“Even the words that you don’t understand?”
She looked at her arms. “Even then. Because these words are part of me. Maybe if I use them enough, I’ll understand them so well I can say what I really mean with them.”
“What do you really mean, Kaylin?”
Kaylin blinked. “I’m not talking about right now. But—in general. I can’t always say what I mean. No, that’s wrong. People don’t always hear what I thought I was saying. I mean, they hear what I actually say.”
“Ah. So you feel you choose the wrong words?”
“I must. If I’d chosen the right ones, they’d understand me.”
“I do not think it is ever that simple.”
“It would be if I could speak true words.”
“Ah, no. Because anyone with whom you might converse so earnestly wouldn’t hear them. But the words that you seek are here. You cannot see them; there is too much flicker, too much movement.”
“Can Gilbert?”
Silence. To her surprise, Hope broke it. “Your instincts have always been good. No, Kaylin. What he could perceive before you entered this chamber was even less than you yourself now see. You breathe. You live.”
“You once ate a word.”
“Did I?”
“Yes. Could Gilbert do the same thing?”
“I do not know. What you see in Gilbert, I do not see—except through you. It is similar to what you now see when you speak with your Severn.”
“What I see?”
“You see what is here where you are standing—but also, because of your bond, where he is standing. You feel what his hands touch. You see what his eyes see. And he sees the inverse. I do not know how you intend to utilize this. Both are, as you suspect, real.”
“Why am I not where he is? I can hear his voice—”
“Because you have moved aside one or two steps. Not all beings can see all realities. Mandoran and Annarion are aware of many—but not all.”
“Why are there—why is there more than one? No, never mind—answer that later.”
“The answer, of course, is that there is only one. But you were not created in a way that allows you to see and retain it all. You are like a fish. If you are born in air, you will die; if you are forced to spend time out of the water, you will also die. What you see in the water can be seen—if the water is clear—from the air, but it will not be seen in the same way.
“Gilbert is a creature who can be at home in either the water or the air—as are your two friends. But sometimes, he carries pockets of air with him, and if your Severn is caught in one, being a fish, he will die. There is no malice involved, but that does not make the danger of death any less real.
“You are trying, in your fashion, to allow Gilbert to survive in the water without the benefit of the air that will kill you. I do not know if that is healing in any precise sense of the word.” He hesitated.
She marked it.
“Is the body that Severn can see Gilbert’s actual body?”
“Choose, Kaylin. You are not a bird. You must return to the water, soon.”
*
Kaylin lifted her right hand to her forehead. This mark was not one of the marks granted her by Ancients who’d never asked permission; it was a True Name. It was a name she had gathered and placed onto her own skin to preserve it.
It belonged to the Barrani. She knew this.
But it was the only True Name she had. She could not return to the Lake of Life to capture another word from its waters; not in time. She very much doubted that she would be allowed to do so even if time weren’t an issue.
She lowered her hand. The word had not left her forehead.
Grinding her teeth, she lifted her hand again. Her breath—because she’d continued to breathe—filled the air in front of her. As if she were a Dragon on a bad day, it had filled the room like smoke. And yes, she could now see the ghosts of words lingering in its folds.
This was what she needed, but it was only part of what she needed. The rest? Attached to her. Now that she knew this, the words were flat and dimensionless, of course.
This would not be the first time she’d tried to pick them off. But the last time, she’d been a terrified child.
Keep your hands where they are, she told Severn.
He nodded; she felt it. She lifted her hands again, but this time she tried to remember what it felt like to find a word in the Lake of Life. The Lake had not appeared as a lake; it had appeared as a...a desk. The surface of a desk. A place upon which words were written. Yet her hands had slid below that surface— She did not want her hands to slide beneath the surface of her own skin. In her own reality, that would be impossible. But in Gilbert’s?