Page 19 of Cast in Atonement

The sisters’ names were the True Names that, combined, had become the name Bellusdeo now carried within her: a sign of her coming-of-age in Dragon terms. Had their bodies somehow been preserved because their True Names had been preserved?

That wasn’t the way it was supposed to work.

The bodies found in Elantra had been almost pristine; there was no sign of the cause of their deaths. They looked as if they were sleeping; she would have assumed they were, but she knew Dragons, like any other living creature in this world, needed to breathe, and these bodies didn’t.

She knew when it came to the nature of True Names as sources of life, she was almost entirely ignorant. She understood that they worked, because she’d seen the Lake of Life, and she knew what the Consort’s actual job was.

True Names didn’t preserve Barrani bodies. Tain’s tooth, chipped in combat, had never magically become whole again. Barrani could be scarred, they could lose limbs, but the Hawks didn’t see much of that because mortals couldn’t really cause those injuries to Barrani Hawks.

She had no idea what happened to bodies when the morgue was done assessing them. Most would be released to families; those without families would be interred...somewhere. She’d never been too concerned with that part of the procedure, because it wasn’t her job.

But even if the bodies had somehow been fully preserved—which she doubted—and even if they had some way of transferring True Names back to those bodies, they had no way of extracting those names. The names were part of Bellusdeo’s name.

Maybe that was why these ghosts were now bound to the gold Dragon.

Bellusdeo would have accepted that—with immense guilt—had the ghosts not been weeping. She’d accepted the deaths of her sisters—and the structural change in the actual name at her heart—until the moment she’d met Mrs. Erickson in person.

But Bellusdeo hadn’t come to Helen to discuss ghosts with Mrs. Erickson; she’d come in a terribly, almost red-eyed mood to discuss something else.

Kaylin cleared her throat. “I don’t mean to change the subject—”

“Then don’t,” Bellusdeo snapped.

“—but you didn’t visit Helen to meet Mrs. Erickson. You didn’t visit because you had a ghost problem.”

“Why I visited no longer matters. This is more important.”

The chancellor exhaled a thin stream of smoke. “If you felt it important enough to visit Helen,” he began.

“It isn’t as important as this.” Bellusdeo folded her arms, lifting her chin. “Nothing’s as important as this.”

“Very well. I assumed there might be difficulties with your Tower, and you wished Helen’s input.”

“It’s not just the Tower. And I don’t appreciate Kaylin’s attempt to change the subject.”

Since that was exactly what Kaylin had been trying, she winced but said nothing.

“I haven’t spoken with Karriamis about Mrs. Erickson. I intend to ask him for information about Necromancy—or whatever it is we’re dealing with—after we finish at the Academia. I’ve asked the Arkon for any information he has, and I’ve applied for permission to return to the internal mirror at the heart of the archives.”

“I do not believe he wishes Mrs. Erickson to be in the presence of that mirror.”

Bellusdeo clearly didn’t care. “I’ll be visiting with Helen for the foreseeable future. Mrs. Erickson hasn’t had a lot of focused practice with her abilities, and even if the Arbiters can unearth practical, historical information, she’s still going to need to attempt to use that information properly.”

Arbiter Starrante came down from the wall. “I would, with permission, like to take Mrs. Erickson on a walking tour of the Academia campus.”

The chancellor’s brows rose.

“With your permission,” Starrante added, half of his eyes turned toward Mrs. Erickson.

“I would love that,” Mrs. Erickson replied, as if she meant it. She probably did. “But it’s going to be dark soon—should we wait until tomorrow? My eyes aren’t very good in the dark anymore.”

Starrante’s eyes—two of them—rose from his body and swiveled toward the chancellor, who seemed to be all smoke or steam, given his breath. His eyes remained orange.

Bellusdeo’s were orange as well, but shading toward red. Kaylin expected a lot of red in the coming days.

“You have my permission.”

Kaylin rose instantly. “We’re going to head home, then.” Her stomach hadn’t embarrassed her yet, but it was dinnertime, and if she didn’t eat something soon, it would.

---