Praise for New York Times bestselling author MICHELLE SAGARA and THE CHRONICLES OF ELANTRA series

“No one provides an emotional payoff like Michelle Sagara. Combine that with a fast-paced police procedural, deadly magics, five very different races and a wickedly dry sense of humor—well, it doesn’t get any better than this.”

—Bestselling author Tanya Huff

“Intense, fast-paced, intriguing, compelling and hard to put down…unforgettable.”

—In the Library Reviews on Cast in Shadow

“Readers will embrace this compelling, strong-willed heroine with her often sarcastic voice.”

—Publishers Weekly on Cast in Courtlight

“The impressively detailed setting and the book’s spirited heroine are sure to charm romance readers as well as fantasy fans who like some mystery with their magic.”

—Publishers Weekly on Cast in Secret

“Along with the exquisitely detailed worldbuilding, Sagara’s character development is mesmerizing. She expertly breathes life into a stubborn yet evolving heroine. A true master of her craft!”

—RT Book Reviews (4 ½ stars) on Cast in Fury

“With prose that is elegantly descriptive, Sagara answers some longstanding questions and adds another layer of mystery. Each visit to this amazing world, with its richness of place and character, is one to relish.”

—RT Book Reviews (4 ½ stars) on Cast in Silence

Cast in Chaos
Michelle Sagara

www.millsandboon.co.uk

AUTHOR NOTE

There are, in fantasy, two types of series. One is the extended single story that, with multiple viewpoints and various plot threads, spreads out over several volumes. The other is a connected series of stand-alone stories which feature more or less the same characters facing different situations; mysteries are characteristically this type of series. THE CHRONICLES OF ELANTRA is the second type of series as well. Kaylin Neya, the main character, is an Elantran police officer, and her job is to investigate crimes and solve them—although both the problems and the solutions in a world with winged mortals, Dragons and large, furred Leontines tend to be less mundane than the problems a real-world precinct would generally face. I hope that someone picking up any volume of the series would be able to follow the story and the characters from the beginning of the book to the end.

But.

In this second type of series, the individual story arcs are often small; it’s the character arcs that have room to grow, because ideally what your characters experience for good or ill causes trickle-down changes that continue on into the future. The Kaylin of Cast in Shadow (the first of THE CHRONICLES OF ELANTRA) and the Kaylin of the book you now hold in your hands is substantially the same person, but she has learned to let go of some of her earlier prejudices because of the events of subsequent books (for example, Cast in Secret, in which she confronts her visceral dislike of the Tha’alani, the racial telepaths).

Some of the events of previous books also cause emotional ripples in her life, and while she is facing an entirely different threat in Cast in Chaos, she’s come far enough to begin to acknowledge some of them. If this is the first time you’ve joined her, welcome to Elantra; if you’ve been following her all along, my heartfelt thanks.

CAST IN CHAOS

For my Uncle Shoichi, with gratitude

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 1

The Halls of Law occupied real estate that the merchants’ guild salivated over every time discussion about tax laws came up, and for that reason, if no other, Private Kaylin Neya was proud to work in them. The building sat in the center of the city, its bulk overshadowed by three towers, atop which—in the brisk and heavy winds of the otherwise clear day—flags could be seen at the heights. It was the only building, by Imperial decree, which was allowed this much height; the Emperor considered it a personal statement. She would probably have been slightly prouder if she’d managed to make Corporal, but she took what she could get.

What she could get, on the other hand, could be a bit disconcerting on some days. She approached the guards at the door—today Tanner and Gillas were at their posts—and stopped before she’d passed between them. They were giving her funny looks, and she was on time. She’d been on time for four days running, although one emergency with the midwives’ guild had pulled her off active duty in the middle of the day, but the looks on their faces didn’t indicate a lost betting pool.

“What’s up?” she asked Tanner. She had to look up to ask it; he was easily over six feet in height, and he didn’t slouch when on duty.

“You’ll find out,” he replied. He was almost smirking.

The problem with coming to the Hawks as an angry thirteen-year-old with a lot of attitude was that the entire force felt as if they’d watched you grow up. This meant the entire damn force took an interest in your personal business. She cursed Tanner under her breath, and left his chuckle at her back.

It was only about ten feet from her back when she ran into Corporal Severn Handred. Who just happened to be loitering in the Aerie, under the shadows of the flying Aerians, who were practicing maneuvers that no other race on the force could achieve without a hell of a lot of magic, most of which would require postmaneuver paperwork that would keep them grounded for weeks. The Emperor was not a big fan of magic that wasn’t under his personal control.

Kaylin, her wrist weighted by a few pounds of what was ostensibly gold, knew this firsthand. The bracer—studded with what were also ostensibly gemstones, and in and of itself more valuable than most of the force on a good day, which would be a day when their Sergeant wasn’t actively cursing the amount of money being wasted employing their sorry butts—was also magical. It was older than the Empire.

No one knew how it worked—or at least that’s what was claimed—but it kept random magic neutralized. Kaylin had been ordered to wear it, and on most days, she did.

Severn looked up as she approached him. “You’re on time,” he said, falling into an easy step beside her.

“And the world hasn’t ended,” she replied. “Betting? It’s four days running.” It was a betting pool she’d been excluded from joining.

He grinned, but didn’t answer, which meant yes, he was betting, and no, he hadn’t lost yet.

“If you win, you can buy me lunch.”

He raised a brow. “You’re scrounging for lunch this early in the month?”

“Don’t ask.”

He laughed.

“Instead,” she continued, “tell me why you’re here.”

“I work here.”

“Ha, ha. You don’t usually loiter in the Aerie, waiting for me to walk by.” In fact, if it was something that was a matter of life or death, or at least keeping her job, he was more proactive: he’d show up at her apartment and throw her out of bed.

“Loitering and waiting are not considered—”

“Tanner was smirking.”

Severn winced. “An official courier came by the office this morning.”

“Official courier?”

“An Imperial Courier.”

“Please tell me it had nothing to do with me,” she said, without much hope.

“You want me to lie?”

She snorted. “Is Marcus in a mood?”

“Let’s just say he didn’t seem overly surprised.” Which wasn’t much of an answer if the one you wanted was No.

Teela was in the office and at her desk, which was generally a bad sign. She was also on break, which meant she was lounging on a chair that was balanced on its back two legs, and watching the door. Tain was somewhere else, which meant Kaylin only had to deal with one of the Barrani Hawks she sometimes counted as friends. On this particular morning, she couldn’t remember why, exactly.

The fact that Teela rose—gracefully, because it was impossible for a Barrani not to be graceful—the minute she laid emerald eyes on Kaylin made it clear who she’d been watching for. The fact that she was smiling as she sauntered across the usual chaos of the office meant she was amused. This didn’t mean that the news for Kaylin was good, on the other hand.

“Good morning, Private Neya,” the window said. “It is a bright and sunny day, but rain is expected in the late afternoon. Please dress accordingly while you are on duty.”

Teela took one look at Kaylin’s raised brows and laughed out loud.

Kaylin said a few choice words in Leontine.

“Please be aware that this is a multiracial office, and the terms that you are using might give offense to some of your coworkers,” the same window chided.

Kaylin’s jaw nearly hit the floor.

“Apparently,” Teela said, as her laugh trailed off into a chuckle, “the mage that designed the window to be a cheerful, talking timepiece, was not entirely precise in his use of magic.”

“Which means?”

“Off the record? Someone tampered with Official Office equipment.”

“This is worse. The old window didn’t greet us by name. What the hells were they trying to do?”

“Get it to shut up without actually breaking it.”

“Which seems to be almost impossible. The breaking-it part.”

“So does the shutting-it-up part, if it comes to that.” Teela grinned. “We’ve started a new betting pool.”

“Hell with the pool—we should just make the Hawklord stay in this damn office. The window would be gone in less than a week.” She started to head toward her very small desk.

“Private Neya,” the window said, “you have not checked today’s duty roster. Please check the roster to ascertain your current rounds.”

Teela burst out laughing because Kaylin’s facial expression could have soured new milk. She did, however, head toward the roster because she couldn’t actually break the window, and she was pretty damn certain it would nag her until she checked.

Elani street had been penciled, in more or less legible writing, beside Kaylin’s name. Severn was her partner. There were no investigations in progress that required her presence, although there were two ongoing. The shift started in half an hour. She took note of it as obviously as possible, and then returned to her desk, by way of Caitlin.

“Good morning, dear,” Caitlin said, looking up from a small and tidy pile of papers.

Kaylin nodded, and then bent slightly over the desk. “What happened to the window?”

The older woman frowned slightly. “We’re not officially certain, dear.” Which meant she wouldn’t say. “Sergeant Kassan is aware that the enchantment on the window is causing some difficulty. I believe he is scheduled to speak with the Hawklord.”

“Thank the gods,” Kaylin replied. The window, during this discussion, was in the process of greeting yet another coworker. “Does it do this all day?”

Caitlin nodded. “You weren’t here yesterday,” she added. Her frown deepened. “It not only greeted the employees by name, it also felt the need to greet every person who walked into—or through—the office in the same way.”

“But—”

Caitlin shrugged. “It’s magic,” she finally said, as if that explained everything. Given how Kaylin generally felt about magic, it probably did.

She tried to decide whether or not to ask about the Imperial Courier. Caitlin was the best source of information in the office, but if she felt it wasn’t important or relevant to the questioner, she gave away exactly nothing. Since she was bound to find out sooner or later—and probably sooner—she held her tongue.

“Private Neya!” The low, deep rumble of Leontine growl momentarily stilled most of the voices in the office. Marcus, as she’d guessed, was not in the best of moods. “Caitlin has work to do, even if you don’t.”

“Sir!” Kaylin replied.

“He’s in the office more than anyone else who works here,” Caitlin whispered, by way of explanation. “And I believe the window likes to have a chat when things are quiet.”

Kaylin grimaced in very real sympathy for Old Ironjaw.

“In particular, I think it’s been trying to give him advice.”

Which meant it wasn’t going to last the week. Thank the gods.

“Oh, and, dear?” Caitlin added, as Kaylin began to move away from her desk, under the watchful glare of her Sergeant.

“Yes?”

“This is for you.” She held out a small sheaf of paper.

Kaylin, who had learned to be allergic to paperwork from a master—that being Marcus himself—cringed reflexively as she held out a hand. “Am I going to like this?”

“Probably not,” Caitlin said with very real sympathy. “I’m afraid it isn’t optional.”

Kaylin looked through the papers in her hands. “This is a class schedule.”

“Yes, dear.”

“But—Mallory’s gone—”

“It’s not about his request that you take—and pass—all of the courses you previously failed, if that’s helpful. The Hawklord vetoed that, although I’m sorry to say Mallory’s suggestion did meet with some departmental approval.”

It was marginally helpful. “What’s it about, then?”

Caitlin winced. “Etiquette lessons. And I believe that Lord Sanabalis has, of course, requested that your magical education resume.”

“Is there any good news?”

“As far as we know, nothing is threatening to destroy either the City or the World, dear.”

Kaylin stared glumly at the missive in her hands. “This is your subtle way of telling me not to start doing either, isn’t it?”

Caitlin smiled. “They’re just lessons. It’s not the end of the World.”

“So,” Severn said, when she joined him and they began to head down the hall, “did you speak with Caitlin?”

“Yes. Let me guess. The entire office already knows the contents of these papers.”

“Betting?”

“No.”

He laughed. “Most of the office. How bad is it?”

