“I miss being able to eat. I miss being able to smell the baking she carries to the Halls of Law. I miss being able to sing so that other people can hear me—that was what I was known for in Berranin, before Azoria. I miss being visible. I miss what little relevance I had as a person in the world.

“Have you ever been so tired death seems like the better option?”

“Yes,” Kaylin replied, without hesitation.

“I’m almost that tired.” She didn’t ask Kaylin for any explanation of her own circumstances. “Being visible had disadvantages. I remember wishing I could be invisible when the Berranin halls were noisy. But I wanted that because in my daydreams I imagined invisibility would be under my control. I miss people. Even Barrani people.”

“I think she thought, initially, that she could preserve us for longer,” was Darreno’s quiet addition. “Had she given us immortality, or effective immortality, she would have been respected and sought-after by the Barrani who valued their aging slaves.”

“Not only the Barrani,” Kaylin said quietly, aware that during their time as slaves in the High Halls, Barrani were the only visible, the only important, people. That had changed; they knew it. But watching it wasn’t experiencing it. Watching it, when shelter and food weren’t necessary, was very different.

She wondered how they would manage were they to be introduced to Elantra as living, breathing people, and filed that away for future poking. It would only be a concern if they survived what the Avatar would attempt.

Amaldi joined Darreno, who remained standing. “Yes,” she said. “We’re willing to take the risk. If it helps Mrs. Erickson—if it saves Mrs. Erickson—I feel we owe her that. She’s the only person to whom we’ve mattered since we woke this time. And if it somehow helps Mrs. Erickson’s children, that would probably help her, too.”

“It would,” Kaylin said, rising as well. She understood that the concern of the Avatar was not a concern Amaldi or Darreno shared; if the Barrani perished, they probably wouldn’t care.

The Berranin suite remained as they had first encountered it, except the doors were now plain and unmarked. Amaldi and Darreno could follow the halls the Avatar laid out; there was only one point at which they shimmered in place. The Avatar frowned, apologized, and adjusted something entirely invisible to Kaylin’s eyes, and they resumed their walk down the halls.

“They’re different,” Amaldi said.

“Yes,” the Avatar replied. “These rooms no longer occupy the physical location they once occupied, and I have strengthened the...privacy defenses that make them impassible for all but the few I choose. I believe you will find the interior almost unchanged, but if you do not, I would be very interested to hear how it differs.”