“That is not what the Lake remembers.”

“Lady, no person is only one thing, nor are their desires entirely singular. I know the stories you have been told; I believe them to be true. But there are other truths. Although I did not experience all of her life, or her theoretical ending, I was aware of her. She was like, and unlike, Terrano; it is the reason Terrano is welcome here, and she would not be were she to have survived in some form.

“Perhaps the desire to atone, the desire to resurrect, started her on the path she eventually walked—but when the Lake rejected her, she was unwilling to surrender to rejection. She began to search for better answers.”

The Consort did not care for the use of the word better. Fair enough; Kaylin personally hated it.

“But if she died—if her words returned to the Lake somehow—and yet she persists, I would not recognize her.” He returned to the image he had been slowly building. “This was the end of it,” he told Serralyn. They all watched as the second flower was placed almost exactly across the first, as if they were halves of a whole. The second portion was wood, and as they watched, the color and texture of woodgrain expanded from the flower, just as the vines first had, until the whole seemed a carving.

“I’m not certain,” Serralyn said, “that we should open those doors.”

“Do you think we’ll find her in the room?”

“I don’t know what we’ll find—but I’m not sure it will be safe for most of you.”

Terrano, however, was grinning. “I don’t count in that most,” he told Kaylin. He studiously avoided Teela’s growing glare.

“You’re willing to let Terrano open the doors?” Kaylin asked Serralyn.

“It’s Terrano,” she replied, with a very familiar shrug. “He’s difficult to stop.”

“And me?”

“I’d let you open them.”

The familiar squawked.

“She has the marks of the Chosen, and she has you. She’s not Terrano, no. But she survives things Terrano survives in entirely different ways. I’m perfectly willing to let them scout ahead.”

“Sounds like a go to me,” Terrano said. He turned to the Consort, but continued in Elantran. “I think we need your permission.”

She turned to Kaylin, as if Terrano had not spoken. Forgiveness clearly had a different meaning for the Consort than it did for Kaylin. “If you are willing to take the risk, and the High Halls believes it can contain whatever remains in the room, you have my permission.”

Terrano returned the favor; he ignored the Consort and headed to the doors.

“If it’s a ceremonial joining,” Kaylin said, “why is it on a door?”