“Two days a week with Sanabalis.”

He raised a brow.

“With Lord Sanabalis.”

“Better. Isn’t that the same schedule you were on before the situation in the fiefs? You both survived that.”

“Mostly. I think he broke a few chairs.”

“He’d have to.” Severn grinned. “Gods couldn’t break that table.”

It was true. The table in the West Room—which had been given a much more respectful name before Marcus’s time, which meant Kaylin had no idea what it was—was harder than most sword steel. “Three nights of off-duty time with the etiquette teacher.”

“Nights?”

She nodded grimly.

“Is the teacher someone the Hawks can afford to piss off?”

“I hope so.”

“Who’s teaching?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t actually say.”

“Where?”

She grimaced. “The Imperial Palace.”

He winced in genuine sympathy. “I’m surprised Lord Grammayre approved this.”

Kaylin was not known for her love of high society. The Hawklord was not known for his desire to have Kaylin and high society anywhere in the same room. Or city block. Which meant the dictate had come from someone superior to the Hawklord.

“It’s not optional,” Kaylin said glumly. “And the worst part is, if I pass, I probably get to do something big. Like meet the Emperor.”

“I’d like to be able to say that won’t kill you.”

“You couldn’t, with a straight face.”

He shrugged. “When do you start?”

“Two days. I meet Sanabalis—Lord Sanabalis—for Magical Studies—”

“Magical Studies? Does it actually say that?”

“Those are the exact words. Don’t look at me, I didn’t write it—in the afternoon tomorrow.” She dropped the schedule into her locker with as much care as she generally dropped dirty towels.

Elani street was not a hub of activity in the morning. It wasn’t exactly deserted, but it was quiet, and the usual consumers of love potions and extracts to combat baldness, impotence, and unwanted weight were lingering on the other side of storefronts. Remembering her mood the last time she’d walked this beat, Kaylin took care not to knock over offending sandwich boards. On the other hand, she also took the same care not to read them.

“Kaylin?”

“Hmm?” She was looking at the cross section of charms in a small case in one window—Mortimer’s Magnificent Magic—and glanced at her partner’s reflection in the glass.

“You’re rubbing your arms.”

She looked down and realized he was right. “They’re sort of itchy,” she said.

He raised one brow. “Sort of itchy?”

The marks that adorned most of the insides of her arms were, like the ones that covered her inner thighs and half of her back, weather vanes for magic. Kaylin hesitated. “It doesn’t feel the way it normally does when there’s strong magic. It’s—they’re just sort of itchy.”

“And they’ve never been like that before.”

She frowned. She’d had fleas once, while cat-sitting for an elderly neighbor. The itch wasn’t quite the same, but it was similar.

She started to tell him as much, and was interrupted midsentence by someone screaming.

It was, as screams went, a joyful, ecstatic sound, which meant their hands fell to their clubs without drawing them. But they—like every other busybody suddenly crowding the streets—turned at the sound of the voice. It was distinctly male, and probably a lot higher than it normally was. Bouncing a glance between each other, they shrugged and headed toward the noise.

The scream slowly gathered enough coherence to form words, and the words, to Kaylin’s surprise, had something to do with hair. And having hair. When they reached the small wagon set up on the street—and Kaylin made a small note to check for permits, as that was one of the Dragon Emperor’s innovations on tax collection—the crowds had formed a thin wall.

The people who lived above the various shops in Elani street had learned, with time and experience, to be enormously cynical. Exposure to every promise of love, hair, or sexual prowess known to man—or woman, for that matter—tended to have that effect, as did the more esoteric promise to tease out the truth about the future and your destined greatness in it. They had pretty much heard—and seen—it all.

And given the charlatans who masqueraded as merchants on much of the street, both the permanent residents and the officers of the Law who patrolled it knew that it wasn’t beyond them to hire an actor to suddenly be miraculously cured of baldness, impotence, or blindness.

Kaylin assumed that the man who was almost crying in joy was one of these actors. But if he was, he was damn good. She started to ask him his name, stopped as he almost hugged her, and then turned to glance at the merchant whose wagon this technically was.

He looked…slack-jawed and surprised. He didn’t even bother to school his expression, which clearly meant he was new to this. Not new to fleecing people, she thought sourly, just new to success. When he took a look at the Hawk that sat dead center on her tabard, he straightened up, and the slack lines of his face tightened into something that might have looked like a grin—on a corpse.

“Officer,” he said, in that loud, booming voice that demanded attention. Or witnesses. “How can I help you on this fine morning?” He had to speak loudly, because the man was continuing his loud, joyful exclamations.

“I’d like to see your permits,” Kaylin replied. She spoke clearly and calmly, but her voice traveled about as far as it would have had she shouted. It was one of the more useful things she’d learned in the Halls of Law. She held out one hand.

“But that’s—that’s outrageous!”

“Take it up with the Emperor,” Kaylin replied, although she did secretly have some sympathy for the man. “Or the merchants’ guild, as they supported it.”

“I am a member in good standing of the guild, and I can assure you—”

She lifted a hand. “It’s not technically illegal for you to claim to be a member in good standing of a guild,” she told him, keeping her voice level, but lowering it slightly. “But if you’re new here, it’s really, really stupid to claim to be a member of the merchants’ guild if you’re not.” Glancing at his wagon, which looked well serviced but definitely aged, she shrugged.

“I am not new to the city,” the man replied. “But I’ve been traveling to far lands in order to bring the citizens of Elantra the finest, the most rare, of mystical unguents and—”

“And you still need a permit to sell them here, or in any of the market streets or their boundaries.” She turned. Lifting her voice, she said, “Okay, people, it’s time to pack it in. Mr.—”

“Stravaganza.”

The things people expected her to be able to repeat with a straight damn face. Kaylin stopped herself from either laughing or snorting. “Mr. Stravaganza is new enough to the City that he’s failed to acquire the proper permits for peddling his wares in the streets. In order to avoid the very heavy fines associated with the lack of permit, he is now closed for business until he makes the journey to the Imperial Tax Offices to acquire said permit.”

Severn, on the other hand, was looking at the bottle he’d casually picked up from the makeshift display. It was small, long, and stoppered. The merchant started to speak, and then stopped the words from falling out of his mouth. “Please, Officer,” he said to Severn. “My gift to a man who defends our city.” He even managed to say this with a more or less straight face.

Severn nodded and carefully pocketed the bottle. As he already had a headful of hair, Kaylin waited while the merchant packed up and started moving down the street. Then she looked at her partner. “What gives?” she said, gesturing toward his pocket.

“I don’t know,” was the unusually serious reply. “But that man wasn’t acting. I’d be willing to bet that he actually thinks the fact that he now has hair is due to the contents of this bottle.”

“You can’t believe that,” she said, voice flat.

Severn shrugged. “Let’s just make sure Mr. Stravaganza crosses the border of our jurisdiction. When he’s S.E.P., we can continue our rounds.”

The wagon made it past the borders and into the realm of Somebody Else’s Problem without further incident. Kaylin and Severn did not, however, make it to the end of their shift in the same way. They corrected their loose pattern of patrol once they returned to the street; as the day had progressed, Elani had become more crowded. This was normal.

Some of the later arrivals were very richly clothed, and came in fine carriages, disembarking with the help of their men; some wore clothing that had been too small a year ago, with patches at elbows and threads of different colors around cuffs and shoulders.

All of them, rich, poor, and shades in between, sought the same things. At a distance, Kaylin saw one carriage stop before the doors of Margot. Margot, with her flame-red hair, her regal and impressive presence, and her damn charisma. Margot’s storefront was, like the woman whose name was plastered in gold leaf across the windows, dramatic and even—Kaylin admitted grudgingly—attractive. It implied wealth, power, and a certain spare style.

To Kaylin, it also heavily implied fraud—but it wasn’t the type of fraud for which the woman could be thrown in jail.

The doors opened and the unknown but obviously well-heeled woman entered the shop. This wasn’t unusual, and at least the woman in question had the money to throw away; far too many of the clientele that frequented Elani street in various shades of desperation didn’t.

Severn gave Kaylin a very pointed look, and she shrugged. “She’s got the money. No one’s going hungry if she throws it away on something stupid.” She started to walk, forcing Severn to fall in beside her. Her own feelings about most of Elani’s less genuine merchants were well-known.

She slowed, and after a moment she added, “I know there are worse things, Severn. I’m trying.”

His silence was a comfortable silence; she fit into it, and he let her. But they hadn’t reached the corner before they heard shouting, and they glanced once at each other before turning on their heels and heading back down the street.

The well-dressed woman who had entered Margot’s was in the process of leaving it in high, high dudgeon. Margot was—even at this distance—an unusual shade of pale that almost looked bad with her hair. Kaylin tried not to let the momentary pettiness of satisfaction distract her, and failed miserably; Margot was demonstrably still healthy, her store was still in one piece, and at this distance it didn’t appear that any Imperial Laws had been broken.

“Please, Lady,” Margot was saying. “I assure you—”

“I am done with your assurances, Margot,” was the icy reply. The woman turned, caught sight of the Hawks, and drew herself to her full height. “Officers,” she said coldly. “I demand that you arrest this—this woman—for slander.”

“While we would dearly love to arrest this woman in the course of our duties,” Kaylin said carefully, “most of what she says is confined to private meetings. Nor is what she says to her clients maliciously—or at least publicly—spread.”

“No?” The woman still spoke as if winter were language. “She spoke—in public—”

“I spoke in private,” Margot said quickly. “In the confines of my own establishment—”

“You spoke in front of your other clients,” the woman snapped. “When my father hears of this, you will be finished here, do you understand? You will be languishing in the Imperial jail!”

It was too much to hope that she would climb the steps to the open door of her carriage and leave. She turned once again to Kaylin; Severn was, as usual, enjoying the advantage of having kept his mouth shut. It was a neat trick, and Kaylin wished—for the thousandth time—that she could learn it. Or, rather, had already learned it.

“You will arrest this—this charlatan immediately.”

“Ma’am, we need to have something to arrest her for.”

“I’ve already told you—”

“You haven’t told us what she said,” Kaylin replied. Given the heightening of color across the woman’s cheeks, the fact that this was required seemed to further enrage her.

“Do you know who I am?”

It was the kind of question that Kaylin most hated, and it was the chief reason that her duties were not supposed to take her anywhere where it could, with such genuine outrage, be asked. “No, ma’am, I’m afraid I haven’t had the privilege.”

Her eyes rounded, and out of the corner of her eye, Kaylin saw that Margot was wincing.

“Who, may I ask, are you?” the woman now said.

“Private Neya, of the Hawks.”

“And you are somehow supposed to be responsible for safeguarding the people of this fair city when you clearly fail to recognize something as significant as the crest upon this carriage?”

Kaylin opened her mouth to reply, but a reply was clearly no longer desired—or acceptable.

“Very well, Private. I will speak with Lord Grammayre myself.” She spoke very clear, pointed High Barrani to her driver, and then stomped her way up the step and into the carriage. Had she been responsible for closing its door herself, it would have probably shattered. As it was, the footman did a much more careful job.

They watched the carriage drive away.

“I suppose there’s not much chance that she’s just going to go home and stew?” she asked Severn.

“No.”

“Is she important enough to gain immediate audience with the Hawklord?”

Margot sputtered before Severn could answer, but that was fine. Severn’s expression was pretty damn clear. “She is Lady Alyssa of the Larienne family. Did you truly not recognize her?”

