“I don’t know. Marrin would take her, but the Foundling Hall is always crowded and it’s always short on funding. And we have room...and Helen would never let anything bad happen to Kattea.”
“What does Kattea want?”
“I don’t know. She won’t say.” Kaylin exhaled. “She’s waiting for Gilbert. My guess is that she thinks, if she doesn’t make a choice, there’s still a chance he’ll come back.”
“What do you think?”
Kaylin examined her palms. “I think Gilbert’s not human. Or Leontine. Or Barrani. Or even Helen. I think he had to injure himself, possibly profoundly, in order to spend time with us at all. I think—” She exhaled. “I think Gilbert, or something like him, was probably responsible for what happened to our city in the future we didn’t reach. All the deaths, the absence, I mean.
“I don’t believe that Kattea would be—could be—happy with Gilbert.”
“But?”
“But it’s what she wants. And if I was certain that she couldn’t be happy, that she couldn’t survive—”
“But you’re not.”
“No. Gilbert kept Kattea alive. He found her. He brought her here. His time with Nightshade—time which will no longer exist—had a profound effect on him. I think there’s a possibility she could.”
“She’s too young to know what she wants.”
“Then we’re all too young to know what we want. We don’t know how things will turn out. We don’t know what will happen in the future. But—he was there when she needed him. She had no expectation that he would be. She thought she was going to die. She didn’t.
“And she was right. I mean, she was wrong, but she was right. Gilbert did need her. Or rather, we needed her to be with Gilbert. I think—I think he kept her as a reminder of what would otherwise be destroyed.”
“But Gilbert has not returned,” Moran said quietly.
“...No. Until he does, if he does, she’ll stay with us.”
Moran nodded.
“So you called me in here—”
“To give Kattea some time alone with a man who thinks she’s a stranger, yes.” She wrapped her arms around her upper body. “I envy her. I envy her, and I almost pity her.” She shook herself, adopting a harsher expression that was more at home in the infirmary—where it was admittedly necessary.
*
Kaylin rescued Corporal Krevel an hour later, and hated to do it. She watched from a distance as Kattea continued to pepper the poor man with questions. She was sitting almost unselfconsciously close to him, but she was young enough that he didn’t appear to notice.
“Kaylin!” she said, when Kaylin approached. “Corporal Krevel’s daughter has the same name as me!”
“I hope she grows up to be a tenth as lovely” was the corporal’s gallant reply.
“I’m sure she will,” Kaylin replied. She held out a hand. Kattea hesitated briefly and then took it; her grip was both shaky and strong.
Epilogue
Kaylin didn’t see Severn again until she resumed her regular duties. She tried—once—to reach him in other ways, but he was silent and withdrawn. So she paused to dump her bracer into the Ablayne on her way to her first official day back in the office and on the beat.
The duty roster was up, and she was penciled in—on her regular Elani beat—with Severn.
He made it with seconds to spare and met her eyes for the time it took to blink—which was to say, she almost missed it. The walk to Elani was beyond awkward. Kaylin had a million questions she wanted to ask, but settled on one at random.
“Where have you been?”
He glanced at her. After a long beat, in which she thought he wouldn’t answer at all, he said, “Is there a way for you to take your name back?”
She missed a beat. She didn’t miss a step. “Killing you.”
“That seems a bit extreme.”
She shrugged, fief shrug. “It’s a Barrani name. What did you expect?”
That pulled a smile across his mouth. “Nothing short of death?”
“Not that I know of, no. I’ve asked. The Barrani aren’t famously good at divesting themselves of power. Why are you asking?” But she knew. She knew then.
Squawk.
“Oh shut up, you.” She stopped walking. Severn slowed and turned; people passed by them and between them as they locked gazes.
“This is because you tried to use my name against me. When I was fighting the Arcanist.”
His gaze dropped away from hers.
“So—you’ve been avoiding me because of that? Seriously?”
His silence was pretty much a “yes.”
“Severn—I know you were afraid for me. But you stopped. You stopped before I even had a chance to fight you off. I don’t— I wasn’t angry that you tried.”
“I am.”
“Fine. You go ahead and be angry at you—but don’t take it out on me.” She stomped down the street.
He followed. “Kaylin.”
“Not speaking to you right now.”
“We’re on patrol.”
“Seriously not speaking to you right now. We don’t need to talk to patrol.”
“The last time you were in a mood, you kicked Margot’s sign over. She reported it.”
“Fine.”