“And this is my friend, Kaylin Neya. She’s also a Hawk. You can come with us; you don’t have to stay here.”

The ghost nodded; to Kaylin’s eyes, she seemed close to tears. As if she were much younger than the age she appeared to be, she followed Mrs. Erickson.

All of the paintings that were surrounded by this soft nimbus of light lost that light as the party slowly progressed down the hall. The ghosts remained invisible to everyone but Mrs. Erickson and Kaylin, but they couldn’t speak to Kaylin; she couldn’t hear them. Nor could she touch them, as she had touched—had carried—the ghostly words.

Only once did Mrs. Erickson react with shock. “Kaylin,” she whispered. “Kaylin, can you see her?”

Kaylin nodded.

“That’s—that’s the woman. That’s the woman who painted our family portrait.” Her voice was a whisper of sound; she knew it was rude to speak about other people when they were actually present, something all of the Barrani in Kaylin’s life could stand to learn.

Kaylin had believed that Azoria had approached the Erickson family under an illusory guise. Looking at Mrs. Erickson, she could no longer believe that. But she couldn’t believe that the woman whose ghost occupied this hall had been responsible for the painting, either. Azoria had occupied the woman’s empty body, wearing it as if it were clothing.

Mrs. Erickson attempted to speak with the painter, but the woman remembered neither Mrs. Erickson—as a child—or the painting in question. To her, Mrs. Erickson was a stranger. Or possibly a savior.

In the end, Mrs. Erickson had gathered a dozen ghosts. None of them were children. Something had gone wrong with the children. Something had gone wrong with Mrs. Erickson, whose painting remained unoccupied, if one didn’t count a warped and distorted flower.

This woman’s physical body had entered Mrs. Erickson’s life after the children. Were the children the experiments? Were they chosen because of their youth, because their bodies could, in theory and without mass murder, exist for decades before they would have to be discarded due to age?

Kaylin considered this as she patiently waited for Mrs. Erickson to speak to each ghost. None of these ghosts were children. One was Kaylin’s age, but most were a handful of years older.

The cohort had been exposed to the regalia as children. The results of that exposure were behind the creation of laws that expressly and permanently forbade such exposure going forward.