Larienne. Larienne. Like most of the wealthy families in Elantra, they sported a mock-Barrani name. Something about it was familiar. “Go on.”

“Her father is Garavan Larienne, the head of the family. He is also the Chancellor of the Exchequer.”

Kaylin turned to Severn. “How bad is it going to be?”

“Oh, probably a few inches of paper on Marcus’s desk.”

She wilted. “All right, Margot. Since I’m going to be on report in a matter of hours—”

“Hour,” Severn said quietly.

“What the hell did you say that offended her so badly?”

“I’d prefer not to repeat it.”

Kaylin sourly told her what she could do with her preferences.

“So let me get this straight. Lady Alyssa comes to you for advice about her love life—”

“She is Garavan’s only daughter.” Margot was now subdued. She was still off her color. “And she’s been a client for only a few months. She is, of course, concerned with her greater destiny.”

“I’m not. What I’m concerned with is the statement Corporal Handred has taken from some of your other clients. You told Lady Alyssa that her father was going to be charged with embezzlement, and the family fortunes would be in steep decline? You?”

Margot opened her mouth, and nothing fell out of it. Kaylin had often daydreamed about Margot at a loss for words; this wasn’t exactly how she’d hoped it would come about.

“I—” Margot shook her head. “I had no intention of saying any such thing, Her father’s business is not her business, and she doesn’t ask about him.”

“Then what in the hells possessed you to do it now?”

“She—she sat in her normal chair, and she asked me if—if I had any further insight into her particular situation.”

“And that was your answer? Come on, Margot. You’ve been running this place—successfully—for too damn many years to just open your mouth and offend someone you consider important.”

“That was my answer,” was the stiff reply. “I felt—strange, Private. I felt as if—I could see what would happen. As if it were unfolding before my eyes. I didn’t mean to speak the words. The words just came.” She spoke very softly, even given the lack of actual customers in her storefront; she had sent them, quietly, on their way. Apparently, whatever it was that was coming out of her mouth was not to be trusted, and she was willing to lose a full day’s worth of income to make sure it didn’t happen again.

“So. A cure for baldness that worked—instantly—and a fortune-teller’s trick that might also be genuine.”

“I’d keep that last to yourself.”

She shrugged. “I think it’s time we visited all of the damn shops on Elani, door-to-door, and had a little talk with the proprietors.”

Severn, who didn’t dislike Margot as much as Kaylin, had been both less amused at her predicament and less amused by the two incidents than Kaylin. Kaylin let her brain catch up with her sense of humor, and the grin slowly faded from her face, as well. “Come on,” she told him.

“Where are we starting?”

“Evanton’s. If we’re lucky, that’ll take up the remainder of the shift, and then some. I’m not looking forward to signing out tonight.”

CHAPTER 2

Evanton’s apprentice, Grethan, opened the door before Kaylin managed to touch it. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in three days, and judging from his expression, Kaylin and Severn were part of his waking nightmare.

“Are you shutting up for the day?” Kaylin asked, keeping her voice quiet and low.

He looked confused, and then shook himself. “No,” he told her. “I was just—going out. For a walk,” he added quickly.

She didn’t ask him how Evanton was; he’d pretty much already answered that question. But she did walk into the cluttered, gloomy front room, and she stopped as she crested the opening between two cases of shelving. The light here was brilliant.

Evanton was wearing his usual apron, and it was decorated with the usual pins and escapee threads of the variety of materials with which he worked. But his eyes were, like the lights in the room, a little too bright. He glanced at her, his hands pulling thread through a thick, dark fabric that lay in a drape across his spindly lap. “I was wondering,” he said, although it was somewhat muffled, given the pins between his lips, “when you would show up.”

“The Garden—”

“Oh, the Garden’s fine. Whatever you did in the fiefs a couple of weeks ago was enough to calm it. It looks normal. No, the Garden is not your problem.” He removed the pins and stuck them carefully into one of a half-dozen oddly shaped pincushions by his left arm. “I’ve almost finished with your cloak,” he added, “if you want to try it on.”

She had the grace to redden. “Not now,” she told him. “I’m on duty.”

He raised a brow. “Have you two been on patrol all morning?”

Kaylin nodded.

“Notice anything unusual?”

She nodded again, but this time more slowly. Note to self: visit Evanton’s first, next time you’re in Elani. “What is it, Evanton? We’re just about to make a sweep of the street to see if anything else unusual turns up.”

“I hope you’ve got a lot of time,” the old man replied. He rose and folded the cloth in his lap into a careful bundle. “I’d offer you tea, but the boy’s forgotten to fill the bucket.”

“I can fill it—”

“No. That won’t be necessary.”

She frowned.

“It’s not only in the rest of the street that the unusual is occurring,” he told her. “This morning, when he came in with the water, the water started to speak to him.”

“Evanton—”

“Yes. He was born deaf, by the standards of the Tha’alani. He has always been mind deaf, but he is still Tha’alani by birth. In the Elemental Garden, he can hear the water’s voice, and through it, some echo of the voice of his people. This is the first time it’s happened outside of the Garden, and the water was in buckets. It is not, sadly, still in those buckets. I can’t get him to drink a glass of water at the moment. He sits and stares at it instead.” He frowned. “I had heard rumors that you were studying magic with Lord Sanabalis.”

“From who?”

“Private, please. I gather from your sour expression that the rumors are true. You might wish to speak with Lord Sanabalis about the events on Elani at your earliest convenience. If we are lucky, he will be unaware of the difficulties you might encounter.”

“And if we’re not?”

“He will already know, and it will mean that the difficulties are present across a much wider area of the city.”

“What will it mean to him?”

“What it should mean to you, if you’ve been studying for any length of time,” was the curt reply. But Evanton did relent. “There has been a significant and sudden shift in the magical potential of an area that is at least as broad as Elani.”

Kaylin froze. “Severn, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I’m thinking that our sample size—of three—is more than enough for the day. We should return to the office immediately.”

Evanton frowned, although with his face it was sometimes difficult to tell. “Something unusual happened outside of the confines of this particular neighborhood.”

“Yes. An enchantment laid against some of the windows in the Halls of Law has developed a more commanding and distinct personality than it possessed a few days ago.”

Evanton closed his eyes. “Go, Private, Corporal. Speak with the Hawklord now.”

Speaking with the Hawklord was not at the top of Kaylin’s list of things to do before the end of her shift. Or at all. He was—they all were—aware of the shortcomings in an education that didn’t include the rich and the powerful on this side of the Ablayne. For one, power in the fiefs usually meant brute force; manners were what you developed when you wanted to avoid pissing off the brute force in question. Marcus had once told her that manners in the rest of Elantra were exactly the same thing, but Kaylin knew they weren’t. In the fiefs, the best manners were often either silence or total invisibility.

Here, you were actually expected to talk and interact. Without obvious groveling or fawning, and without obvious fear.

Severn caught her hand.

“What?”

“Stop rubbing your arm like that. You’ll take your skin off.”

“Like that would be a bad thing.” But she did stop. “I should have known,” she added. “You suspected?”

“I wondered.”

The Halls loomed in a distance that was growing shorter as they walked; they weren’t patrolling, so there was no need for a leisurely pace. They also weren’t running because running Hawks made people nervous.

Tanner took one look at her face and stepped to one side. “Trouble?” he asked them both.

“Possible trouble,” Kaylin replied. They breezed through the Aerie and the halls that led to the office that was Kaylin’s second home. Marcus was at his desk, and he roared when he caught sight of them. Kaylin cringed.

“Here. Now.”

Only a suicidal idiot would have ignored that tone of voice. Or the claws that were adding new runnels to scant clear desk surface. Both she and Severn made their way to the safe side of his desk—the one he wasn’t on. Kaylin lifted her chin, exposing her throat. Marcus actually glowered at it as if he was considering his options; his eyes were a very deep orange, and about as far from his usual golden color as they could get when death wasn’t involved.

“In your rounds in Elani today did you happen to encounter anyone significant?” he growled, his voice on the lower end of the Leontine scale. The office had fallen—mostly—silent; total silence would probably occur only in the event of the deaths of everyone in it.

“Alyssa Larienne.”

“Lady Alyssa Larienne. She is the daughter of one of the oldest—and wealthiest—human families in Elantra. Her father is a member of significance in the human Caste Court. Her mother is the daughter of the castelord. If you wanted to make my life more difficult when dealing with the human Caste Court, you couldn’t have chosen a better person to offend.”

Well, there is her father. This time, Kaylin kept her mouth shut.

“I expect there to be a good explanation for this.”

“I wasn’t the one who actually offended her, if that helps.”

He snarled, which meant it didn’t. “What happened?”

“She’s a client of Margot’s.”

“You’re telling me—with a straight face and your job on the line—that Margot offended her.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How?”

“That’s part of why we’re here—”

“Stick with this part, for now. Report on the rest later.”

“Yes, sir.” She took a deep breath. “Lady Alyssa arrived for her usual appointment. Today, Margot chose to tell her that her father, Garavan Larienne, was to be arrested for embezzlement.”

Breathing would have made more noise than the combined contents of the office now did.

“Let me get this straight. Margot told Alyssa Larienne that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was to be arraigned for embezzlement.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And your part in this was?”

“Lady Alyssa demanded that I arrest Margot for slander. I personally would love to arrest Margot for anything she could possibly—”

Marcus flexed his claws. Kaylin took this as a sign that she should answer his questions, and only his questions. “I asked Lady Alyssa what Margot had said. She declined to repeat it. She did not decline to repeat her demand.”

Marcus’s eyes were still orange.

“She did, however, take offense at the idea that I didn’t immediately recognize the crest on her carriage or her own import, since obviously either of those would lead me to arrest Margot on the spot, and said she would take it up with Lord Grammayre personally.”

Marcus growled. “This is extremely unfortunate. I would like you to request that Margot come into the office for debriefing.”

Kaylin’s jaw nearly dropped. “What?”

“Which part of that sentence wasn’t clear?”

Severn cleared his throat. “When would you like us to request Margot’s cooperation with the Halls of Law?”

“After you finish speaking with Lord Grammayre. You’re early,” he added, his eyes narrowing. “Please tell me there is no other emergency in Elani.” Oddly enough, when he said this, his eyes began to shade into a more acceptable bronze.

Severn was notably silent.

“It would save me paperwork and ulcers if I just chained you to a desk, Private. Go talk to the Hawklord. Now.”

“Private,” Kaylin whispered, as they walked quickly up the spiral staircase. “As if you weren’t there at all.”

“You seem to be fairly good at attracting trouble in spite of your assigned partner,” Severn replied, with a faint smile.

“If Margot has somehow blown things for an ongoing investigation…” She didn’t finish, because they reached the Hawklord’s tower door. They’d bypassed his office, but Kaylin didn’t expect him to be in his office; he rarely conducted his meetings there. For one, it was as crowded and cluttered as any busy person’s office. It also wasn’t as imposing as the more austere and architecturally impressive tower itself.

“This,” Kaylin muttered, as Severn placed his palm firmly across the doorward of the closed tower doors, “is worse than magic. This is politics.”

“On the bright side,” Severn replied, as the door swung inward, “this is probably making etiquette lessons look a lot more inviting.”

The Hawklord was standing in front of his perfect, oval mirror. In and of itself, this was not a bad sign. The mirror, however, reflected no part of the room, which meant he was accessing Records. Kaylin could see nothing but a blank, black surface. He glanced over his shoulder as she and Severn walked into the room, and she stopped almost immediately.

