With a tug, the room full of Them snaps away, and Helen is left short of breath in darkness, back to a cold wall ( Read more... )

Jamie’s been lying on the long lounge chair (a sofa, Adam calls it) for hours, passed out and pale.

Helen’s been avoiding him. Helen’s been avoiding everyone. She is in the map-room of Adam’s for a few hours, thinking, sleeves pulled tight around her hands. There’s a hushed busyness in the other rooms, but Helen is trying very hard not to care ( Read more... )

Where, one might ask, has Helen (once) of the House of Uquar been ( Read more... )

When Helen wakes up she feels the faint tug in her stomach saying that they're going today. It's only faint, but she sits up and grabs Jamie by the shoulder, shaking him awake.

Helen's sitting out on the steps of a building in Creem di Leemaa, a good two armspans from the whirling parade. When, occasionally, a brave fool tries to get her to join the dancing she snaps at them. By now most of them have learned their lesson, and keep away ( Read more... )

Helen would not admit it, but she has spent most of the night-except for a few fitful hours of sleep-in the dark of her room, staring through her hair at the ceiling, at her books and at her few possessions. Mostly they are gifts the Hands and the workers of the House gave her on Holy Days as she grew up. Very few are outside of the small chest she ( Read more... )

When her teacher comes to find her he sees her pointing at a blank wall, as she angrily tells him what is happening. But he cannot see into the white mist at all. Hand Raqen was still in Hand Corat’s office, though, and was fetched. He could not see through the wall, either. More and more teachers from nearby were found, and asked, and they begin ( Read more... )

It has been days since the door closed, and Helen is still thinking over it. She is very upset, because she left books in her room, but she doesn’t know what to do about that - and they were books that there were extra copies of, so no one has noticed (yet ( Read more... )

Helen’s trip managed to surprise her ( Read more... )

The day after Helen walked out of the bar, the head Hand told her that full contingents would be visiting from two of the nearest and largest warlords, and that she was no longer allowed to walk the corridors alone. They had no one of the Hands to spare for her, either, except for one of the least senior whose research was least important: Pani ( Read more... )