Ah. This, Kaylin could understand. There wasn’t much the elemental water and a mortal woman had in common—but the fear of accidentally destroying something beloved? That was clearly universal. “Why? Why do you think it’s broken?”
“There are things in it that should not be in it; there’s a bend, a break. I didn’t—” She swallowed as if she were breathing, as if she needed the air she fundamentally hated.
“The Tha’alaan is not that fragile. Ybelline is there. Ybelline understands, now, what this fracture means.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No,” Kaylin agreed, gentling her voice without thought. “But I don’t need to understand if Ybelline does. They will listen to her. They’ll hear her.”
“They hear her now,” the water whispered. “They hear her fear. They hear her death.”
Kaylin stiffened. Blanched. Forced herself to continue. “Yes.” She didn’t argue because there was no point. If one of the memories the Tha’alaan now contained was Ybelline’s death, it would be known, examined—and terrifying. The fact that Ybelline was demonstrably not dead would not be the comfort it might be to anyone who couldn’t access the memories and emotions of every member of their race who had come before.
It was comfort to Kaylin, though. Comfort—and fear.
“I don’t understand how you came to know what you know,” Kaylin said. “I came to—to ask you.”
“Ask Gilbert. Gilbert knows.” This was said with a sullenness that bordered on resentment.
“Gilbert doesn’t know. Or if he does, he can’t explain it to someone like me. Neither could fire or air or earth,” she continued. She was not above using truth as flattery. At least it made her better than most of the residents of Elani. “Only you can, because you are the heart of the Tha’alaan.
“Kattea—you haven’t met her, but you can see what I see if you want to look—said that it was the water that brought her to Elantra. Gilbert didn’t even realize that he was crossing through time. I don’t think it was enough time,” she added, trying to be fair. “The water of the time he was in carried the boat he was also in to our time. To us.
“I wanted to ask you how.”
The water was silent.
“But actually, how doesn’t matter.”
“What matters?”
“Why.” Even saying it, Kaylin thought she knew the answer now. Ybelline’s death. No, not just Ybelline—because Ybelline would not die alone.
“And now?”
Kaylin tried to smile and failed miserably. The water’s fear was a fear Kaylin herself had lived with, on and off, for her entire life—or for as much of it as she could remember. People would abandon her—by dying. Because that was what people did.
She tightened her free hand and considered smacking herself, hard. Not the time for this, idiot. Not the right time. Ybelline wasn’t dead yet. In some future, she was—but it hadn’t happened, which meant there was time.
Kaylin had daydreamed about going back in time. She’d never really considered all the effects this would have on everyone—anything—else. But it had all been idle; she couldn’t.
And yet, Kattea was here.
“Now I think I understand the why. The Tha’alani die, in the future. The near future. You brought Gilbert here to prevent it.”
“I have tried to explain it. To the Keeper,” she added, as if this were necessary. “I have tried for two of your days.”
“Rain isn’t likely to explain much.”
“He cannot hear.”
“Rain in his store is likely to be seen as its own emergency.”
“Kaylin—his Garden will not exist. It does not, in that time.”
*
“You’re partially from then.”
The water nodded, eyes darkening, bruises spreading. Kaylin suddenly wanted the “how.” Instead, she said, “Gilbert was trying to speak with you.”
“Yes. I am sorry. I heard him as...threat.”
“Why?”
“Because he will destroy that part of me, if he understands it.”
“He did not come here to destroy you—why would you think that?”
“Because it is what he is.”
“Did you understand what he was when you brought him here?”
“...Yes. Yes.”
There was only one obvious question to ask. Why? But Kaylin already knew why. “Please don’t destroy him.”
“I cannot destroy him.”
“Please don’t destroy the tiny part of him that’s here and now. And stop the raining. I understand enough to talk to Evanton.” She hesitated. “No, that’s not true. Do you understand what happens—or what did happen—to the Garden?”
“No. But it is gone, Kaylin.”
“I’ll tell him. I’ll tell him— Stop trying so hard to communicate with him.” She tightened her hold on the young girl’s hand. “Why can’t you talk to him the way you talk to me?”
“Because Evanton is not Chosen, and Evanton has not been adopted by the Tha’alaan. He cannot be the one, and he will not be the other.”
“Why?”
“Because it would break the Tha’alaan. Kaylin, I would kill him first.”