock garden?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have time to explain it to me? I think—I think it could be important.”

If he did, the explanation would have to wait. “Grethan, you will not be able to return if things do not go well here. I am not,” he added, “expecting that things will go well. I believe there would be a home for you in the Tha’alani quarter—”

Grethan shook his head, his face flushing.

“Yes, there will be anger. There are always consequences for ill-considered actions. But the Tha’alaan is aware that you saved that child’s life. If there is anger over the part you played in her kidnapping, there is also gratitude. I believe Ybelline would accept you into the Tha’alaan; she would become your water in the outside world.”

He shook his head again. “I learned to hear and remember and experience life in a way that Tha’alani don’t. It’s too late—and I don’t want my life to be part of theirs. I think it would hurt them.”