Gilbert said, “I can.”
“I thought,” Evanton said, “you might be here.” There was a thread of very, very dry humor running through his colossal understatement. “Is Grethan with you?”
Kaylin answered. “I’ve attached myself to his arm; he’s probably having circulation problems. If I—if I let him go, will he be where we are?”
“Where does he think he is?”
“In the Garden. The normal Garden. I can see it if I look through my familiar’s wing—and that’s what he’s doing now.”
“Are you certain?”
“I was, when I walked in.” She poked the small dragon; he snapped at her finger, but not hard enough to draw blood. His annoyance didn’t prevent him from lifting his spare wing and setting it against Kaylin’s upper face, however. She saw Evanton, standing in the rock garden, his apron askew, his robes of office absent. Mandoran vanished, as did any evidence of Gilbert and his innate darkness.
“Grethan, can you see Evanton now?”
Grethan’s entire body relaxed. Answer enough.
She asked the familiar to lift his wing from Grethan’s view. The Tha’alani tensed again.
“Now?” Kaylin asked.
He squinted. “...Yes. Yes, I can see him now. He looks like a shadow.” She then asked the familiar to let her see without his wing, and he folded it in silence.
A pale Grethan stood by her side in a dark and almost featureless landscape. The only thing the two views had in common, beside some variant of Evanton, were the stones of the rock garden. But not all of the stones.
Here, there were four, like little monoliths. Kaylin walked Grethan to Evanton; the older man caught the younger man by the shoulder and moved him into a position that was central to the standing stones. She asked the Keeper one question. “Is there a reason you’re in the rock garden?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have time to explain it to me? I think—I think it could be important.”
If he did, the explanation would have to wait. “Grethan, you will not be able to return if things do not go well here. I am not,” he added, “expecting that things will go well. I believe there would be a home for you in the Tha’alani quarter—”
Grethan shook his head, his face flushing.
“Yes, there will be anger. There are always consequences for ill-considered actions. But the Tha’alaan is aware that you saved that child’s life. If there is anger over the part you played in her kidnapping, there is also gratitude. I believe Ybelline would accept you into the Tha’alaan; she would become your water in the outside world.”
He shook his head again. “I learned to hear and remember and experience life in a way that Tha’alani don’t. It’s too late—and I don’t want my life to be part of theirs. I think it would hurt them.”
Kaylin shook her head. “They have the lives of warlords in their past. There’s nothing you’ve done that compares to the pain of those memories.”
Evanton cleared his throat. “If, however, you are determined to remain, come stand where I’m standing and do not move until I tell you to move.”
Kaylin, however, understood. “He wants you to leave,” she said quietly. “He wants you safe. You found the Garden on your own. The Garden let you in without Evanton’s permission. If something happens to Evanton here, you can find your way in again.”
But Grethan shook his head, his eyes dark and shadowed. “There will be no Garden,” he said. “The water said that the Garden will be broken and lost.”
Chapter 25
“Grethan!”
Grethan jumped at the change in Evanton’s voice. He moved to Evanton’s side. “You see the stones,” he said.
So did Kaylin. There were four in all. Not three, as there had been in the basement of the house on the Winding Path. “Is the number significant?” she asked.
Evanton frowned.
“The number of stones.”
“These have words,” Evanton replied. “At their base. And before you ask, no, I am not turning them over for your inspection.” Instead, he spoke, his voice low and resonant; it might have been a Dragon voice, given the way it carried.
Words appeared in the air above each of the four stones, and Kaylin recognized them instantly, although she only knew two: fire and water. The other two, air and earth, she had never attempted to use. She understood the purpose of these stones.
No, she thought, that was wrong. “Evanton, why do you have these stones? I mean, why are they here and why couldn’t you hear or see us until we were practically standing on top of them?”