Page 147 of Cast in Atonement

Squawk.

The landscape had not shifted since their last visit. The door wasn’t a portal in any traditional sense of the word; Kaylin could simply walk through the entrance. She heard no voices, no demands, no commands, and when she turned to look over her shoulder, she could see the familiar confines of Mrs. Erickson’s hall.

Ahead, she saw the odd miasma that reminded her of the outlands; it was far darker than the outlands, and it was the darkness that had made her so uneasy. Through Hope’s wing, she could see packed dirt, a footpath between enormous trees. Those trees were the first difference she noted; they’d grown, although the shape of the path hadn’t. The ceiling above the trees was obscured by the crossing and blending of high branches.

Mrs. Erickson could see the trees, given the way she looked up, and up again, to see their crowns. “The trees make it look lonely, somehow,” she said, which surprised Kaylin. “Even if we’re all here together.” She looked back to Kaylin, and Kaylin separated herself from Severn to walk on the other side of Mrs. Erickson. There was certainly room for her.

She marked the moment the ground changed; she could see the flowers.

Mrs. Erickson could see them as well; she stopped walking, glanced at Evanton, and nodded in the direction of those flowers, as if afraid to ask permission for something so frivolous.

He smiled and nodded. All his impatience seemed to be reserved for Kaylin and Bellusdeo today.

Mrs. Erickson crossed the ground and headed toward the greenery and the flowers it sheltered. She knelt slowly in front of them, and reached out to gently touch one flower’s petals, as if to convince herself that they were real.

The flowers began to glow, the ivory becoming golden with light, the green, emerald. The flowers directly in front of Mrs. Erickson’s feet rose before her, stretching on their stems as if in greeting, as if they weren’t flowers but small kittens or puppies who were eager for attention.

She must have been surprised, but the predominant expression that transformed her face was delight. She knelt carefully as if afraid to crush them, and the flowers came to her hand. Azoria had bound one—a single, carefully grown blossom—in Mrs. Erickson’s hair. The flowers that were rooted seemed almost to envy that long-ago bloom. As Mrs. Erickson reached out for them, they came to her hands, separating themselves from their roots.

This did shock her, and she turned to Evanton as if seeking reassurance.

“You did not pick them. You did not break their stems. Be at ease, Imelda.”

Kaylin turned to Evanton. “Did you expect this?”

“It is folly to have expectations of the green,” he replied. “But Mrs. Erickson is not the green. I did not expect this, no—but I find myself very unsurprised.”

That couldn’t be said of Teela, whose eyes had rounded; nor could it be said of Bellusdeo, whose grief had given way, as it so often did, to worry, copper becoming orange. “Are they harmful?” she demanded of Teela.

Teela shook her head, and after a moment, found her voice. “No. But I have never seen them except in the green, and I have never seen them in this number, or in this state.”

“They won’t hurt her?” Bellusdeo demanded.

“Can you not hear their joy?” the Barrani Hawk replied, her words spoken in a hush. “No. They will not hurt her, and if their presence is this strong, I pity anything that makes that attempt.” She shook her head. “Forgive me, I have no more understanding of what transpires here than you.”

Bellusdeo turned orange eyes on Kaylin; Kaylin shook her head. “I’m with Teela.”

“And do you hear the joy she does?”

“I don’t hear it, no—but I can see it. Don’t they look like puppies to you?”

“Small dogs? Hardly.”

Kaylin watched as the flowers that had gathered, that continued to reach for Mrs. Erickson, began to twine themselves together, becoming, in her hands, a wreath.

“I believe you may wear it,” Evanton told her. “As a crown.”

“It’s a lovely crown. Yes, thank you,” she added, speaking directly to the flowers.

Crown. Kaylin frowned. The wreath didn’t look like a crown to her eyes, but to Evanton’s they did. Kaylin knew her dress was the dress of the harmoniste; that her role in the green and the West March had been to somehow facilitate the Teller. The Teller, who was chosen by the green, and could prove it because of the crown granted him, in the same fashion the dress had been “granted” her. This wreath was not the crown Nightshade had worn as Teller; it wasn’t a crown any Barrani would have recognized—not the way they instantly recognized Kaylin’s dress.

She was now worried for Mrs. Erickson but managed to keep this to herself.

Unless someone was very familiar with her facial expressions. Teela understood instantly what Kaylin’s concern was. “Mrs. Erickson,” Teela said. “Are these flowers dead?”

The question surprised Mrs. Erickson. “No. They don’t look like the dead look to me. But they don’t quite seem like regular flowers, either.”

“No, they don’t. Thank you,” Teela added.

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