His eyes were blue.

Blue, in the Aerians, like blue in the Barrani, was not a good sign. With luck, it meant anger. With less luck, it meant fury. In either case, it meant tread carefully. Likewise, the Hawklord’s wings were high above his shoulders. They weren’t fully extended; they were loosely gathered. She’d seen loosely gathered Aerian wings strike and break bone exactly once.

She offered the Hawklord a perfect salute. Severn, by her side, did likewise.

“Alyssa Larienne came to this tower just over an hour ago,” he said without preamble. “Sergeant Kassan attempted to detain her by taking a detailed report of the incident which had angered her.”

Kaylin winced.

“As a result she left the Halls some fifteen minutes before your arrival.” The Hawklord’s wings twitched. His eyes were still a very glacial blue. “She did not appreciate the filing of an incident report. I was assured that Sergeant Kassan was polite and respectful.”

“She probably doesn’t have much to do with Leontines on a daily basis,” Kaylin pointed out. “She might not have been able to tell.”

“That,” the Hawklord said, and he did grimace, “is my profound hope. What happened in Elani street, Private Neya?”

Kaylin stared straight ahead. She wanted to at least look at Severn, because she could read minute changes in his expression well enough to be guided by them. But in the Hawklord’s current mood that might be career-limiting.

“We’re not entirely sure, sir. We cut our patrol short to report,” she told Lord Grammayre. “After we visited Evanton.”

The Hawklord’s face became about as inviting and open as the stone walls that enclosed them. “Continue.”

“There were three incidents in the space of a few hours of which we’re aware. With your permission, we’ll canvass the merchants and residents of the street tomorrow to see how many others we missed.”

“Incidents?”

She hesitated; he marked it. But he waited. “The first was a man selling a cure for baldness that actually appeared to work—instantly.”

He raised one pale brow. “It is Elani street.”

“Sir.” This time she did glance at Severn; his chin dipped slightly down. “We took the merchant’s name. Corporal Handred acquired a sample of the tonic.”

“You…believe that this was genuine.”

“Much as I hate to admit it, yes.”

“Go on.”

“The second incident of note, you’ve already heard about. Alyssa Larienne.”

“Lady Alyssa Larienne is young, idealistic, and convinced of her own importance.”

Severn cleared his throat.

“Corporal?”

“I would say that she is young, insecure, and in need of someone to convince her of that import.”

“She throws her weight around—” Kaylin broke in.

“If she was certain she had that weight, she wouldn’t need to throw it.”

Kaylin shrugged. “For whatever reason, she’s been a client of Margot’s for many months.”

“Margot Hemming?”

“The same.”

“Margot Hemming is not, to my knowledge, and to the knowledge of Imperial Records, a mage. She has no training, and no notable talent or skill. She is, by human standards, striking. She is forty years of age—”

“She can’t be forty.”

“She is forty years of age,” he repeated, spacing the words out thinly and evenly. “And she has twice been charged with fraud in the last twenty-five. She is not violent, she has no great pretensions, and for the last decade, she has settled into the life of a woman of modest, respectable means.”

Kaylin glanced at the flat surface of a mirror that reflected nothing, and the Hawklord continued. “She has no known criminal ties, she is despised by the merchants’ guild, she donates money to the Foundling Halls.”

Kaylin’s brows disappeared into her hairline. “She what?”

“She can afford it.”

“That’s not the point.”

“No. It is not. She has very few clients of any significant political standing. Garavan Larienne does not travel to her shop, nor does his wife. She supports no political causes that we are aware of, and believe that I have demanded every possible legal record that she might be associated with, however distantly. But she has, today, single-handedly caused the Hawks—and the Swords, and possibly indirectly, the Wolves—more difficulty than the Arcanum has in its entire history.”

Kaylin closed her eyes.

“What did Margot Hemming do, Private?”

“She told a fortune, more or less.”

“I am aware of the fortune’s contents.” He turned. “The other difficulties?”

“After the incident with Margot, we paid a visit to Evanton’s. Evanton said that…there was an incident in the store, involving his apprentice.”

“Did it also involve the future of arguably the most politically powerful human in Elantra?”

“No, sir.”

“Then I am not interested in the details at this present moment. Continue.”

“It was also of a magical nature. Evanton thinks—thought—that there is an unusually strong flux in the magical potential of a specific area, and it’s causing things to go completely out of whack.”

“His words?”

“Not exactly.”

“What, exactly, were his words?”

“He thought I should speak with Sanabalis—”

“Lord Sanabalis.”

“Lord Sanabalis. Now.”

“Far be it from me to ignore the urgent advice of so important a man,” the Hawklord replied.

“He thinks it could be disastrous if we don’t—”

“It has already been almost disastrous. At this particular moment in my career, I fail to see how it could be worse. Take Corporal Handred with you, avoid any discussion of Larienne, and avoid, as well, any men who obviously bear his colors. Go directly to Lord Sanabalis, make your report, and return directly here. If I am absent, wait.”

“Sir.”

The Imperial Palace, home of future etiquette lessons, loomed in the distance of carriage windows like the cages outside of Castle Nightshade. The flags were, as they almost always were, at full height, and the wind at that height was impressive today; it buffeted clouds.

Severn, seated across from Kaylin, glanced at her arms. It wasn’t a pointed glance, but she rolled back one sleeve, exposing the heavy, golden bracer that bracketed her wrist. The unnatural gems, socketed in a line down its length, gleamed in the darkened interior of the carriage. He nodded, and she rolled her sleeve down, covering it. By Imperial Edict, and by the Hawklord’s command—which were in theory the same thing—she wore it all the time.

It prevented the unpredictable magic she could sometimes use from bubbling to the surface in disastrous ways. It unfortunately also prevented the more predictable—to Kaylin—magic that was actually helpful from being used, so it didn’t always reside on her wrist, edict notwithstanding. Her magic could be used to heal the injured, and it was most often used when the midwives called her in on emergencies.

But it was this wild magic, and the unpredictable and unknown nature of it, that was at the root of the Magical Studies classes she was taking with Sanabalis. The Imperial Court reasoned that if she could use and channel magic like actual working mages did, she would be in control of it. And, in theory, the Court would be in control of her, because indirectly they paid her salary, and she liked to eat.

It was also the magic that was at the heart of etiquette lessons. The Dragon Emperor was not famed for his tolerance and sense of humor. He was, in fact, known for his lack of both. But Sanabalis, Tiamaris, and even the ancient Arkon who guarded the Imperial Library as if it was his personal hoard—largely because it was—all felt that she would soon have to come to Court and spend time in the presence of the Dragon who ruled them all. They wanted her to survive it, although Sanabalis on some days seemed less certain.

The carriage rolled to a halt in the usual courtyard. It was not an Imperial Carriage; most Hawks who didn’t have Lord somewhere in their name didn’t have regular use of those. It did bear the Hawk symbol, and a smaller version of the Imperial Crest, but it also needed both paint and a good, solid week’s worth of scrubbing.

Still, it did the job. The men who always stood in the courtyard opened the side doors, but they didn’t offer her either the small step that seemed to come with most fancy carriages, or help getting out of the seat that was so damn uncomfortable on long, bumpy rides. They just opened the door, peered briefly in, and got out of the way.

She handed one of them the letter Caitlin had written. Marcus had signed it with a characteristic bold paw print under a signature that was—if you knew Leontines—mostly legible. Caitlin, on the other hand, had done the sealing. Marcus didn’t care for wax.

He hadn’t much cared for her destination, either, but only barely threatened to rip out her throat if she embarrassed the department, which was bad; it meant he had other things on his mind. His eyes had never once shaded back to their familiar gold.

The man who had taken the sealed letter returned about fifteen minutes later, accompanied by a man she recognized, although not by name.

“Lord Sanabalis,” this man said, with a stiff bow, “will see you. Please follow me.”

She started to tell him she knew the way, and bit her tongue.

Sure enough, she did know the way, because he took her to Sanabalis’s personal meeting room. It wasn’t an office; there was no sign of a desk, or anything that looked remotely business-like—besides the Dragon Lord himself—in the room. And it had windows that did not, in fact, give out lectures on decorum, dress, and the use of racially correct language to random passersby. The windows here, on the other hand, were impressive, beveled glass that looked out on one of the best views of the Halls of Law in the city.

“If this,” he told Kaylin, indicating one of the many chairs positioned in front of the one he occupied, “is about your class schedule, I will be tempted to reduce you to ash on the spot.” As his eyes were the familiar gold that Marcus’s hadn’t been since she’d returned to the office, she assumed this was what passed for Dragon humor, and she took a chair.

Severn did likewise.

“It’s not about the class schedule, although if you want my opinion—”

Sanabalis raised a pale, finely veined hand. It looked like an older man’s hand, but it could, in a pinch, probably drive a dent into solid rock. Dragons could look like aged wise men, but it was only ever cosmetic. They were immortal, like the Barrani. They lacked Barrani magnetism, and their unearthly beauty and grace, but Kaylin assumed that was because they didn’t actually care what the Barrani or the merely mortal thought of them. At all.

“I believe, given previous exposure to your opinions, I can derive it from first principles.”

Severn coughed. Kaylin glared at the side of his face, because for Severn, this was laughter that he’d only barely managed to contain. “There was an incident in Elani street today.”

So much for gold. His eyes started the shade-shift into bronze the minute she mentioned the street. “I take it,” she added, “you heard.”

“We were informed—immediately—by Lord Grammayre, yes. I am not at liberty to discuss it at the moment. I am barely at liberty to have this meeting,” he added. “But in general, you come to the Palace with information that is relevant, and often urgent. Do not, however, waste my time.”

“I didn’t cause the incident. I caused outrage because I didn’t immediately obey the orders of a pissed-off noble.”

“Understood. You have information on what did cause the incident?”

“Not directly.”

He snorted. Small plumes of smoke left his nostrils, which was unusual. “Evanton sent me,” she said quickly.

“The Keeper sent you?”

She nodded. “He started to talk about magical potential, and the sudden surge he felt in Elani.”

Sanabalis was silent. It wasn’t a good silence.

“He—the incident with Alyssa Larienne—he thought the magical potential shift was responsible for it somehow.”

“Let me reverse my earlier position,” he said quietly. “What were the other incidents?”

She told him.

His eyes were now the color of new copper. “And these incidents,” he finally said, rising and turning his face toward the window. “Did they all occur within roughly the same area?”

It was Severn who answered. “We aren’t entirely certain of that.”

“How uncertain are you, and why?”

“You are no doubt aware that Sergeant Mallory made a few changes to the official office out of which the Hawks operate. One of those changes was—”

“The window, yes. I can tell you his requisition raised a few eyebrows in the Order.”

“The window is perhaps not the most popular addition to the office. It is, however, impervious to most casual attempts to harm it.”

“Go on.”

“Someone attempted to dampen or neutralize the magic on the window—or so we believed.”

“Tampering with official property?”

“As I said, that was our belief at the time. Given the nature of the enchantment—”

“It would be entirely believable. What happened?”

“The window now greets visitors—and staff—by name. Among other things. Its lectures have become more directed.”

“The names could possibly have been carried over from any connection with Records, and I assume, given the requisition request, that connection would be mandatory.”

“That was the theory. The window began, however, to greet visitors by name, as well, and some of those visitors don’t exist in our Records. None of the Hawks are mages. We naturally assumed, given the nature of the original enchantment, that the attempt to disenchant the window had simply skewed it.”

