“And I think the green was also planted in the outlands, but boundaries were less transcribed, less exact. The forests of the West March seem like normal forests—but they’re not. They aren’t part of the green, but they’re not like the trees you see in the streets of Elantra, either. The rivers that wend through the forests are likewise closer to the elemental water than the rivers within your city.

“This leads me to suspect—and this is entirely conjecture and I could be wrong—that the green’s roots, if you will, extend for a greater distance than what we think of as the green. Alsanis and the green overlapped—that much we know—but it’s my belief that the green’s influence over the outlands was, at one time, far stronger than it became. For us, the green is contained.

“But for her? I’m far less certain. The Ancestors were not a concern by the time the first war with the Dragons started. She was not a known concern when that war, and its disastrous consequences, changed the High Halls.

“I think she may have been able to carry that flower from the green because she had figured out how the flowers were rooted—and in what—and could mimic that space in some fashion. I don’t think the green or its influence reached Elantra; I don’t think the green could, at this point in its history. The flower was brought here less than a mortal century ago. At the time it was plucked, it wasn’t the color it is in the painting.” She hesitated again. Terrano, near the doors, rolled eyes.

“My turn?” he asked.

“Only if you have something useful to add.”

“Serralyn isn’t sure how, but she feels that Azoria could replicate the conditions that allowed the flower to blossom.”

“How?”

“That’s why she’s hesitant. Serralyn can’t answer that question. She’s been thinking about it, and doing tangential research in the hope the sparks from that secondary research might start a fire, metaphorically speaking. If the flower only grows in the green, and the flower was clearly growing in a pot, she could replicate those conditions. That part’s clear.

“What’s less clear is what happened after. Azoria braided Mrs. Erickson’s hair. She plucked the blossom. She entwined it in the braid. She then painted a portrait. She had a good eye,” he added. “For portraiture. In my opinion. I wonder what she would have painted had she different subjects.”

“That,” the Avatar unexpectedly said, “you might see. In these rooms, while Azoria occupied them, she asked that I create a studio, a room in which she might paint. It was meant to be a private space; only those she condescended to paint were allowed to enter them at all—and only one of the rooms, admittedly the most conducive to visitors.”

“She painted other subjects?”