Cullen leaned forward. “If kinspeech draws on a fundamentally different form of—”
“Cullen,” Isen said mildly.
Cullen scowled but fell silent. Benedict continued. “There are three clear differences between the two forms of mental contact. One is, as I said, the amount of power involved. The other two involve the way contact is achieved. Kinspeech requires physical contact, but doesn’t require training. With mindspeech, the requirements are reversed. Or so we’ve assumed?” He raised his brows.
“You assumed right,” Lily said. “Sam won’t tell me much because, according to him, I’d try to fit my experience into his words. Apparently that would be bad. But yeah, while the ability to use mindspeech is inherited, actually using it has to be learned.” Slowly. Very slowly.
Benedict nodded. “Seabourne believes this means that mindspeech doesn’t function like a Gift, but kinspeech does.”
“We don’t know that,” Cynna muttered.
Benedict slid her an opaque glance. “We’ve arrived at a point of disagreement. Seabourne believes the two forms of mental speech may be fundamentally different—enough so that you risk being harmed when you attempt to ‘listen’ to Arjenie. Using the radio analogy, he says the frequencies may be so different that kinspeech could damage you. That, in fact, you may have already sustained damage, and that’s why you couldn’t repeat the experience. Cynna disagrees. She believes the two are essentially the same, but kinspeech is far less efficient, thus requiring more power and the added boost of physical contact. She thinks you unconsciously threw up a shield when Arjenie’s broadcast caused pain, and that’s why you weren’t able to ‘hear’ her anymore.”
“Huh.” Lily frowned at her mug and took another sip.
“They agree more than they disagree,” Benedict said dryly, “but they disagree loudly. Because they do agree that both theories are possible, they’ve been attempting to modify a spell that would measure some aspect of kinspeech. I’m unclear on the details.”
“Not measure,” Cullen said. “Magnify. If Arjenie is continually broadcasting, she’s using power, though at a very low level. I’ve got a spell I call my magnifying glass. I use it to enhance the focus on faint or intricate components when I’m deconstructing a spell. We’re trying to modify it to work on a particular aspect of an innate ability—which is not simple. The section dealing with congruity alone has to be—”
“Not now,” Lily said firmly. “I take it you think that magnifying this, uh, aspect of an innate ability would tell you if it was safe for me to make that kind of contact with Arjenie again?”
“Not definitively, but if the energies involved look highly dissimilar, that would suggest a greater risk. If they look fairly similar, it suggests less risk.”
“Hmm.” She looked at Benedict. “Does Arjenie have an opinion?”
“Not on this. She feels she lacks sufficient data. She has never experienced mindspeech herself and knows only what little her father told her about kinspeech. “
“Okay.” The fingers on Lily’s right hand twitched. She wanted to jot things down. She settled for drumming the fingers of her other hand on the table. “Have you asked her about Dya again?
“She still can’t speak that name, or respond in any way to questions about him or her.”
“Her,” Lily said, then frowned. “I think. I’m not sure why I said that.” She glanced at Arjenie, who offered an apologetic smile.
Rule spoke for the first time since sitting down. “I’ll offer a summary of my own. If Cullen’s right, you shouldn’t try to open a channel with Arjenie. The danger is real. Unquantifiable because we don’t know enough, but too real to risk it. If Cynna’s right, there’s little danger in trying, though you may be blocked by the shield you unconsciously created.”
Lily looked at him. Did he feel what she did? Not just fear. She’d feared for him before. This was fear on steroids with the volume turned up to a scream, like Arjenie’s mental shout. Rule looked calm enough, but he was good at hiding fear. That had been a large part of his training. Wolves freak if they sense their leader is frightened.
She looked at the others. “The one thing—”
“Dumplings,” said a gravelly voice behind her. “Made ’em fresh. Soggy dumplings are no good. Also scones for everyone.” Carl came up beside Lily and set a steaming bowl in front of her. Wordlessly he added a large basket full of scones to the center of the table, then began pulling things out of his apron pockets—a napkin-wrapped set of silver-ware for Lily. Salt and pepper shakers. A jar of marmalade, and a small, lidded tub that might hold butter. Several butter knives. A roll of paper towels.
“You’re not to have wine, I’m told,” he said in his slow, grave way. “What do you want to drink?”
“Just some water. And maybe more coffee?”
“I’ve got water heating. The sprout here can make coffee when you’re ready. Or Isen. They make decent coffee. Not Benedict. He doesn’t. Ice?”
She blinked. Oh—he meant for her water. “Yes, please.”
“Your cat wanted chicken. Gave him some. He liked it.” With that he turned and stumped back to the kitchen.
Chicken apparently trumped guard duty. Not that Harry really guarded Toby. That was just Rule’s way of talking. Cats didn’t have that kind of instinct the way dogs did.
Arjenie leaned forward and whispered, “He’s very quiet, isn’t he?”
Isen smiled. “Carl speaks fluent math. None of us can carry on a conversation in his tongue, but he doesn’t hold it against us. Try one of the scones.”
The bowl in front of Lily smelled wonderful. Her stomach surprised her by rumbling. She was hungry. That shouldn’t come as a surprise this late in the day, but this was the first time she’d been really hungry since getting shot. She dug in.
The dumplings were a surprise, too. Lily had expected the heavy, greasy lumps of dough she associated with American-style dumplings, but Carl’s were different. Light and fluffy, slightly savory with herbs, they swam in a thickened sauce chunky with chicken and carrots.
Hunger and the sheer deliciousness of the meal held her attention at first. Arjenie asked Isen what kind of math Carl spoke and seemed to understand his answer, which was more than Lily could say. Interdimensional degeneracies? A quantum-isolated four-body system?
Isen was right. She didn’t speak Carl’s language. But he made incredible dumplings, and they were easy to eat with one hand. Maybe he’d planned it that way. She beamed at him when he returned to set a glass of ice water at her place. He answered with the usual nod, but the solemn creases of his face lifted briefly in what was nearly a smile.
“Good?” Rule said.
She gave him a smile, too. He gave her a scone.
It was comforting, this meal. Familiar. Cynna announced that the little rider was dancing on her poor, squished bladder and left the table, heading for the bathroom. Isen asked Cullen about the project he’d been working on, trying to create a cheaply replicable insulation against the rising levels of ambient magic. According to Rule, If Cullen could pull that off neither he nor Nokolai—who was funding his efforts—would ever have to worry about money again.
Everything was normal, safe, peaceful. Any one of them could be dead tomorrow.
Rule passed the little tub—which turned out to hold clotted cream, not butter—to Arjenie. She said something Lily didn’t catch, and he laughed.
Lily would risk herself for Rule in a heartbeat. He knew it. He’d do the same for her, and she knew that with sick certainty. But why? Why did that make her shaky and scared now? It never used to.
Death was a constant. It always had been, and Lily supposed her current hypersensitivity to that reality would ease in time, and she’d return to the normal human state of semi-blindness. God, she hoped so. But she was weird and shaky now, and it made her doubt her judgment. How did she decide what risks were justified?