Sanabalis raised a hand, not to silence Severn, but to touch the window that separated them from high, open sky. Kaylin’s hair began to stand on end.

The window darkened instantly, shutting out both sunlight and the sight of the Halls of Law. The bars that separated the panes seemed to melt into the surface of what had once been glass until the entire bay looked like a smooth, featureless trifold wall.

“Records,” Sanabalis said, and the blackness rippled at the force of the single word. So, Kaylin swore, did the ground. He was using his dragon voice. The mirror—such as it was—rippled again, and this time light coalesced in streaks of horizontal lines. Sanabalis inhaled. Kaylin lifted her hands to cover her ears. Severn caught them both in his and pulled them down as the dragon spit out a phrase that Kaylin could literally feel pass through her.

“When you finally get called to Court,” Severn told her, when it was silent again, “you won’t be able to do that. Not more than once.”

“They’ll…” She grimaced. “I just assumed they’d be speaking High Barrani.” She swallowed, nodded, and wondered how bad a Court meeting would be if she couldn’t actually hear anything after the first few sentences.

Severn released her hands; they both turned to face the image that Sanabalis had called so uncomfortably into being. It was, to Kaylin’s surprise, a map. “We,” the Dragon Lord said, without looking away from the lines that now stretched, in different shades, and in different widths, across the entire surface area, “are here.” A building seemed to dredge itself out of the network of lines, assuming solid shape and texture; it was, however, small.

“The Halls, as you can see, are here.” A miniature version of the Halls also seemed to grow out of the surface of the map.

“The Keeper’s responsibility is here.” He gestured, and a third building rose out of the map. Kaylin frowned as it did. She walked past Evanton’s shop at least a dozen times a day when she was sent to Elani on patrol. That shop and the one that now emerged at Sanabalis’s unspoken command had nothing in common.

“Private, is there some difficulty?”

She turned to Severn. “Severn, does that look like Evanton’s place to you?”

“No.”

Sanabalis frowned. “It is a representation of—” The frown deepened, cutting off the rest of his words. His eyes narrowed and he leaned toward the emerging building. He needn’t have bothered; the building that had started out in miniature began to expand, uprooting the lines that were meant to represent streets or rivers as if they were dusty webs.

The dragon spoke, loudly, at the image. It froze in place.

“It appears,” he said softly—or at least softly compared to his previous words—“that we have a serious problem.”

CHAPTER 3

When a Dragon of Sanabalis’s power uses the word problem in that tone of voice, you start to look for two things: a good weapon, and a place to hide, because, when it comes right down to it, the weapon’s going to be useless. Kaylin, aware of this, did neither.

“Problem?” she said, staring at the malformed map. Sanabalis didn’t appear to have heard her. Clearing her throat, she said, “What are the distances from the Palace to the Halls, the Halls to Elani and the Palace to Elani?”

“I would prefer, at this point, not to ask,” he replied. “Suffice it to say it is not an insignificant distance. The full length of Elani itself would not have been an insignificant distance, given the perturbations you’ve described. I am now assuming that either Margot or the young Alyssa Larienne drew upon the waiting potential and used it. That they did so entirely without intent…

“Come,” he told them both, and turned away from the mirror.

“Where are we going?”

“You are going to the courtyard. I will meet you there with an Imperial Carriage.”

“Why?”

“I would prefer not to use magic at this point. I would also prefer to have no one else use it. Word of this zone, if we can even deduce its boundaries, will spread. We cannot afford to have it touched or used by the wrong people.”

Kaylin stilled. “People can deliberately use it?”

“Not without effort, and not without unpredictable results. Mages are likely to find their spells much more powerful in that zone, and if they are not prepared for it and they are using the wrong spells, it could prove fatal. It is not, however, for the mages that I am concerned.”

“This has happened before,” she said, voice flat.

“Yes, of course it has. Magic is not easily caged or defined. It has not, however, happened over an area this large in any recent history.”

“How recent is recent?”

“The existence of our current Empire.”

Immortals.

If Kaylin had any curiosity about where Sanabalis had gone in the brief interval before he met them in the courtyard, it was satisfied before they left the Palace: she could hear the thunderous clap of syllables that was the equivalent of dragon shouting. The Imperial guards, to give them their due, didn’t even blink as she and Severn walked past.

But if Dragons were immortal, an emergency was still an emergency; they waited for maybe fifteen minutes in total before Sanabalis, looking composed and grim, met them. “Do not,” he said, although Kaylin hadn’t even opened her mouth, “ask.” He glared at the carriage door, and it opened, although admittedly it opened at the hands of footmen.

The ride was grim, silent, and fast. Imperial Carriages were built for as much comfort as a carriage allowed, and people got out of its way. Sanabalis had the door open when it hit the Halls’ yard; the Halls, unlike the Palace, expected people to more or less do things for themselves. He waited until the precise moment someone else had a hand on the horse’s jesses, and then jumped down. Kaylin and Severn did the same, following him as quickly as they could without breaking into a run.

Sanabalis wasn’t running, of course.

There was what wouldn’t pass for a cursory inspection at the front doors; Sanabalis gave his name, but the formality of crossed polearms failed to happen because Sanabalis also didn’t stop moving. They didn’t have time to send a runner ahead, at least not on foot, but there were Aerians practicing maneuvers in the Aerie that opened up just behind the front doors, and Kaylin noticed the way at least one shadow dropped out of formation.

Lord Grammayre was, uncharacteristically, not in his Tower when they finally crested the last corner and hit the office proper. Nor was Marcus behind his desk. The two of them were standing more or less in the space in front of Caitlin’s desk, which was what passed for a reception area this deep into the Halls itself. They turned to greet Sanabalis as he walked briskly toward them.

“Lord Sanabalis,” the Hawklord said, bowing.

“Lord Grammayre. I have need of your Hawks.”

“Of course.”

“Let us repair to the West Room. We can discuss the nature of their deployment—and their new schedule.”

Marcus didn’t even blink.

“For reasons which will become clear, I would like to shut down the use of Records except in emergencies.” He turned to the small mirror on the wall. “Records,” he said. Which would clearly make this an emergency.

Lord Grammayre lifted his left wing, and then nodded.

“I have spoken with the Imperial Order of mages. The Emperor is currently evaluating the possibility of a quarantine on the Arcanum. Map, Elantra.”

A map that was in no way the equal of the one he’d called on in the Palace shimmered into view. For one, it occupied a much smaller surface. Reaching out, Sanabalis touched three points on the map; they were familiar to Kaylin.

“A quarantine?” the Hawklord asked, watching the map shift colors where the Dragon Lord had touched it.

Sanabalis nodded grimly. “I will,” he added, “speak with the Lord of Swords when I am finished here. If it is possible, it will be his duty to see that it is enforced.”

“That is not likely to make the Emperor more popular with the Arcanists.”

“Nothing short of his disappearance would do that. The Arcanists are a concern, but they are not the cause of the current difficulty. They are merely the most obvious avenue for turning it into a disaster. Here,” he added. “Here, and here. At the moment, they are sites in which what I will call leakage for the purpose of discussion has been known to occur. The leakage in your office—the windows—is not as severe as the incidents that occurred in Elani street.

“It does not, however, matter. People’s expectations during this unfortunate leakage guide some of its effects. Our historical Records are, as might be expected, veiled. The Arkon is looking over them now.”

“Are there historical Records that would be relevant, Lord Sanabalis?”

“There are. They are not exactly fonts of optimism, however. What we need the Hawks to do is, as Private Neya would colloquially put it, ‘hit the streets.’ We need to ascertain what the boundaries of the area are. Look for the unusual. Look for the miraculous. Take note of the usual crimes or deaths, but examine them for any…unexplained…phenomenon. This has to start now,” he added.

“The Emperor himself will speak to the Master Arcanist. He has been summoned to Court as a precaution. At the moment however, the Arcanum sits squarely outside of the area marked by the three geographical incidents. With luck, it will remain that way.

“Sergeant Kassan,” Sanabalis added, “you may assure your Hawks that they will be adequately reimbursed for their extra duties.”

Marcus looked as though he had just swallowed something more unpleasant than a week’s worth of unforwarded reports. “Several of the Hawks are involved in the current investigation into the Exchequer.”

“It pains me to say this, Sergeant Kassan, but both duties—the more subtle and now-endangered investigation, and the much less predictable magical one—must be fully discharged.

“As Private Neya is not currently involved in the former, I suggest you deploy her in the latter. I have taken the liberty of arranging an appointment with the Oracular Halls, as she had some success in not offending the man who runs it on her previous visit. I would recommend that you send both her and her current partner.”

“I have—” Kaylin began.

“Private Neya will, however, be excused her classes.”

Kaylin shut her mouth.

“Or rather,” Sanabalis continued, “her classes under my tutelage. I was unable to shift the class schedule for the etiquette lessons, and it is vital that she not offend that teacher.” He turned to Kaylin. “If anything is untoward or of particular interest in the Oracular Halls, you will return to the Palace to report to me.”

Kaylin glanced at Marcus, who nodded stiffly, and managed not to growl. Given the state of his hair, much of which was standing on end, it was surprising. In a good way.

As if he could read that stray thought, the Sergeant added, “And you’ll report back at the Halls after you’ve been debriefed at the Palace.”

“But—”

“I don’t care how late it is. From the sounds of it, the office will be operating under extended hours.” He grimaced, which in Leontine involved more fur and ears than actual facial expression. “I’ll mirror my wives and let them know.”

She didn’t envy him that call.

The appointment with the Oracular Halls was, ironically enough, one hour in the future. Sanabalis handed Kaylin a very official document with the unmistakable seal of the Eternal Emperor occupying the lower left quarter, where words weren’t.

“Take the Imperial Carriage. Master Sabrai will be expecting you,” he told her. “He did not, of course, have time to respond to or question the request, and he did not look terribly surprised to receive it, which is telling.”

What it told Sanabalis, Kaylin wasn’t sure; Sabrai was an oracle, after all, and they were supposed to be able to thresh glimpses of the future out of the broken dreams and visions of the Halls’ many occupants. “What am I supposed to discuss as the official representative of the Imperial Court?”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something. Given the lack of disaster during your last visit—in spite of your many attempts to contravene the rules for visitors to the Halls—I am willing to trust your discretion in this matter.”

Someone cursed, loudly, in Leontine. Kaylin recognized the voice: it was Teela’s.

“Well,” she told Sanabalis, “Severn and I will head there immediately.” She managed to make it out of the office as other voices, mostly Barrani, joined Teela’s. Marcus had apparently already started the who-hates-the-duty-roster-most game, and while the Barrani in the office were Hawks first, they were still Barrani. Barrani in a foul mood were a very special version of Hell, which, if you were lucky, you survived intact.

Given the way the day had started, she didn’t feel particularly lucky.

“It isn’t cowardice,” Severn said, with a wry grin, because he understood her sudden desire for punctuality. “It’s common sense.”

The Oracular Halls, as befitted any mystical institution that labored in service to the Eternal Emperor, was imposing. Constructed of stone in various layers that suggested a very sharp cliff face, it was surrounded on all sides by a fence that looked as if it would impale any careless bird that landed on it. The posts were grounded by about three feet of stone that was at least as solid as the walls it protected; it wasn’t going to be blown over by a storm, a mage, or an angry Leontine.

A Dragon, on the other hand, wouldn’t have too much trouble.

