Page 134 of Cast in Atonement

“Will Bellusdeo allow it?”

“I’m sorry, dear. She will not be happy, as you must suspect.”

Kaylin nodded. “I don’t suppose Mrs. Erickson has been able to untangle her sisters?”

Helen shook her head and exhaled, an affectation. “If the Keeper is correct, removing these ghosts will help Imelda. No one truly understands Mrs. Erickson’s power—but all magic requires power, and I believe she is using that power so naturally, she is unaware of the expenditure. But it is costly; I do not know how much longer she can bear this responsibility.

“It is why I am willing to risk her. If she dies, the ghosts she has so carefully husbanded will be unleashed—and I am not at all certain that I can contain them if they are unwilling to be contained. If the Keeper feels they are some part of the necessary key to solving the problem of a dead Ancient...they are both dead, they are both dangerous to the living, and if Mrs. Erickson is the shaman who might usher the dead to peace, she cannot wait until the scholars know more, until the theoreticians can make suggestions or attempt to guide her in her handling of her power.” Helen closed her eyes, another affectation.

Kaylin headed to the door of her room; she took a steadying breath. “Mrs. Erickson and Bellusdeo first,” she said. Hope squawked.

Mrs. Erickson’s room was no longer in the same location it had been when she’d first joined the household; her door was absent.

“Yes,” Helen said; she had quietly followed Kaylin. “I am attempting to do everything I can to take on some of her burden—but with limited success. Bellusdeo is aware of this, but aware as well that Mrs. Erickson will not abandon the charges she took on. Her sleeping quarters are separate from her ghosts; I cannot stop them from seeping into the room, but after she spends time with them, they are less restless for a period of time.

“There is no other way to have them safely exist in the same space as Imelda.” Helen led her to the double doors at the end of the hall. Kaylin frowned.

“Yes. These doors lead to my quarters. You have visited them before.”

“But didn’t these doors open to an outdoor patio?”

“The decor was not considered traditional bedroom decor, no. But I do not require sleep, and it seemed the appropriate setting at the time.”

She lifted a hand and the doors gently rolled open into a large sitting room, similar to the parlor she created for guests she considered socially important, but more comfortable, more lived-in. Kaylin wondered if it echoed the family room that Mrs. Erickson had been forced to abandon; that room was not this large.

But perhaps, in the echoes of a childhood spent there with her parents, it had seemed larger than it did to the investigative eyes of a Hawk.

“She knows it is not the same place,” Helen said. She spoke quietly; Bellusdeo was seated in the room. Mrs. Erickson was not.

“She’s sleeping,” the gold Dragon said, rising from her chair as Kaylin entered. “Helen informed us both that Evanton has been found, and that he has returned to his home in more or less one piece. Imelda has been very worried, and the relief has made her very, very tired. Terrano’s not back.”

Kaylin shook her head.

“Why are you standing there looking like guilt personified?” When Kaylin failed to answer immediately, the Dragon added, “You’ve got nothing on me for guilt. I’m just warning you, I’m not going to be patient with yours or anyone else’s—unless you’ve managed to destroy a world when I wasn’t looking.” Bellusdeo folded her arms. Her eyes were an odd blend of copper and orange; the copper might have been a trick of the light.

Kaylin assumed they’d soon get red, so copper would be irrelevant. She even understood; in her life, she often chose anger as a way to paper over pain. Her anger, on the other hand, couldn’t turn houses to ash. She looked at one of the chairs; she didn’t exactly want to sit, as Bellusdeo was on her feet.

“There were a few complications,” she finally said.

“You can start with that dress. What in the hells are you wearing?”

Oh, right. Kaylin lifted her left arm; it trailed a drape of emerald sleeve. Hope squawked, but for once Bellusdeo failed to hear him. Kaylin heard him quite well, and eventually lifted a hand to protect the ear his mouth was closest to. He didn’t take kindly to being ignored.

“I got the dress just after I had to leave the city when our apartment was reduced to rubble.”

“It’s Barrani.”

“It’s a significant, ceremonial Barrani dress. If it didn’t look like this—and I had any right to keep it—I’d even appreciate it. It doesn’t get dirty. It can’t be torn. I doubt it can be cut, but I haven’t been stupid enough to try. I can run in it; I’m sure Barrani could fight in it perfectly well.”

“Which ceremony?” Bellusdeo’s arms got tighter.

“The regalia.”

“The one the cohort was exposed to as children?”

“That one, yes. Look—it was against the laws of the West March to present children as an audience for the regalia. The High Court decided those were quaint, rustic rules, and broke them.” Bellusdeo was silent. “It’s not the first time I’ve worn the dress.”

“And you’re not on the way to the West March.”

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