He laughed. “You think we haven’t already been enduring that?” And because of a lack of their names, Kaylin wasn’t.

Kaylin then turned the whole of her attention to Mrs. Erickson and the children. Yes, they were dead. She knew that. And in theory death was the worst thing that could happen to someone; beyond death, the living had no real responsibility.

But that wasn’t true of Mrs. Erickson, because she could see the dead.

And it probably wasn’t entirely true of Kaylin, either.

“No,” Hope said, voice soft, eyes so narrow they were almost closed. “She has discovered that she gains no sustenance from the dead. It is the living upon which she must feed.”

“Is she dead?”

Hope said, “According to the Barrani, she is dead.”

“I know that, but—”

“According to the Barrani, so were the cohort—they were barely attached to the names that had given them life. I do not think the separation the same; they did not use their names the way Azoria attempted to use her own. Alsanis protected their names, and protected the attachment—slender and attenuated—that their bodies retained to those words.

“They shifted and changed their forms because escape required it. But they had as much time to learn the extent of those changes as Azoria herself had. She was not exposed, as they were exposed, to the regalia; the regalia alters people in subtle fashion but children are not yet...fully themselves. Azoria was, when she began to walk this path.”

“I want to know how you know all this, but it’s going to have to wait.” Kaylin pivoted on one foot. “Terrano, Mandoran—somewhere in this house, Hope thinks there’s a name. A True Name. He thinks it’ll be like yours was, except without Alsanis hiding it or preserving it.”

“Did we not assume that her words were drained of power?” Mandoran asked.

“Hope clearly didn’t,” Terrano replied.

“What are you standing there for? Go!”

“Wait—why me? Terrano is the one who can leap through planes!”

Terrano folded his arms. “Did we find our names, or did you?”

Kaylin cursed in voluble, but brief, Leontine. “Hope—talk to them!”

“She will enter the room, and she will see you leave it. Or rather, she will see you vanish. I do not know what she will make of that. Come. You know where we have to go.”

“I don’t want to leave Mrs. Erickson!”

“If you hurry, Mrs. Erickson will be the safest person—living or dead—in that room. You must move quickly, Chosen. If I must keep this up for any longer, you will have to pay the price.”

She knew what that meant.