Kaylin turned to Kattea’s guardian. “You told Kattea you needed her.”
“I do not live as you live. I do not travel as you travel. My home was—and is—Ravellon. Ravellon is unlike your city. If the Ancients can be said to have been born at all, it is Ravellon that was their birthplace, and it is in Ravellon that they came of age. In Ravellon, they designed and argued and built. In Ravellon they learned to see, and speak, and sing.
“And in Ravellon, they learned to sleep. And die. And kill.” He rose and began to pace. “Death is not—to us—what it is to you. Your lives are so simple, so silent, they pass beneath us; we notice them if we study your kindred, but in general, you are, to the Ancients, what a blade of grass is to you. Or perhaps an ant.
“Mortals were not created in my waking hours, but I see you as an extension of ancient arguments and debates. The Shadows you speak of now were birthed in Ravellon. They were not meant to be what they became.”
“What were they meant to be?” She hesitated. “Part of you is part of what they are now.”
His smile was thin. “Yes. And it is because they are part of me—and were, at my inception—that I can be here at all. It is why I can understand some small part of your speech. Why I can see time almost as you see it.
“Kattea is necessary because time—for mortals—is inevitable; it is a wall above which they cannot climb.” He glanced at Teela and Bellusdeo. “For the purpose of this discussion, you are also mortal in my eyes.”
Teela shrugged.
Bellusdeo looked mildly offended.
“It was not always safe to be exposed to the Ancients during periods of unhindered creation. Creation requires a malleability that can be...destabilizing. Buildings such as Helen were designed to withstand such instability.” There was a hint of a question at the end of that statement.
Helen answered. “My memory is faulty because I destroyed elements of myself.”
“You did this?” Kaylin thought she could have told him she’d lopped off her head and it wouldn’t have surprised him—or horrified him—as much.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wished to be able make my own decisions.”
Gilbert’s command of Elantran was clearly not perfect. “I do not understand.”
“I wished to choose my own lord.”
He looked dumbfounded.
“Is that such a strange concept to you? I served. I had served for the whole of my existence. I do not recall resentment. We all need purpose, and mine was clear. But my lord left, and he did not return. In his absence, I was forced to destroy some parts of myself to protect what remained of his work.
“And in his absence, I became aware of—fond of—a mortal woman. She cared for me. She did not understand that I was alive, that I was sentient. She cared for the space in which she found herself. She made small pockets of me her home. I understood that my lord would not return. And I understood that I could make myself home to this woman.
“I did not destroy the defenses,” Helen added, almost self-consciously. “Were you to attempt to harm me—or anyone under my protection—you would not succeed.”
He was staring at the wall. Helen’s Avatar had not returned. “So,” he said, voice soft.
“I interrupted you; I’m sorry. It’s a bit of a habit.”
Gilbert shook his head as it was of no matter and picked up where he had left off. “I dwelled within a building similar to the space that Helen occupies. Its name was more complex, and its purpose less easily divined by those who had not dwelled within it for centuries; it is the gardia. It had, as Helen does, physical boundaries, external borders. I believe it occupied more space than Helen; perhaps as much space as a fifth of your city, absent the population that fifth also contains.
“We had warning of a grave perturbation and returned to weather the storm within the walls of that building. But the difficulties we faced were unprecedented, and in the end, we were drawn into the building’s core as it surrendered the outer walls and everything those walls contained. I chose to sleep. Sleep, for my kind, is not what Kattea experiences when she sleeps; it is a way of minimizing contact, an echo of the decisions the building itself made. There are periods of instability; when the instability has hardened or passed, I wake.
“In this instance, however, I did not wake on my own.”
Kaylin found herself holding her breath.
“Yes,” Gilbert continued, meeting—and holding—her gaze. “I woke at the behest of Lord Nightshade.”
*
Annarion leaned forward, as if to catch the words that followed. He didn’t speak. Kaylin was impressed; if she’d been Annarion, she’d have jumped across the room and grabbed Gilbert by his collar.
“Nightshade was in Ravellon.”
“Yes.”