"We expected you earlier." Caleb didn't have a chance to hear whatever Irma had to say, the voice of a stranger reverberating around his mind loudly. He couldn't be sure, could only hope that he stayed tall in stature. Because his inner walls had crumbled too fast for Caleb to even quiver; whimpering, if not cowering in fear of finding what he sought. What if he didn't the answers he needed to hear; the ones he needed to be heard? But there wasn't time for that. There wasn't time to feel a loss where it shouldn't be; the little girl in Will that shouldn't have been. The thought that he had wanted Phobos dead..and wasn't that the same? Who knew when the late became hopeless, when overdue became nothing you can do? So he turned and didn't allow a blink at the pair forwarding. An elder, and a child he immediately hated for smiling. "Caleb."
"This isn't funny."
"We did not know."
"She could've been killed!" She had been. Caleb hated that his calm was lost and anger flared into his voice, echoing through the walls of this fortress. This place of everlasting powerfulness, even on the day that the Universe might burn in war and flames around them. This full and cleanly purity of cathedral gave Caleb only discomfort and his eyes blurred threateningly, his nails pinching his palms in tight fists. And the boy was still smiling. And Will was still tear-stained and shaking. And Will was merely ashes already forgotten. "If you know nothing your job is done wrong! Yan Lin assured me you were watching!"
Caleb could feel at least four pairs of eyes from behind him, but Yan Lin had. Though back then it had been a threat.
...
A serenity had filled her, as much as her body denied itself from revealing the fact. Will still felt herself trembling and she could find the words, but not the voice to tell Cornelia to stop. A short lived sorrow hit her when her own emotion branched through this mystic place; someone and not nothing would seem to have died. Resentment had faded as though something unhealthy was missing. She stopped tears from pouring from her eyes. She let Cornelia flex her grip, clutching Will's back more with every movement. It was easier to let it go; to pick and choose and to only empathize with the calmest around her. To let someone else feel the pain as Will sank to Kandrakar. Caleb was going to fix everything.
There was a woman in the near distance. Will had pushed her face from the expensive dress, that Cornelia might hate her for matting with tears, and the she had been - watching in the direction that no one was looking. A woman in blue. Will's eyes drew dryly over the cattiness to her; pointed ears and disapproving eyes staring at something well past Will quietly.. But Will could only soak up what boomed around the room, she wondered if Caleb was catching every drain of displeasure she pushed from her emotions. "Do you even know who she is?"
"Will?"
"The witch!" The worst washing over were only revealing his rage, but she felt better.. She felt assured and a calmness to know his heart was breaking, and she tried not to know that that made her a monster. For once it was only her own voice screaming through her. But she felt safe with Caleb. Even more for him snarling to some voice she couldn't see; Will could only know that he was doing everything he could do. It felt like silence.[0] "I saw a witch. She killed- She nearly killed her."
[0] You know.. All this calmness being because there's no electricity.. Or Nerissa.. Will finally has a minute to allow her brain to rest.