After one half-hearted snap at Sinit to keep her elbows off the tabletop, Voni had drunk her soup, pushed the salad aside, and wordlessly handed Sinit her cheese roll. Then, she had risen, teacup in hand, and quit the dining room. Sinit heard her climb the stairs slowly, and the door to her room close with a snick.
They were, so Mother had told them at breakfast, a House in mourning. That meant that all appointments were canceled, and no unseemly racket was permitted. She had given Sinit an especially stern look when she had said that, which was, Sinit thought now, curled uneasily into her chair, hardly just. It wasn't as if she were a baby. She had fourteen Standards—quite grown up, even if Voni chose to treat her as—
Chimes sounded.
Sinit blinked, slid out of the chair—and paused with one foot resting on the capacious seat.
They were a House in mourning, and therefore ought to be closed to the world for the twelve-day of grief specified in the Code.
On the other hand, if the chime sounded again, her mother would surely come out from her office, and that—might be very bad.
Sock-footed, Sinit padded out of the library and down the main hall. She pressed her hand against the plate, waited for the tiny click that signaled the lock had cycled, and pulled the door open.
Two pilots stood on Mizel's ramshackle porch: To the fore was a lady, trim and upright in her leather, her thin face dominated by a pair of vivid green eyes. A much taller pilot stood at her back, and Sinit knew his face all too well.
“Delm Korval!” she gasped. Recovering her wits, she bowed, doorkeeper-to-honored-guests. “The House is in mourning, sir. Come again in a twelve-day and Mizel will receive you, gladly.”
“Sinit?” The lady's voice was fine—and familiar. “Have I changed so much overnight?”
“Aelliana!” Sinit stared, finding her sister along the edges of this stranger's face. “I—you've done something with your hair!”
Aelliana smiled. “Why so I have. May we come in? I would have a word with you, if I might.”
“Of course you may come in!” Sinit cried, stepping back—and hesitated, looking up into Aelliana's escort's sharp, clever face. “Although—”
“No, I will not have Daav await me on the porch!” Aelliana interrupted, stepping into the hall, Korval but a bare step behind her. “He is my copilot, and stands as close as kin, according to the Pilots Guild, so we had best let him in.”
“Good-day, Sinit Caylon,” Korval said, his deep, grainy voice unexpectedly gentle. “I welcome the opportunity to thank you for the aid you gave to me—and to my pilot. I am in your debt.”
Sinit's cheeks heated. “Oh, no, please, sir! We are—we are perfectly in Balance. Pray regard it no more.”
“She thinks I'm going to eat her,” the man said, perhaps to Aelliana. He bowed, easily. “You must really allow me to judge the magnitude of my own indebtedness. Your assistance was timely and to the point. I do not forget.”
Sinit swallowed and bowed acceptance—she could hardly brangle with him here in the entry hall, after all.
“That's been settled, then.” Aelliana said. “Truly, Sinit, we are both in your debt.” She glanced about the hall. “Where is Mother?”
“In her office,” Sinit said. “She—Ran Eld . . . ”
“Yes, it must have struck her hard,” Aelliana murmured. She took Sinit's hand and tugged her down the hall. “Let us go into the library. We must talk.”
Ran Eld had once kicked the library door in a fit of pique; it had never closed right after that. However, Korval pulled it as tight as it would go, then took his long self down to the farthest corner of the room, where he immediately began an earnest perusal of the shelves.
Biting her lip, Sinit stared at his leathered back. The last time she had let this man into Mizel's House, her brother had died of it. Of course, if she had refused him, Aelliana might well have died of that. And what would Mother say, if she found him in-House now . . .
“Sinit?”
She gasped and spun 'round, staring into a face so familiar, and yet made so strange. It was the eyes, Sinit thought, so bright—or, no. It was that Aelliana had always used to wear her hair close around her face, as if she were in hiding. And she had stood with shoulders rounded in submission, Sinit remembered suddenly, while this lady—this pilot—stood straight, shoulders level.
“Aelliana, I—” Tears rose, as they had when she had called Healer Hall. “I didn't know! You might have died in the Learner and I was sitting right here and I didn't know!” she wailed.
Aelliana caught her, and gathered her close. Sinit began to sob in earnest, her forehead pressed into her sister's shoulder, the leather of her jacket slick and cool beneath heated skin.
“Sinit, Sinit. All's well. More than well.” Aelliana rocked her, and Sinit put her arms around her sister's waist in a fierce hug as the tears subsided somewhat.
“If there is any one thing that I am grateful for,” Aelliana went on, her voice soft and warm, “beyond my own happy outcome, is that you did not know I had been locked inside the Learner.”
“Why?” Sinit sniffled, smelling mint and leather.
“Because you would have felt compelled to do something. To go against Ran Eld would have—” Her sister paused, arms tightening briefly. “It could very well have been very bad for you.” Sinit raised her head, looking into a face suddenly gone gaunt, brilliant eyes fogged.
“Ignorance spared you,” Aelliana said, suddenly brisk. She smiled, too thin over her apparent pain. “And I am grateful.”
She put her hands on Sinit's shoulders and set her back, looking seriously into her face.
“You must not blame yourself,” she said. “Sinit—promise me that you will not. All has ended very well. Daav has said your assistance was invaluable and he does not, you know, simply say such things, unprovoked. I think you did just as you ought, and wisely. I thank you, and—and honor you.”
Sinit sniffled again, and lifted her chin, feeling a . . . warmth in the center of her chest, where the knot of frightened misery had lodged.
“That will do!” Aelliana said approvingly. “Now—”
“Sinit, who was at the door?”
Aelliana's eyes widened. Sinit felt her own heart stutter.
The door went crookedly back on its track and Birin Caylon stepped into the room.
Mother had been weeping, Aelliana thought; which surely she would, having only recently lost a favored child. Perhaps it was her air of weary disarray only, but she seemed . . . smaller, in some way: a woman edging beyond her middle years with trepidation.
She froze for a moment in the doorway, arrested between one step and another, staring. It seemed that she, too, had failed of recognizing the House's third and least regarded child—then the moment was passed. Mizel completed her step, and inclined her head.
“Aelliana!” she said, perhaps a little too loudly; perhaps with an unintended edge. “It is well that you are home, daughter. Sinit, why did you not bring your sister to me at once?”
“Sinit and I had an urgent matter to discuss,” Aelliana said, drawing their mother's attention to herself. “I insisted that we speak immediately.”
She felt a subtle shifting in the air to the rear and right, and put her hand behind her back. Warm fingers met hers, squeezing gently. She was aware of a sense of heightened determination, absent only a heartbeat before, and a thrill of space-cold anger, gone before she could shiver.
Mother frowned slightly, then looked up and over Aelliana's shoulder, directly, so she judged, into Daav's face. Her mouth thinned, but she bowed with courtesy, delm-to-delm.
“Korval. Mizel is in your debt; do not doubt that we shall see ourselves Balanced, and that soon. At this moment, however, our House is in mourning, and I ask that you honor our grief. Sinit, pray show Delm Korval to the door.”
“No!” Aelliana said sharply, which was not how one spoke to one's delm.