In the center of the east side of the fence, which fronted the wide streets that led up to and around it, was a guardhouse. It was late in the day, but the hour did not lead to less guards; there seemed to be more than the last time she’d visited at the side of Lord Sanabalis. She counted eight visible men, and those eight wore expensive, very heavy armor. They also carried swords.

Severn glanced at her as the carriage came to a halt, but said nothing.

The guards didn’t meet the carriage itself; they waited until it disgorged its occupants. Said occupants walked—in much less heavy armor—to the wide, very closed, doors that led to the grounds. To Kaylin’s surprise, the guards didn’t demand her name or her business. Then again, the first thing she did was hand them the paper that Sanabalis had handed her.

A lot of clanking later, the doors opened.

“Master Sabrai is waiting,” one of the men told her. “He will meet you when you enter.”

The rules that governed visitors to the Oracular Halls were pretty simple: Don’t speak to anyone. Don’t touch anyone. Don’t react if someone screams and runs away at the sight of you.

The first time Kaylin had come up against these rules they had been confusing right up until the moment she’d entered the building. She understood them better now, and wasn’t surprised when she entered the Halls and saw a young girl teetering precariously on the winding steps that punctuated the foyer, singing to herself in a language that almost sounded like Elantran if you weren’t trying to make any sense of it.

Master Sabrai was, as the guard had suggested, waiting to greet them. Kaylin tendered him a bow; Severn tendered him a perfect bow. He nodded to each in turn, and Kaylin remembered, belatedly, that all visitors to these Halls were called supplicants.

Master Sabrai looked every inch the noble. His hair was iron-gray, and his beard was so perfectly tended it might as well have been chiseled. He wore expensive clothing, and if his hands weren’t entirely bejeweled, the two rings he did wear were very heavy gold with gems that suited that size. He had the bearing and posture of a man who was used to being obeyed.

Once that would have bothered Kaylin. In truth, in another man, it would have set her teeth on edge now.

“Private Neya,” Master Sabrai said. “Your companion?”

“Corporal Handred, also of the Hawks.”

“You have apprised him of the rules for visitors?”

“I have.” She grimaced, and added, “He’s better at following rules than I generally am. He’ll cause no trouble here.”

“Good. I am afraid that your visit here was not unexpected, and it is for that reason that I am here. Sigrenne is at the moment attempting to quiet two of the children, one of whom you met on a previous visit.”

“Everly? But he doesn’t talk—”

“No. He doesn’t. I was speaking of a young girl.”

Kaylin remembered the child, although she couldn’t remember the name. “She’s the one who saw—” She stopped. “She’s upset?”

“She had planted herself firmly in the door and would only be moved by force. She was not notably upset until her removal. I believe she was looking forward to reading you. Those were her exact words. She also,” he added, glancing at the covered mirrors that adorned part of the foyer, “attempted to decorate. She seemed to be afraid of the mirrors, which is not, with that child, at all the usual case. Come, please. Let us go to the Supplicant room.”

Sigrenne, still large and still intimidatingly matronly in exactly the same way as Marrin of the Foundling Hall—but without the attendant fur, fangs, and claws—was waiting for Master Sabrai in the Supplicant room. She was not on guard duty, so she didn’t resemble an armor-plated warrior, unless you actually paid attention to her expression.

That expression softened—slightly—when she caught sight of Kaylin. “You’re the Supplicant?” she asked.

“Well, sort of. One of the Supplicants, at any rate.”

“How is Marrin?”

“Doing really well. I swear, someone rich left all their money to the Foundling Halls. I’ve never heard so few complaints from her.”

“It’s probably the new kit.”

“You heard about him?”

“I saw him.” Sigrenne’s face creased in a smile that made her look, momentarily, friendly. “She brought him here when she came for her usual suspicious flyby.”

Some of the orphans left on the steps of the Foundling Halls ended up with the Oracles. Marrin, as territorial as any Leontine, still considered them her responsibility in some ways, so she made sure they were eating, dressing, and behaving as well as one could expect in the Oracular Halls.

Master Sabrai raised a brow at Sigrenne, and then threw his hands in the air, a gesture entirely at odds with both his dress and his generally reserved manner.

Sigrenne took this as permission to speak about matters that concerned the Oracles more directly. “You’re the only Supplicant we’re entertaining today. And that would mean you’re here by Imperial Dictate.” The last two words were spoken with very chilly and suspicious capitals.

Kaylin stiffened. “The other Supplicants?”

“Meetings have been postponed.”

“For how long?”

“Indefinitely. You can imagine how popular this has made Master Sabrai.”

If the Oracles did, indeed, see into the future—or the past—they often spoke in a way that made no bloody sense to anyone who couldn’t also see what they were seeing. Some of the Oracles didn’t speak at all, although that was rarer. But since the Emperor himself consulted with the Oracular Halls from time to time—and funded them—many powerful men and women thought they could gain some advantage by visits to the Oracles.

Those visits weren’t free, and they weren’t cheap. Kaylin, who sneered at the charlatans in Elani on a weekly basis, found the so-called real thing just as troubling, but for different reasons. She was mostly certain that the Supplicants who came with their questions couldn’t make heads or tails of the answers they actually got, and she couldn’t figure out why they’d spend the money at all.

But people with that much money could be really, really difficult if disappointed. She glanced at Sabrai. “Why have the Halls been closed to visitors?” she asked, in the no-nonsense tone she’d adopted while on formal Hawk business.

“I would imagine,” he replied, “that you have some suspicion, or Lord Sanabalis wouldn’t have sent you.”

“Is it like the last time?”

“No. Or at least, not yet.”

She waited.

So did he. And since he was used to dealing with people who could forget a conversation before they’d even finished a sentence, he won. “What do you mean when you say not yet?”

“There were a number of disturbing incidents today.”

“Were there any visual Oracles offered?”

“There were. They are not…unified, but there is a similarity of theme in some of them. It is not the visual that is of concern, and until we isolate the possible cause, we would prefer not to deal with the more trivial questions that cross this threshold. Why did the Emperor send you?”

“There were marked unusual disturbances in parts of the city today.”

“Unusual?”

“You could call them miraculous, given that we were on Elani.”

“How?”

“Some of the daily garbage that passes for magic on Elani actually seemed to work,” she replied.

He was silent for a few moments, staring just to the left of Kaylin’s shoulder.

“Master Sabrai,” Sigrenne said firmly.

He blinked, and shook his head. “My pardon, Sigrenne. I was…thinking.” His gaze became more focused, and his expression sharper. “And did incidents of this nature occur elsewhere?”

“Yes. I’m wondering, at this point, if they occurred here.”

“No. Or at least not in a fashion that would appear unusual to either myself or the caretakers. What question do you have for us?”

“I’ll get to that in a minute,” she replied, with a confidence she didn’t feel, because she didn’t actually have a question she wanted to hand to the Oracles. “Can you describe the unusual verbal incidents you’ve been experiencing?”

He hesitated for just a moment, and then said, “Let me see the letter you’re carrying.” It wasn’t what she was expecting, but she had no trouble handing it over. He, on the other hand, read it with care before he returned it.

“We have transcripts on hand,” he finally said. “They are less…useful…than normal, but in the past two days, a pattern seems to be emerging. The pattern involves fear—of monsters, of armies, of invasions. And,” he added, with a frown, “of doors.”

She watched the glance that passed between Master Sabrai and Sigrenne.

“There’s more.”

Master Sabrai nodded and massaged the bridge of his nose. “Everly is painting.”

CHAPTER 4

Everly wasn’t painting. He was stretching a canvas. He worked, as he always did, in silence; the only noises he made were the usual grunts physical effort produced. The canvas, however, was taller than he was, and it was almost as wide as it was tall. Kaylin looked at it, and then turned to Master Sabrai.

“When did he start?”

“Approximately two hours ago. We keep wood, nails, and canvas in the corner of his gallery.” The gallery in question was also the room he slept and lived in.

“He hasn’t done any drawings at all?”

“No. Not one. Whatever it is he’s painting, the image is strong enough—and large enough—that he feels compelled to begin immediately.”

From tone alone, Kaylin understood that this was not a good thing in the opinion of Master Sabrai.

“It is seldom that his large canvases are used for trivial affairs, but it does happen. The very large image of Lord Sanabalis might be considered one such event.”

That image, as Master Sabrai called it, occupied the wall directly opposite the door. It was the largest painting in the room, and as Kaylin wasn’t much of an artist, one of the largest she’d seen. The Halls of Law did boast some sculpture and some tapestry, but it was mostly for show, and therefore tucked away where only important visitors could see it.

“He will work until he’s done,” Master Sabrai added. “Inform Lord Sanabalis when you report to him. He has always expressed a clear interest in Everly’s work.” He paused and then added, “If you wish to remain, Private, you may remain to observe.”

She watched Everly for another fifteen minutes, and then said, “We’ll come by tomorrow or the day after.”

It was raining when they left the Oracular Halls. Master Sabrai was kind enough to hand them the transcriptions of the other possible Oracles, and he was foresightful enough to mention that anything discovered while under the auspices of the Imperial Court, however indirectly, could be legally discussed only with members of said Court.

Then again, foresight—for a definition of foresight that included garbled confusion and mute painters—was his specialty, so it didn’t come as much of a surprise. The carriage was still waiting, the horses looked a little more bedraggled, and the streets had half emptied, which at this time of day—closing in on sunset—was about as much as you could hope for this side of the Ablayne.

But as they drove toward the Imperial Palace, the rain changed. Kaylin thought at first it had just gotten heavier, because visibility plummeted sharply as they turned a corner. This pleasant bit of mundane wrongheadedness didn’t last, in part because the street around the carriage suddenly got a whole lot louder. People were shouting, screaming, and running for cover—not all at once, and not necessarily in that order.

She glanced at Severn; Severn had already unlatched the door on his side of the carriage by the time the carriage rolled to a halt. The streets weren’t empty enough to negotiate while people were running all over the place in blind panic.

Kaylin stepped into the rain and immediately understood why people were screaming.

It was raining blood.

Blood this watery and this red was usually warm; the rain was no exception. The clouds that were shedding it looked like normal green-gray storm clouds; there was no lightning and no thunder. Given the nature of what there was, on the other hand, the lack was probably a blessing in disguise.

It was the only one they were likely to get.

Kaylin headed straight for an actual store, tried hard not to drip on the bolts of cloth that seemed to take up most of its available space, and borrowed a mirror. She let Severn talk the establishment’s occupants down from the ceiling, because frankly, he was better at it.

The mirror rippled, losing her reflection—and gaining, sadly, a sticky, wet palm print, which, given the cost of the mirror, was going to cause ructions—and Caitlin’s face swam into view, solidifying after a few seconds. Her usually calm expression stiffened instantly, and her eyes widened.

“No, no—it’s fine, Caitlin. The blood’s not mine.” Realizing that this would not, in fact, calm the office mother down, she added, “We’re having a bit of trouble down on Lattimar road, near Gorran, and we need Swords out here. Now. Can you get Marcus?”

The image froze on silence. When it began to move again, Caitlin said, “You’re not the only place that’s having trouble, dear.” At least she looked less shocked about the blood. Her image froze again. Kaylin waited until it started moving and said, “How large an area is this rain falling in?”

“A large one, dear. Sergeant Kassan is here.”

Ironjaw’s eyes were orange, and he was bristling. He was not, however, angry at Kaylin, and even if he were, she was well out of reach. “You said you were at Lattimar and Gorran?”

She nodded. “It was at Lattimar and Gorran that the rain went…strange, sir.”

