Kaylin doubted that this was possible. Evanton was Keeper. She didn’t tell the water this, because she tried not to tell people something they already knew, especially not when they knew it better than she ever could. It tended to make them angry.
“Then let me talk to him.”
The water nodded.
“Umm, in order to talk to him, you have to close the floodgates.”
This caused only confusion. Kaylin thought it funny that the words made no sense to water, because so much of a port city was constructed for, on or by the water.
“You need to stop raining and flooding the house. Evanton won’t drown—but I will if I try to reach him.” She was afraid to let the water go; her own knuckles were white. “Gilbert didn’t come here to destroy you.”
“No, of course not. But he will see the ripple. He will attempt to fix it.”
“Not right now, he won’t.”
“You cannot stop him. He is not like you or your kin.”
“He didn’t come to fix things. He came to find a way to a here that someone like me could survive.”
“Why?”
“Because he met Lord Nightshade, in a future time and place, and he wants to bring him home. To us.”
“You do not understand Gilbert if you believe this.”
This was a stupid conversation to be having with elemental water. It was also necessary. “I know. I don’t understand what he is. I can’t. But—I’ve healed him.”
“Impossible. He can no more be healed than we can.”
“Fine. I can’t say it felt like healing. He’s here, but he’s as trapped here as we are.”
Silence.
“He says he can’t see time here. It’s gone. For now, he’s part of us. The only thing that isn’t is the part of you that chose to bring him here.”
*
Severn.
I see her. And yes, if you drowned, I’d be...upset.
Kind of embarrassing that that was my first thought. I’m going to go find Evanton. And Gilbert.
“But we have another problem, and I think they’re all connected. Can you talk to Ybelline?”
“Ybelline is speaking to me now,” the water replied. As she spoke, her form began to shift; she grew up as she walked beside Kaylin, her hand still in Kaylin’s. Her voice became stronger, her words lost the shaky hesitance of uncertain youth. Her eyes lost their bruises, and her lips, the swelling. “It is difficult. I hear Ybelline now—but I hear her in the other now.”
“Can you speak to her in the other now?”
“Do not ask that of me.”
Which meant it was possible. “Ask my Ybelline if she understands what happens next.”
“She understands—” was the remote response “—that she dies. Kaylin—the Tha’alani quarter, all of it, perishes.”
“Does she—” Kaylin swallowed. “Does she understand what destroys it?”
A longer silence. “No.”
Leontine filled the hall. Kaylin didn’t bother to curse under her breath. Cursing didn’t bother the water.
“If this is too destabilizing, I’ll go to Ybelline directly. If I’m in front of Ybelline, it’s almost as good as being in contact with you.”
“You will lose my voice,” the water replied.
Kaylin nodded. “Tell me what Gilbert is—I mean, what he’s supposed to be.”
“He is ancient, which is irrelevant. He could be created tomorrow, or next year, or centuries from now, and he would be ancient. He is like us, and entirely unlike us; he is younger, but less raw. There is a purpose at his heart which was not our purpose. We are part of him, and separate from him; he sees us at the beginning and the end. He is present, always, everywhere.
“And he is dead.”
No, Ybelline’s musical voice said, before Kaylin could ask. That makes no more sense to me than it does to you. It is difficult, she added. We...die, I think...very quickly. There is some resistance. Where we have power—magical power, elemental power—we survive in small pockets. In those cases, our deaths are hours ahead, no more.
Did you—did they—see anything? She hesitated. She heard, beneath the calm of Ybelline’s words, a very real fear. And fear sometimes led to insanity, in the Tha’alani mind. Kaylin could investigate a death. But even she had trouble thinking about the deaths in her life she would not be able to prevent.
What she was asking was so much worse than thinking about it. She was, she realized, asking Ybelline to experience them all.
Yes, was Ybelline’s reply. But I understand why—it is to prevent them. Kaylin, I can do this. It is...difficult, but the alternative is worse.
“What I did,” the water said, “is forbidden.”
“Then how could you do it at all?”
“Because Gilbert and his kind are dead.”
“Not dead. Just...sleeping.”
“They do not sleep, Kaylin.”
“It’s how he described it.”
“Perhaps it is how you understand it.”
“But if you knew—”
“What would you have done to save your children if you knew what would happen?”
Anything. Anything.