Page 150 of Cast in Atonement

She shook her head, trying to clear it.

Bellusdeo and her sisters faced forward, understanding that it was not their fate alone that was of concern. They fell into step beside Kaylin—or through her—as Kaylin walked once again toward the rest of her waiting companions. Evanton’s expression was familiar, it was so pinched.

“Are you perhaps ready to continue?”

“Bellusdeo had fallen behind,” she said. “And I don’t want to lose anyone here.”

Evanton then shared part of his glare with the gold Dragon. One of the ghosts said something that would have been questionable even in the Hawks’ office, and that said something. She said it, however, in a very sweet voice while she smiled at an old man who couldn’t hear or see her.

Bellusdeo’s lips twitched. Her eyes were almost pure gold, and Kaylin didn’t think a waking dead Ancient would mar that color even briefly.

“Sorry, Evanton. Yes, we’re ready.”

“Good. I believe you should go first.”

Of course he did.

The path through the trees seemed much longer than it had the first time she walked it. Bellusdeo was on her right.

“Are you okay?”

Kaylin nodded but bit her lip. At some point, Severn slid an arm under her arms, because she was now stumbling in the way people did when they’d tried to carry something far too heavy for longer than they could reasonably bear the weight. Bellusdeo cursed and did the same on the other side.

You don’t feel any heavier, Severn told her, voice gentle.

To you. She didn’t speak because she was afraid she’d start to shudder and bit her own lip. She was cold; the cold had seeped into the whole of her body, and the dress did nothing to warm it.

But she walked past the trees that formed the boundary of the path—visible to her clearly through Hope’s wing. The arch that had led to the dead Ancient finally came into view. By this point, she was content to let Bellusdeo and Severn drag her through it; dignity wasn’t worth the effort.

Her supports required no direction, although Severn took the subtle lead. Both he and Bellusdeo could see the standing form of the Ancient; from this vantage, it looked like a colossal statue, carved in gray stone. It had the form of a slender man—perhaps an older boy, which was not what the Ancient had looked like the first time she’d seen him move and speak.

The immediacy of this statue drove that early image from her mind. She really envied Immortals their perfect memory; hers went to pieces after a few days, whereas Teela could tell her what she’d eaten for breakfast for three full months. Kaylin had only asked once; the answer wasn’t as interesting as the fact she could be so definitive, but Teela had made Kaylin listen to the entire list, probably to make certain she never whined about memory again. It had mostly worked.

To her surprise, the flowers that now adorned Mrs. Erickson grew in abundance around the feet of the statue, which couldn’t be seen for flowers and leaves. The green had been at work here.

Kaylin stopped moving because both Severn and Bellusdeo had stopped; two of Bellusdeo’s sisters overlapped Kaylin and Severn as they looked up.

Teela joined them. “Serralyn has a message to pass on,” she said to Kaylin. “Azoria did not trust the green.”

“Did Azoria even understand it?”

“No—but she had a somewhat fragile ego. She felt the green was judgmental and, in her words, conservative; it was an ancient entity that should have been confined to history; it should not have been respected and obeyed by enlightened people.”

“Which enlightened people? The Barrani?”

“Of course.”

“Who are famously conservative and outright hostile to change.”

“I did not say I agreed with her views. She believed that the power inherent in the green was simply power, which should be of use to the Barrani; she argued strongly against what she saw as the inverse: the Barrani struggled to be of use to the green, as if it were the High Lord. Regardless, some experience she had with the green—and we’re still searching through her very wordy recollections—aggrieved her.

“But she wanted that flower, and the flower could only grow in the green. She created a slender, minor connection to the green—or rather, to its power. It was minor enough that she felt it would not be noticed; she timed the building of that connection to coincide with the regalia of that time. She had been stymied by the Wardens in her attempt to gain a seed, which seemed a totally reasonable request to her eyes.”

“Let me guess: all of her requests seemed reasonable to her eyes.”

“Of course they did. She was engaged in research which could bring great power to the Barrani.”

“Do you think she believed that?”

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