“You’re thinking we don’t really want you?” Kaylin asked. She held out both of her hands. “Helen is old. She genuinely liked you. Her first tenant liked to bustle about the kitchen, and I think Helen misses that; I don’t really touch the kitchen much. Helen gets lonely, and right now, she has a houseful of children. I mean, you met Terrano. He’s a lot like Jamal.

“I try—but I’m not quite the company her earlier tenants were. I might become that as I get older, but I doubt it.”

“I would have doubted it at your age,” Mrs. Erickson said.

“Did you find Helen intimidating?”

“No, of course not!”

“Did you find her company unpleasant?”

“No. She reminded me of...” Mrs. Erickson didn’t finish the sentence.

Kaylin surrendered then. Maybe she was too much like Jamal. “It’s partly for Helen’s sake that I’m asking. She’s trapped in herself; she can’t leave the building because it’s her body now. It wasn’t always. She once housed Arcanists, possibly Sorcerers, but she had no choice in that. The first tenant she chose was an older woman who had been brought in as a servant. A woman without power, without obvious ambition, and with no desire to control a living entity. She was, according to Helen, gentle. And tidy. She liked to garden. She liked to cook. She liked to take care of the house.

“Helen doesn’t need a housekeeper; she can clean without a second thought. Or practically a first one. She doesn’t need tenants, either. But she gets lonely.

“I think she’d be less lonely if you agreed to live with us.”

Jamal’s glint of approval made Kaylin feel guilty. Yes, definitely too much like Jamal, but nothing she had said was a lie.

“Jamal,” Mrs. Erickson said, voice firm. “If I promise to speak to Helen to make certain Helen wants me to stay, will you leave?”

Jamal looked past her to Kaylin; Kaylin nodded.

“Yes.”

“You could follow her if you wanted to be sure,” Kaylin told him, before she could shut her mouth and bite back the words.

Jamal frowned, brow creasing. “I can leave.”

“You can leave. I’m not like you. I don’t know if there are natural limits—I mean, I thought ghosts were supposed to haunt the places in which they’d died.”

“I’ll go.” He turned to the other three. “I’ll see her off. You don’t have to wait for me.”

At least one wouldn’t, in Kaylin’s opinion. Katie was already almost gone, her body a shimmering transparency, quivering as if in intense joy.

“You’re sure?” Callis asked.

Jamal nodded. “I want you to go on ahead of me. Someone has to.” He held out one hand to Mrs. Erickson. “You don’t have to move all the stuff right now, but...I want to meet this Helen.”