Cast in Honor (Chronicles of Elantra, #11)(95)

“If you were to be aware of every minute of your existence, you would be bound by none of it. You could not think, speak, function; your existence would dwindle to introspection. Your ability to interact with the world itself is contingent on your perception of time. It is true of you. It is true of Lord Nightshade.

“It is true,” he added, “of Kattea. You understand that when the water folded in on itself in the fashion that it did, there were—and are—consequences.” This didn’t sound like a question.

I can hear the Tha’alaan. I’m afraid I’ve broken it.

She nodded. She wondered how she would live if she could, at any time, experience her own death. She wondered how much of her life would be lived in an effort to prevent it, how much of her life would be fear and nothing but fear. She wondered if she would view every person in the room as dying or dead if she knew, in advance, what their fates would be.

“It is to prevent such ruptures that my kin were created. In some cases, we could not mend what was broken. We were not required to destroy the resultant chaos, but to quarantine it. We were not required to save individual lives, such as yours.” He looked at Kattea. “We could not, as I said, see them. Not without risk and effort.”

“Gilbert?”

“Yes?”

“If your job isn’t to save individual lives, why are you here?”

“I explained this to you.”

He had. She’d even understood it, but frustration had dimmed the effect of the words. Or maybe lack of knowledge about Gilbert had. She looked at him now, Kattea in his arms, and understood. He had chosen to befriend Nightshade. He had chosen to look at a presence he could only dimly register. He had somehow taught himself to hear and then to speak.

And he had then gone searching for a way to restore Nightshade to his own time. Nightshade. One man, not a world, and not an epoch.

Squawk.

Gilbert exhaled. His breath was visible. “The water is correct. What was done should not have been done. It should have been impossible. And were such impossibility to be detected, it would be corrected.” He hesitated.

Kaylin really hated Gilbert’s notion of time. “So, let me get this straight. Time is directional, for us.”

“Yes.”

“And time is meant to be directional. We’re not meant to be shoved into the past or thrown into the future.”

“Yes.”

“And if it’s possible to break this unspoken rule, people like you come in and fix it.”

“...Yes.”

“So the Castle broke the rule.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re attempting to...fix the problem?”

He had the grace to look vastly less certain. “...No.”

“I give up. Let’s move on to point two. The water said that the reason you’re here—and now—is because it’s the only moment in which there was a break, or a space.”

Gilbert’s eyes narrowed—all three of them. “The only moment?”

“Yes—and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you yourself said when you arrived here, you could no longer see time. Something’s happening here. Or it will happen, soon. Something is broken for only a very small window of time—our version of time.” Her thoughts raced ahead of her ability to express them. Or retain them. “If you notice big breaks, big things that are wrong, then this must be something that you can’t or haven’t noticed. Maybe you don’t see us because our lives are too short and too slight—”

“You think this break is something that we would not have noticed.”

She nodded. Hesitated. “Do you know what happened? The Tha’alaan is going to be lost. Part of you was there, in the future in which it disappears. Do you know why?”

“My perception of your life is filtered through the Tha’alani. It is why I can speak to you and understand you as well as I do.” The water lowered her head. “Ybelline is attempting to find an answer to your question. She cannot...move...through time. She knows that something is coming. She may know...when.”

“Severn?” Kaylin asked.

He came forward to join her.

“Gilbert, you’d better come with us. I think you...destabilize...the Garden.”

Gilbert nodded. The water, however, asked, “Why do you have that child with you?”

Kattea shrank into Gilbert’s chest, trying to look smaller.

“He needs Kattea to get back,” Kaylin replied.

The water’s frown etched itself into Kaylin’s vision. “Is that what the child told you?”

“It’s what Gilbert told us.” Kaylin felt the water’s grip on her hand tighten. “You don’t think she’s in any danger from him?”

“This is not perhaps the safest time in which to introduce a mortal,” the water replied. It wasn’t an answer. There wasn’t going to be an answer—at least not while Kattea was present. Kaylin decided it was a provisional “no.” No, Gilbert did not intend to harm her, and yes, there was danger regardless.

But it couldn’t be worse, at this point, than death by Ferals. Clinging to that thought, Kaylin said, “Evanton, can I use your mirror?”

*

Bellusdeo was with the Arkon when the mirror connected. She took one look at Kaylin and her eyes darkened to the orange with which Kaylin was becoming increasingly familiar. “We’re fine,” she said quickly. “But—there’s a problem.