Helen didn’t turn.
Kaylin came all the way down the stairs. She intended to join Helen, or to at least stand beside her—but Helen lifted an arm to prevent this from happening.
What did you say to her? Kaylin demanded.
I merely told her I wished to pay my respects to both you and my brother. There was a glimmer of dark amusement in the words. That and anger.
“Helen,” Kaylin repeated. Even when the ancestors had attacked them all, she had never seen Helen behave quite like this.
Helen turned her head—only her head. Her eyes were jet-black. Her face had lost most of the lines that implied smile or laughter.
Is that really all you did?
Helen turned back to her clearly unwanted visitor.
I am not unwise enough to attempt to cause harm in a building of this type. I was perhaps under a misapprehension about the building’s exact nature, as all of my knowledge comes—indirectly—from your first encounters with it.
Her name is Helen.
Silence.
Kaylin folded her arms. “Helen, please. He is not going to hurt me. He’s not even going to try.”
Helen did not appear to hear her.
“Annarion lives here. Nightshade is—as far as I know—his only surviving family.”
“Did I not tell you,” Helen replied, relenting enough to speak, “that I would not allow those who intended you harm across this threshold?”
“Yes. Yes, you did. But he has had plenty of opportunity to cause me harm in the past, and he’s failed to take advantage of any of them. I don’t know what he’s done—”
“You do not understand the nature of the harm. Would he kill you? No. He would no more destroy Melliannos, his sword. Both you and the sword are of value.”
Nightshade stiffened; his eyes were as dark as Barrani eyes could get.
“I do not intend to destroy him,” Helen continued. “I do not wish to hurt Annarion, and his anger with his brother stems, at its base, from attachment.”
“Annarion can’t visit his brother in Nightshade.”
“I fail to see how that is my problem.”
“It’ll be my problem if Annarion leaves the house. He’s been able to move freely only when I’m physically with him. If you want me to see less of Nightshade, this is the safest place for me to be. I don’t ask that you let him do whatever he wants solely because he’s a guest.” Which, to be fair, Kaylin knew would never happen. “But you’re here. There’s nothing you’re not aware of.
“And he did help me,” she added.
Helen’s eyes narrowed as she glared at Kaylin’s blistered cheek.
“...We had different ideas of what I was supposed to be doing during the confrontation.”
“And his ideas were clearly of more value to him than yours.”
“...Helen, he’s Barrani. He’s a Barrani Lord.”
“So, if I recall correctly, is your Teela.”
“You didn’t see Teela when I was in training.”
“It is in no way the same, as you are well aware,” Annarion said from the top of the stairs. Kaylin had no idea how long he’d been standing there. He spoke in very stiff High Barrani, and his eyes were as dark as Nightshade’s, if for entirely different reasons.
Kaylin placed a hand on Helen’s shoulder. “Helen, please.”
Nightshade was, if anything, more annoyed. Do not beg a building such as this. You are Lord here, or you are prisoner. Choose.
“That’s not the way Helen—or I—work. It’s not the way we need to work.”
Then you are subject to its—
Her.
...her whim. His eyes narrowed, and he turned away from the door. This was an abominable idea. I have no idea why I am here. I almost cannot believe the centuries I spent attempting—in some small way—to retrieve the brother I could not believe was dead. He headed down the stairs.
“Helen, please.”
Helen exhaled. It was a sound that was vaguely reminiscent of Dragon.
“Nightshade!” As he continued to walk away, she said, “Calarnenne.” She spoke without force, as if it was merely a mortal name. He stopped.
Annarion had come down the stairs; he’d reached the doors. Helen’s ability to shield his presence extended to the fence line, but he was understandably reluctant to test this. Kaylin glanced at his expression. It was nowhere near as shuttered as Nightshade’s, and yes, there was anger in it.
Anger, she thought, and bewilderment.
“They need to talk,” she told Helen. She spoke very quietly, but without hope that either of the two men would fail to hear her.
“Then perhaps it would be best if they used the Twilight Room. I do not like this, Kaylin. I understand that you accept certain attitudes as inevitable cultural behavior. But Lord Nightshade is unlike the other Barrani you have invited as guests.”
“I am not more of a danger than Lord Teela,” Nightshade said, voice sharp, eyes narrow.