Teela lifted her fingers to massage her temples, which was Teela code for Stop being stupid or I will strangle you. While it had been an expression directed at Kaylin in her early years in the Hawks, it was most often used when she dealt with Terrano these days. “When we go to see the Consort, you will not talk about weeds in the green.”

“Do I look stupid?”

“At the moment, it would be better if I refrained from answering that question.” Teela’s eyes lightened very slightly from the indigo shade they’d adopted. “This is going to get ugly.”

“Sedarias thinks so as well. She wants to know what Severn knows.”

Kaylin looked to Severn.

“She says he called it a seed-bed.”

Kaylin was aware, then, that he had said the phrase because he was with Kaylin, and he felt he needed to impress upon her the seriousness of the situation. But they weren’t words she’d heard from him before. Although it wasn’t reasonable in any way—and she knew it—she disliked the fact that he knew things of import that he had never shared.

“Do you want Serralyn in person, or will you trust me to convey what she says?”

“In person,” Kaylin told Teela, her answer overlapping with Helen’s.

Serralyn immediately appeared in the room, without having to bother with something as trivial as the door.

“No, she did not, as you put it, pull a Terrano; I created a portal for her use,” Helen explained. She gestured another chair into being, and nodded to Serralyn, indicating she should be seated. Serralyn, however, was staring at the two flowers Helen had visually created as show-and-tell in the center of the parlor.

She turned instantly to Kaylin. “You saw the viridescent flower?”

“Not in real life. In a painting.” Kaylin then offered the group Mrs. Erickson’s childhood remembrance.

“She didn’t say the painter was Barrani?”

“No. Beautiful. Graceful. But she didn’t mention Barrani.”

“Would she have known?”

“She might not have known then—but she’d know in retrospect if her parents never explained the difference.”

“She said the painter had this in a flowerpot?”

“Yes—I think she thought the pot itself was interesting and different. The painter told her that it was a special flower—Mrs. Erickson didn’t want her to pick it because that would kill it.”

“Did she add anything else?”

“Only that the painter said it was meant for a special occasion, and painting such a happy family was special enough. I’m paraphrasing,” she added.

“I’d guessed.” Serralyn frowned. “That’s all?”

“Well, the painter arranged Mrs. Erickson’s hair. It’s a really odd style—nothing like you’d normally see in Elantra, or at least not the parts of it we grew up in.”

“Odd how?”

Kaylin frowned. “Lots of small braids but bound up?” She turned to Helen’s Avatar. “Could you show them?”