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The pair followed Delilah past two purplecoats at the door. They both rushed to open them for the little group, both staring as though she and Dixon had sprouted horns and a tail.
“Everyone’s always curious about outsiders,” Delilah explained under her breath. “You’ll get that a lot today.”
Lila couldn’t blame anyone for staring, not as her eyes drank in the lobby. The recessed ceiling spanned the heights of three grown men. Light dotted the surface, keeping the room free from shadows. A master had cut the stones in the wall. Each one lay flush against the next, with barely a hair’s breadth between them. Thick rugs lay upon the wooden floor, which gleamed with polish. Half a dozen couches sat throughout the room, clustered near a fireplace. The thick stuffing invited her in, as did the throw pillows tossed upon each one.
Delilah led them toward a wide staircase in the back, but they did not ascend to the next floor. Instead, they darted past it, turned to the right, and slipped down a hall, past several open offices. Inside, people sat at counters, talking on palms or typing on the same brand of computer.
More pillows dotted the offices. A rolled blanket sat on a little table by each door.
The purplecoat took one last turn and ushered them into a small room, devoid of anything save a few padded stools and a shoebox-sized panel of buttons. A tall woman in a white robe with lilac trim stood inside. She looked very much like the oracle, but with silver hair and blue eyes.
“Thank you, Delilah,” the woman said. “Stay close, will you?”
The purplecoat bowed, and closed the door behind her.
“I’m Kenna.” The robed woman extended her arm, shaking hands with Lila and Dixon. “My sister and I are very glad your troubles with Bullstow have ended, Ms. Randolph. Word is they’ve dropped all charges.”
“Your spies are correct.” Lila’s gaze shifted toward one of the walls. It had not been cut from stone but fashioned from glass, dividing the room from the one next door. Several sofa chairs and a large bed filled it. A young girl lay amid a mountain of pillows, bundled to her neck, her eyes dark and half-lidded. A woman—probably her mother—had settled beside her, brushing the girl’s hair from her face.
The oracle sat beside them in a sofa chair, her lilac robes pooling around her feet.
Kenna flipped a switch on the box. A raisin-sized bulb lit up across the room, throwing the slightest blur of red against the white wall.
The woman and the girl didn’t seem to notice, but the oracle did.
“The dead rise and walk the halls of our mothers and fathers,” she said, folding her hands in her lap. “Just or unjust, good or bad, it makes no difference. You both will be together in the afterlife, though it may take some time for you to find one another again. Can you be brave until your mother gets there, Sarah?”
“She’s dying, isn’t she?” Lila whispered.
“It’s leukemia. The doctors say she only has a few weeks left,” Kenna explained. “You may speak normally here, Lila. The room next door is soundproof, and the mic only works the one way.”
Lila faltered at her first name again, used by someone she had only met a few moments before. Then again, she supposed anonymity dictated such informality.
“So they’ve come to see the oracle.”
“Yes. They’re a one.”
“A one?”
“Lots of people conference with the oracles, but they usually come for the same few reasons. The parents of dying children want to know if they’ll see their babies again one day or if their children will die gasping and in pain. Sometimes they want to know both. This woman and her child are both ones. Neither one wants to be alone.”
Lila’s eyes drifted down to the box and the buttons. She wondered if Chef had ever visited the same room. “And you help the oracle?”
“Mòr rarely needs my help. She’s been at this for a very long time, but occasionally she gets stumped. Of course, sometimes I think she only pretends to make me feel useful.”
“You wrote the list.”
Kenna nodded.
“How often does the oracle meet with visitors?”
“She goes out once a week to see the ones who can’t make it to the temple. We have a complicated process for weeding out the ones who need such visits, rather than summoning her due to laziness.”
“I thought she only made house calls to the rich.”
“Of course you would, you cynical little atheist.”
Lila looked away, not because she was offended, but because she wasn’t sure if she was an atheist anymore. She had no idea what to believe about the oracles and the gods.
