“I was trying to deal with the first question—which for our purposes is the more practical one. Look—you’re Immortal. You have time.”

“We do not have time to waste if Azoria remains a problem.”

“Teela, can you give me a hand here?”

Teela chuckled. “Allow the mortal to deal with the mortals,” she suggested, her tone making it less of a command than the words themselves implied.

Kaylin then turned to Amaldi again, as the Avatar fell—reluctantly—silent. “You can see Mrs. Erickson’s home as part of the building that stood there before it was built?”

“It’s still there. The building is still there. We weren’t sure—when Mrs. Erickson first approached us—that she couldn’t see it, didn’t live in it. We weren’t certain she wasn’t another mortal slave.”

“It didn’t take long to figure it out,” Darreno added. “But we spent a lot of time walking through the streets of this city—it was new to us. We slept, but...obviously, this time, it was a long slumber. There were so many people—so many people like us—and so very few Barrani. We avoided the High Halls.”

“You slept before now?”

“Yes, we told you that—but before, when we slept, she would wake us.”

“She could see you.”

Darreno nodded.

“Could anyone else?”

The two once again exchanged a glance. “No. Not usually. She wanted to know which of the Barrani could see us.”

“Only Barrani?”

“She was Barrani; I don’t think she considered mortals relevant.”

“And those that could see you?”

“She befriended them. She painted them.” He was silent for a longer beat, because he already knew the results of that for the Barrani.

“Did you enter the green?”

“Yes.”

“Was she with you?”

Amaldi shook her head. “The Warden of the time refused her entry—at the behest of the green, or so she was told.”

“And that kept her out?”

“No, not permanently. No, for our master, was simply a more complicated version of yes. But it took time, and we were some part of that; we could enter the green. The green was aware of us in a way the Warden and his various guards and novices weren’t. She told us how and where to attempt entry; we would go in, and return.”

“Return?”

“Azoria could travel very quickly. She could reach the West March without the overland march. She could call us to the High Halls because...we didn’t have normal bodies. We would go in, and she would call us back. She had us attempt to take things from the green—”

“That is a terrible idea,” Teela said.

“Normally, yes. But she had changed us. Hidden us. We couldn’t be killed.”

“By anyone but her,” Darreno added.