“Get your butt back outside and see whether or not there’s a clear line of so-called strange.”

“People are running around screaming in total panic.”

Eyebrows rose; the tufts of Leontine ears were standing on end. “The Swords are already out in the streets, Private. It’s covered. Now get out there and get me some useful information.”

There was a clear line of so-called strange, a point at which blood gave way to water. It wasn’t instant, but the blur between the two could be seen both on the ground and in the air itself. They had followed Lattimar past Gorran, heading toward the wall, and when they found the five yards of blur, Kaylin actually muttered what she hoped sounded like thanks to any possible deity who might be eavesdropping.

It was wet, and the rain was cold; the blood-rain wasn’t, but in this case, Kaylin was willing to settle for cold. While the rain lasted, Kaylin and Severn followed its line, and marked the streets where clear water gave way to red fluid. Neither of them had the means to take more than a very small sample of this altered rain, if you didn’t count what could be wrung out of their clothing.

They didn’t manage to trace the periphery of the area, which seemed to be roughly circular in shape, before the rain petered out. It was perhaps the only time she could think of that she cursed lack of rain—and in two languages, at that. But they’d circled a large enough part of the city, sans carriage, before they made their way back to the Halls.

There were guards at the doors, which wasn’t unusual—even in the midnight hours, these doors were manned. But these guards had clearly not only seen the effects of the rain; they’d also been standing in it. They didn’t even lift a brow at the reddened mess that was Kaylin’s clothing. Nor did they engage in anything like small talk; they were silent in that grim, worried way, and they waved both Hawks through the unlocked doors.

The Aerie was as crowded as it was during training maneuvers, and Kaylin glimpsed familiar wings in the artificial light that radiated down from the heights. Aerian shadows looked a lot like giant fish against the stone floors, and she watched them—briefly—before Severn tapped her shoulder.

“Sorry,” she told him, as she picked up her walking speed.

The office was not, as one would expect at this time of the day, empty. But the foul temper the orders from on high had caused had dissipated the way it always did when there was a distinct and obvious emergency. If people weren’t thrilled to be there—and judging from some expressions, they weren’t—they were awake and focused.

They were all also, almost to a man—and one shockingly matted Leontine—in various shades of red. Patches of dried blood lay across the office floor, making a visible track between desks and mirrors; it looked as if Marcus had gone berserk.

“Private!”

Speaking of berserk… Kaylin headed straight to the Sergeant’s desk, and stood at attention, which was hard because he looked like a drowned cat. But huge. “Reporting in, Sir.”

“Well?”

“We have some street coordinates. We gathered the information we could before the rain stopped.”

He turned and shouted at the mirror closest to his desk, not that it mattered much; all of the office mirrors were alive. The window, sadly, was also alive, and it reminded people that it was time to leave, that they had to clock out, that they had to check the duty roster before they left, and that they should be careful in case of rain. Kaylin stared at it.

“Every ten minutes,” Marcus growled. “And it has special commentary on the hour.” He added, “Map, center city, low detail.” The mirror rippled, as it often did, and the image that had occupied it before his curt command receded until it was part of a larger network of lines.

“Special commentary?” She walked over to the mirror, looked at her hands, and let them drop to the side.

“It has,” he continued, ignoring the interruption, “stopped attempting to correct ‘obscene’ language.” He gestured to the mirror, stepping out from behind his desk to do so.

Since even Mallory had never attempted to rein in what was politely referred to as local color, Kaylin grimaced. She hated to think that something could be more uptight than Mallory. “I’ll wash up,” she told him.

“Don’t bother. No one else has.” To drive this point home, he ran a claw lightly over the mirror’s surface. It stopped at the intersection of Lattimar and Gorran. “You mirrored from here.”

“A bit down the road, but yes, that was the general area.”

Severn stepped up to the mirror, to the left of their Sergeant. “Magnify. Center Lattimar and Gorran.” The mirror obeyed, and Kaylin found herself holding her breath as the buildings came into view. But they didn’t leap out of the mirror’s surface, and they didn’t turn into something monstrous or strange, which was good because she needed to exhale.

Severn pinpointed the boundary—and the boundary’s width. The point just beneath his finger began to glow; gold for the outer bounds, bright pink for the inner. When she snorted, he said, “I don’t choose the colors.”

Marcus growled, which was tired Leontine for Shut the Hell Up. Since it was aimed at Kaylin, Severn continued to call cross streets. The map would blur and shift, he’d add two points, and then repeat the process. When he was done, he called “Map” again, and this time the line of dots—in gold and pink—formed a pattern. To emphasize this, a line, in each color, ran between the points, terminating at the start and the finish of their trek.

It was a third of a circle, give or take some math.

Marcus actually purred. If you had very little experience with Leontines, it sounded a lot like growling. “Good work,” he said. He barked an order, and the map began to extrapolate, from their coordinates, the perimeter of these two circles; the theoretical portions were in slightly dimmed colors, which in the case of the pink, was a distinct improvement.

“Good work, Private Neya, Corporal Handred.” He turned and then bellowed at the rest of the office. “No, don’t crowd around this mirror. Use the ones closest. Teela, Tain—you were out on the eastern edge. If what we’ve got is inaccurate, mark it. The same goes for the rest of you.” He turned to her and added, “What did Lord Sanabalis say about your report?”

Kaylin froze. “We were on our way to the Palace when it started to rain blood, Sir.”

“And you didn’t head there before you reported in.”

“No, sir. You said—”

“I know what I said, Private.” He growled. Because Kaylin did have experience with Leontines she couldn’t tell herself it was a purr. But he didn’t bite her head off, and he didn’t demand that she expose her throat, although she’d already started to lift her chin. “Did you get anything from the Halls?”

“Gibberish, mostly.”

“Useful gibberish?”

“I’ll tell you in a month or two.”

He did chuckle at that. “I’ll mirror Lord Sanabalis. You two, hop in a carriage.”

“The yard’s closed.”

“I didn’t tell you to use one of ours.”

“Sir.”

“The department,” he added, “will reimburse you.” Which meant he really was pleased.

Severn had enough money to pay the driver; Kaylin didn’t.

Severn shook his head as they parked themselves on opposite benches. “You can’t be paid so little that you’re scrounging for meals for the last week or two of every month.”

“Clearly, I can.”

“I live in a larger apartment than you do, and I can afford to eat.”

“My point. You’re a Corporal. You get paid more.”

“Some, yes, but I have the larger expense. I realize now is not the time for this discussion, but if you sat down and ran some numbers, you could plan out a month in advance.”

“What do you mean?”

“Budget.”

She snorted. “You need money to budget.”

“You have money. At the start of the month.”

“You’ve been to my place—it’s not like I’m spending it on anything. It just doesn’t last.”

It wasn’t exactly an old argument, but the few times they’d had it, it sounded the same, although admittedly sometimes there were more actual Leontine words thrown in.

He raised a brow, and then said, “Maybe you should cut back on the betting, given how often you lose.”

This, on the other hand, was new. He might as well have told her to stop speaking. She opened her mouth and no words came out. That lasted for about a minute, and she gave up on the effort and turned to look out the window instead. It was dark now.

There were puddles in small dips in the road, but their color wasn’t immediately obvious.

Given a combination of Records, the rest of the Hawks, and their own trek into and out of warm, red rain, they now had a roughly circular area. Elani fit easily within its parameters; the Halls of Law and the Imperial Palace were close to the edges, albeit on opposite sides. The circle didn’t encompass the Arcanum, for which they could all be momentarily thankful.

The carriage pulled up the road that led to the Palace; it was met before the courtyard. Kaylin jumped out; Severn followed. It was not, inasmuch as they existed, visiting hours for the Emperor or the Imperial Staff. On the other hand, like the Hawks, the Palace Guards had seen their share of blood-rain, and they didn’t blink at the sight of either Kaylin or Severn.

Kaylin wished she’d had time to clean up, anyway.

“We’re here to see Lord Sanabalis,” she began.

“We know,” was the curt reply. “He’s been expecting you.”

She wilted.

“For the past two hours.”

Sanabalis was not, however, waiting at the front doors. A pinched-face, somewhat harried man was. He was obviously aware that there’d been some difficulty outdoors, because he didn’t even blink at the state of their tabards. Or hair. Or, Kaylin thought, clasping her hands behind her back, their fingernails.

“You are Private Neya?”

She nodded.

“Corporal Handred?”

“I am.”

“Good. Lord Sanabalis is waiting for both of you. Please follow me.”

“We know the way—”

“He is not waiting for you in his usual chambers,” was the clipped reply. “He is waiting for you in the Library.”

It seemed a bit unfair that she could piss off both Sanabalis and the Arkon at the same damn time when she was only doing her job; she had no doubt whatsoever that the Arkon had also been waiting. For two hours. She glanced at Severn, whose expression had fallen into a state of grim which offered no comfort.

The man led them through the halls at a speed that was almost a run. Since the Library was not close to the entrance halls or any of the rooms that appeared to be used as semipublic meeting space, it took a while. But at this speed, Kaylin didn’t have time to let the usual height of ceilings and random finery intimidate her. Nor did she have time to try to recognize the almost-familiar halls.

She did not, however, have any problems recognizing the Library doors. They were huge, and they were warded. They were also closed.

Any hope that their escort would open the door himself, sparing her the momentary pain of placing her own palm against the ward, was instantly dashed as he performed a curt, but mostly respectful, bow. “I will leave you both and return to my post.”

“It’s your turn,” Kaylin told Severn when she was certain the man was far enough away he couldn’t hear them.

He chuckled. Easy for him to do; the first time she’d touched the door, alarms had sounded—and she’d been expected. But he lifted his hand and placed it firmly across the ward. Blue light spread in an instant uniform layer across the face of both doors, twitching slightly.

“This is…different,” he said.

They waited until the light faded, but the doors remained closed. Kaylin cursed under her breath, which meant she had to settle for the slightly inferior Elantran words she knew. She lifted a hand and pressed it firmly against the ward. This time, there was no loud noise, and she didn’t feel as though she’d been struck by lightning. The same blue light covered the doors like a translucent, fitted sheet, fading slowly.

The doors, however, didn’t open.

“I don’t suppose we could tell them we’ve been trying to get in for two hours?”

“No. Here, help me push them open.”

She put her shoulder into the motion; the doors were large and, more important, they were heavy.

The Arkon was standing about ten yards from the door, looking as if he’d swallowed whatever was left of the storm clouds that had caused so much panic. Beside him, less obviously annoyed—or at least less surprised—was Sanabalis.

“Sorry,” Kaylin began.

“While I’m sure it would be amusing to hear your excuse this time,” Sanabalis broke in, “it would probably take at least another half an hour.”

She shut up.

“We’ve set up a mirror in the Library,” he added, as the Arkon’s eyes narrowed. “There are containment fields in the Library which are stronger than any other such enchantments to which we have immediate access. Sergeant Kassan has kindly sent some preliminary reports of your evening’s work.” He turned and began to walk away, by which Kaylin understood he meant them to follow.

The Arkon, however, said, “I have volunteered to cede some space in my collection for use by the Dragon Court, so that we might deal with the difficulties that this current crisis has caused. I will not regain that space until the crisis is deemed to be concluded.”

Which would, Kaylin thought, explain some of his mood.

They passed through the largest of the Library rooms—in which the books were placed on shelves so high there were rolling ladders to accommodate people who were still about half a foot taller than Kaylin—and into another hall. This in turn led to a room with multiple doors nesting against one wall that seemed to be curved stone.

