The door opened to a very cranky Evanton. He was wearing his store apron, and tufts of wayward hair suggested he’d been pulling at it in frustration. His eyes were also bloodshot. “It had better be” was his sour reply. He had more to say—when he was in this mood, he always did—but stopped when he looked down the stairs. He exhaled inches of outraged height. “My apologies,” he said—to Gilbert, as Kaylin had never rated apologies. “I wasn’t expecting guests; I apologize in advance for the state of my abode.”
“I don’t think he cares,” Kaylin told Evanton. “He’s not necessarily looking at the clutter the way the rest of us do.”
“I care.”
“...Sorry, Evanton.”
“You did not pick a particularly good time, no. I would make tea, but the kitchen is—”
“Flooded, yes.” Kaylin exhaled. “What’s happening?”
“Would it surprise you to know I am not entirely certain?”
“Yes, actually.”
“Then be surprised quietly.”
“Fine. This is Gilbert. And Kattea. Gilbert, Kattea, this is Evanton.”
Gilbert bowed. He came dangerously close to scraping the floor with Kattea. “I understand,” he said—to Evanton. Kaylin didn’t understand the word that left his mouth next.
Evanton, clearly, did. His eyes—his normal, human eyes—widened. “Kaylin,” he said, although he didn’t take his eyes off Gilbert, “what have you done?”
Kaylin brushed past him and entered a room that she had never seen before. To her surprise, it was almost empty; there was a table—not a desk—against the wall. The roof angled sharply above the tabletop. The room itself was narrow. It had a window, built into the steeply inclined wall above the table, and a small door that implied a closet. The floor was in better repair than the floors on the ground floor, probably because it didn’t get as much foot traffic.
The familiar squawked at Evanton. Loudly. His mouth was an inch from Kaylin’s ear.
“What is it this time?” Kaylin asked.
He lifted his wing, smacked her nose and then held it in place over her eyes. For a translucent lizard, he had no difficulty conveying impatience and a certain long-suffering annoyance.
Dragon wing made visible what normal vision didn’t: there were words engraved in the sturdier wood of this room’s floor. They were glowing, as if light had been poured into them.
“This is the room in which I, for want of a better word, meditate.”
“Is the Garden safe at all?”
“Not for you. And not, I fear, for Gilbert. You wish, no doubt, to speak to the water?”
She nodded.
“Of course you do. It would have to be water, given the present difficulty. What has occurred?”
“The long version or the short version?”
“Start with the short version; it is what I have patience for at the moment.”
“The water apparently carried Gilbert and Kattea across time. Maybe ten years of it.”
Evanton raised his hands and massaged his temples. “Thank you. I’ll take the longer version now.”
*
Evanton listened to Kaylin without interruption, which was unusual. He sent Grethan out to fetch bread, water and something that looked suspiciously like wine, but otherwise confined his actions to nodding or raising a brow.
This ended when Kattea joined the conversation at his request.
“You said the water spoke to you.”
“It mostly spoke to Gilbert.”
“Mostly, or entirely?”
“...Entirely.”
He nodded. To Gilbert, he asked, “What instructions did you give?” As not many people were expected to give instructions to the elemental water, Kaylin was slightly surprised by the question.
“I asked that we be conveyed—in a manner safe for Kattea—to Elantra.”
“Those were the only parameters you set?”
“Yes. It did not occur to me to examine the details of the request; that level of granularity has seldom been necessary.”
Evanton nodded, as if this made sense.
“Evanton—how did the water bring him to here? I mean, to here, now?”
“That is a very good question. And an appropriate one. I believe I have a better understanding of the rain.” He glanced at his drenched apprentice and added, “It is likely to stop soon, one way or another. I have a preference for which way.”
“Can you not give commands to the water?” Gilbert asked.
“Yes. As you suspect—as you recognize—I can. I am not, however, like the original Keeper in that regard. I can give commands that are heard now. I cannot give commands that are heard at every moment of the water’s existence and awareness.”
Kaylin blinked. She opened her mouth and closed it as she approached the shopkeeper; he was gray. Almost literally gray. “Have you been eating?”
“I am long past the age where I require maternal care” was his clipped reply. “My control—my stewardship, if you will—exists now. It has demonstrably existed in the past. It will, in theory, exist in the future—but the future is, to me, uncertain. I may die tomorrow. Grethan, do not make that face.
“I may merely be incapacitated. My responsibilities, my ability to endure and perform them, exist now. Now is a moving target. From any vantage in which I exist, I am ‘now.’”