Tar suggested they go to the hotel first, but Hilo shook his head; he’d slept on the plane and whenever possible he preferred to get on with whatever needed to be done.
The address turned out to be a quaint, single-story pastel green house in the northwest quarter of Lybon. Tar parked the car along the street. When they rang the doorbell, it opened almost at once. Eyni must’ve been expecting someone else, perhaps a delivery or a repairman, because she began to say something before she realized who was standing in front of her. Lan’s ex-wife took an involuntary step back, her eyes widening.
Hilo smiled and stepped across the threshold into the house. “Sister Eyni,” he said warmly, “I’m sorry for not calling ahead to let you know we were coming, but I didn’t have any Stepenish coins for the pay phone in the airport. I hope we’re not showing up at a bad time.” Hilo shut the front door behind Tar. “This is Maik Tar, I don’t know if you remember him; he was my Second Fist when I was Horn and now he’s my Pillarman.”
“What are you doing here?” Eyni’s voice came out high. “How did you find out where I live?”
“It’s easy to find those things out.” It was not worth mentioning that he’d tracked her down years ago, but at Lan’s direction, had never acted on the information. Eyni had changed somewhat; her face had not aged, but having a child had added to her hips and she’d cut her hair to chin-length.
Hilo took off his jacket and laid it across the back of a chair. He said, “Going back and forth by mail isn’t the best way to talk about important things. You have to take the time to write it all down, then wait for weeks before you get a reply. By then, you’ve practically forgotten what you said before. And when you can’t see the other person, it’s easy for there to be misunderstandings. For example, I know you didn’t mean to be rude to Wen, even though it came across that way on paper. So I thought: Instead of putting you to the trouble of planning a big trip to Janloon, which I know can be hard when you have a little kid, I’ll come talk to you in person.”
Eyni’s eyes darted from Hilo to the door. “Lors will be home any minute.”
“Good,” said Hilo. “Then we can all sit down together and be properly introduced.” He looked around the living room curiously. It was a small but bright space that smelled of floral air freshener. Eyni had always liked art; there were clay masks and small square watercolors on the walls and a wicker bowl on the coffee table that held fruits made out of felt, as well as, incongruously, a bright green plastic rattle in the shape of a frog. Eyni was trying to appear calm, but he could Perceive her heart beating, her distrust blaring like a red siren, and it irritated him. There were times when it was useful to inspire fear, when he needed to do so, but when he had no intention to frighten, the reaction was a bit offensive. He sat down on the sofa and, with a glance, bade Tar to do the same. Hilo picked up the rattle. “Where’s my nephew?”
“He’s napping,” Eyni said quickly, but at that moment, a noise came from another room and Hilo got up to see a toddler standing and clutching the white metal rails of a baby gate at the end of the hall. Hilo went to the child and crouched down on his knees. The two-year-old barely resembled the plump baby in the photograph Wen had shown him; now he had the features of a Kaul—the nose and mouth, the watchful eyes. Hilo could already tell that he would grow up to be the spitting image of Lan, in the same way that Lan had resembled their father. That seemed to be the way it was, with firstborn Kaul sons. The boy stared at Hilo with great interest, entirely unafraid. His left eye squinted slightly and he reached through the bars of the gate with a chubby hand. Hilo, entranced, put his hand out to the child, who grasped his fingers.
“Hello, Niko,” said the Pillar. “I’m your uncle Hilo.”
Eyni pushed past him and took the rattle as she opened the gate and picked up Nikolas, who gave a squeal of protest as she shushed him and carried him back into the nursery. The boy squirmed and reached out over his mother’s shoulder as he was taken away.
A sudden and all-consuming protectiveness seized Hilo. He’d only just met the child, but now he regretted that he hadn’t come earlier. He should’ve come as soon as Wen had shown him the letter and not waited. He almost reached out to seize Eyni’s arm, to prevent her from hurrying Niko away mere seconds after he’d finally laid eyes on the boy.
Eyni disappeared into the other room, then reemerged a minute later, closing the door behind her. “He should be sleeping,” she explained. “He’s been fighting naps lately. If he gets too excited, he won’t settle down and then he’ll be cranky this evening.” She led the way back down the hall without looking at her former brother-in-law. Hilo followed at something of a distance. Once in the living room again, he said, with a greater sense of determination, “We need to talk, Eyni. It’s true we didn’t use to be friends; maybe I wasn’t ever really like a brother to you and you weren’t ever really like a sister to me, but that’s not important now. We have to think about what’s best for Niko. We need to talk about you returning to Janloon.”
Eyni was facing away from him, her back rigid. When she turned around, her arms were crossed and her expression was tight with suppressed anger and stubborn resolve. “You shouldn’t have come here, Hilo,” she said. “I told your wife not to contact me again, and I didn’t respond to your last two letters for a reason. I’ve put the past behind me.”
Hilo’s face twisted in a flash of annoyance. “You wrote to Lan. I saw the letter; you said you wanted your son to know his father and you were willing to move back to Kekon.”
“That was two years ago,” Eyni exclaimed. “I hadn’t been in Lybon for long, and after Niko was born, I felt so alone and unsure about everything. I still loved and missed Lan, but then I learned through friends—friends, because no one in the clan even bothered to tell me—that he was dead. Murdered. In some ridiculous Green Bone war that had taken over the whole city.”
“You’d left the family,” Hilo said, without sympathy. “That’s why you weren’t told.”
“Yes,” Eyni said quietly. “It took me some time, but I finally did leave. I have a life here with Lors now. We have a home and friends. We’ve no reason to go back to Kekon.”
“No reason?” Hilo was flabbergasted, but he forced himself to take several seconds to compose a reply; he knew that his temper could sometimes cause him to say things that could not be unsaid. In as patient a voice as he could manage, he said, “I admit I don’t know much about Lybon, but I know it’s no place to raise a Green Bone. There are hardly any Kekonese people here. What kind of life could Niko possibly have in Stepenland? He’ll always be an outsider. He needs to grow up in Janloon, where his family is.”
“Lors and I are his family,” Eyni replied.
“This man, your boyfriend, he’s not Kekonese. And is he really willing to raise a child that isn’t his? Are you even married?”
Eyni’s eyes flashed with indignation. “What does that matter? We’re committed to each other and to raising children together.”
Hilo was silent for a minute. “All right,” he said at last. “I see how it is. Let’s sit down to talk; there’s no need to get angry at each other from across the room.” He went to Eyni slowly, as if approaching a skittish horse, and taking her elbow, led her toward the sofa. He sat down and though she extricated her arm from his grasp, she did as he wished and sat down next to him. Hilo said, in a much gentler voice, “I think you probably remember me as Lan’s kid brother. I was quite a bit younger than he was, and it’s true that I didn’t always have the best judgment. Who really does, at that age? But a lot has changed in the years since you left Kekon. I’m the Pillar of the clan now, and that means that when I make a decision, it’ll be followed.