She had seen a similar room before, and wondered, briefly, if it was the same one; she didn’t visit the Library unless she was pretty much ordered to do so. It was, for one, huge; it contained many sculptures and odds and ends—scrolls, armor bits, what was left of armor bits, odd weapons, carpets, clothing—much of which was delicate, and all of which the Arkon guarded zealously. For two, it was the Arkon’s hoard, and while Kaylin didn’t understand the subtleties of hoard law at all, there wasn’t much that was subtle about the parts she did understand: touch my stuff and die was pretty straightforward.

There was, however, no stuff here, where here was a room that looked very familiar: rounded walls, a long, flat—and uncluttered—table in the room’s center, around which were placed six chairs. None of those chairs were occupied.

But first appearances were deceiving. The Arkon was last into the room, and when he closed the door at their backs, it vanished into the wall. It left no seams and no trace of its previous existence at all. Kaylin looked at the curved gray of walls; there were wall sconces set at regular intervals—six—about six feet off the ground, but instead of torches, they contained stones. There did not appear to be much else in the room.

She glanced at Sanabalis.

Sanabalis walked over to the top of the unadorned table, placed his palm across its surface, and spoke a few words. They were High Barrani, and they were softly spoken.

The surface of the table rippled beneath his steady palm, as if the wood grain had turned, in that instant, to water. The table, Kaylin realized, was a mirror.

CHAPTER 5

It was more than a little disconcerting to watch the surface of the table re-form. Why it was worse than watching an actual mirror do it, Kaylin wasn’t certain. “Why is the table a mirror?”

Sanabalis lifted his hand. “Almost any surface can be used, in theory. In practice, some surfaces dampen magic. They don’t conduct it well. The table, or more particularly, the wood out of which it is constructed, would be considered one such surface.

“It therefore requires a great deal more power to initialize the contact between the table’s surface and the whole of Imperial Records. It takes more power, in theory, to maintain that connection. It does not, however,” he added, casting a glance toward the Arkon as if it were a protective charm, “destroy the table.”

“The table is the Arkon’s?”

“It is a very old table. If you look at the legs, you will find—”

“I would prefer,” the Arkon broke in, in a chilly voice, “that she not make the attempt. I would, in fact, insist that she not touch the mirror at all.”

Kaylin lifted her hands. “Not touching,” she told the Arkon.

This didn’t improve his mood much.

“The table is taken from the wood of the West March,” Sanabalis told her. “Some of the trees there are highly prized for their magical properties. They are also zealously guarded.”

“Which is why you weren’t speaking Dragon.”

“Indeed. There are some things that we can do, and some things we can’t. The wood itself resists much.” He passed a palm over the table, and then said, again in High Barrani, “Map.”

The image shifted into a very familiar-looking map; she’d last seen it in the office. The more elegant lines of the much larger city that Sanabalis had roared into being across a bank of windows were gone. The central image now displayed showed the two concentric circles that neatly enclosed one section of the city; all of the streets external to the outer circle were in pale gray lines.

“Sergeant Kassan said that the preliminary boundaries—and the conjectured extrapolation—were due to your efforts.” He glanced up at her. “For this reason, we will overlook the hour of your arrival. I did, however, speak with Master Sabrai, and he was under the impression that you had information to report.”

She nodded, frowning. “You spoke about a magical-potential leak,” she said, looking at the streets contained by the inner circle.

“I did.”

“Is it significant that it fades out in this pattern? The Palace, here—” she let her finger hover over the streets that surrounded the Palace without actually touching them “—and the Halls, here, are almost at the edge of the circle. But Elani—where we first noticed the incidents—is almost directly at its center.

“Is that position significant? Does your leak, or any leak of this nature, grow weaker as you move away from its core?” Her frown deepened. “And is it just me, or does it look awfully close to Evanton’s shop?”

Sanabalis nodded, as if this were a classroom and she had just done well on the first of a series of grueling questions. “Our direct experience—”

“Your direct experience,” the Arkon interjected.

“—is very limited. The difficulties in the Palace to date have been confined to irregularities in Records. And one difficulty elsewhere, which was not disastrous and cannot be spoken about. The only known difficulty the Halls of Law have experienced appears to involve a window.”

“A talking bloody window that gets offended by ‘curse’ words.”

“That was not how it was described. I believe your explanation is more concise.”

“The rain hit everyone.”

“It did. I have taken the liberty of sending out a small team of Imperial mages. They are in Elani now.”

“What are they looking for?”

“The source of the leak,” he replied.

“Why mages? If magic is amplified in a bad way—”

“Mages have a much more rigid intellectual structure for thinking about the use of magic. Without solid control and concentration, they cannot use it. With solid control and concentration, and with an awareness of the potential growth, they can confine what they do use to the correct parameters. I believe that mages—not Arcanists—will have more luck at avoiding careless invocation or unusual wish fulfillment than the under-educated.”

“Meaning people like me.”

He didn’t bother to answer. “What occurred at the Oracular Halls?”

“I was taken to see Everly,” she replied. “He was stretching canvas. It was not a small one.”

“I…see.”

“I’ll check in again tomorrow or the day after, depending on what Marcus has me doing.”

“Private Neya,” the Arkon said quietly. Very quietly. But he was the Arkon; it carried anyway.

She gave him her immediate—and respectful—attention. “Arkon.”

“When you visit Everly, take Lord Sanabalis with you.”

Sanabalis bowed, and held that bow while the Arkon swept out of the room. He then rose. “At times like this,” he told Kaylin, with a grimace, “I miss the presence of Lord Tiamaris. The Arkon, like many of the eldest and wisest of any race, has a store of impatience he reserves for the young, and if it is spent on the young, it is exhausted.”

“And you’re now young?”

“Compared to the rest of the Dragon Court, no. Compared to the Arkon, yes. I will meet you in the morning—first thing in the morning—at the Halls of Law.”

“When do you think the mages of the Imperium will make their report?”

“As soon as they either have definitive information, or one of them manages to commit suicide in a remarkable and unusual fashion.”

It was late enough that Kaylin decided to go straight home, because first thing in the morning by Dragon definition skirted the edge of dawn. Probably from the wrong side. The streets between the Palace and her apartment were decidedly empty for this time of night; it reminded her of living in the fiefs, although there were no Ferals. The rain had gone on for long enough, and had caused—she assumed—enough panic that no one wanted to be exposed to sky.

Fair enough. She didn’t particularly care for a repeat, either.

But when she made her way up the stairs and through her door, she saw her mirror flashing. She had bread and cheese and meat in the basket that Severn had given her, and if she disliked magic—and she did—it was still damn useful. The bread wasn’t stale enough to cut herself on, and the cheese hadn’t dried out. Nor was the meat likely to be sour enough to poison her. She grabbed all of those, and headed to the mirror; it was her personal mirror, after all, and no one could dress her down for leaving fingerprints on it.

She lost most of her appetite when the screen’s image solidified and the familiar face of Marya took up most of the frame. Marya was as close to head of the midwives’ guild as made no difference, and she looked haggard. The circles under her eyes—which were often there because her sleep hours were worse than Kaylin’s—had almost overtaken her cheekbones.

She wasn’t speaking; the mirror wasn’t active; this was just a placeholder to indicate she’d tried to reach Kaylin earlier. Kaylin, around a mouthful of meat, muttered Marya’s name. The mirror twitched twice, and took its sweet time connecting, but it finally did.

Marya’s face swam into view.

“Kaylin!” Marya, who was probably in her sixties although it wasn’t safe to ask her actual age, looked horrified.

The midwives’ guild was not, Kaylin suddenly remembered, within the circle in which rain had turned to blood. She cursed, briefly and quietly, just before she swallowed the overly ambitious mouthful she’d just bitten off. “I’m sorry, Marya,” she said quickly. “It’s not what it looks like. I’m not bleeding, I wasn’t in a fight for my life, and I didn’t kill anyone else.”

Marya’s expression shifted from pale horror to something almost as bad.

“You need me to go somewhere.” It wasn’t a question.

“I need—I’m not sure what we need. But, Kaylin—” she shuddered “—things are—things are going wrong with some of the births in a way we’ve never seen. And one or two pregnancies. I—”

“You want me there? Or do you want to give me an address?”

Marya bit her lip. Marya never did something as impractical and quavering as biting her lip. Kaylin lost her appetite.

“Come here,” the midwife finally said. “I’ve got the other addresses, and…and I don’t want to send you out there for nothing, but I don’t— Just, come here.”

It didn’t rain. The sky was the kind of clear that threatens rain, but doesn’t quite deliver. That was about as much as Kaylin noted on her run to the midwives’ guild. She was aware that it might be a long damn night, and she had forced herself to eat, which was never much fun when anxiety made one’s stomach actively revolt. She also changed her clothing, peeling herself out of things that were way more sticky than they should have been. She wouldn’t have bothered, given Marya’s tone and expression—but if she was sent out to help anyone, showing up covered in dried blood wasn’t likely to make her job any easier.

She made it to the guild on foot, glancing briefly at the visible moon and wondering how much it had shifted its position. The guild’s doors were open. Lights were on, and could be seen through the slightly opaque windows.

As a building, the guildhall was not terribly impressive; it didn’t boast the size—or the expensive stairs, doors, and decorative bits that stuck out at all levels—of something like the merchants’ guild. It also didn’t boast the same prime real estate, but at the moment it was situated outside of the Circle From Hell, closer to the Ablayne, on Kirri street. The street was one of the oldest of the Imperial streets, and the name on the very few signs that marked it was actually about ten paragraphs longer than Kirri, which is why it deserved a diminutive.

Kaylin hurried in.

Marya was in the office, such as it was. She had a large desk—it was half again as large as Marcus’s—but there were no other desks in the room. There were cupboards, and a long counter that ran the length of the wall opposite the window, breaking only for the door. There were two standing shelves as well, and these were the repository of a number of books, but they also held bottles, jars, and assorted dried herbs. At least that’s what Kaylin assumed they were. She recognized some of them; bitterroot for fever, worry-not to prevent pregnancy; most of them she didn’t know.

There were three mirrors in the room, none of them full-length; one sat on the right-hand side of Marya’s desk, its lion claw iron legs ensuring that nothing short of serious effort would knock it over. Marya appeared to be seriously considering it. She looked up as Kaylin entered.

Her first words reassured Kaylin.

“There’ve been no deaths. If it had been—if we’d really needed you, we’d’ve been able to find you. Your Sergeant’s been good about that, I admit it. I didn’t expect it, but—he’s been good.”

Kaylin exhaled, because she’d been holding her breath and it was well past stale. “Okay,” she said. “No emergencies.”

“There were two births. One was a first child, but in either case the delivery was not considered a terrible risk. I had Mellan attend the first birth.”

Kaylin nodded. It made sense; Mellan was one of the younger midwives, but she’d been the midwife in charge at a number of births for the past three months.

“The baby was born. A boy. He was healthy.” She hesitated, and then said, “He had three eyes.”

“Pardon?”

“Three eyes. They were infant eyes in every other respect, but he has an eye in the center of his forehead just above the bridge of his nose.”

“Where was the birth?” Kaylin asked quietly. “What was the address?”

“Sauvern, near Bitton.”

The child had been born within the confines of the circle.

The rain of blood had been bad; the Swords were probably still out in the streets enforcing a certain rationality upon people who’d been caught in the torrent. A demonstrably secret, on going investigation into one of the most powerful humans in the city had been totally compromised by a cheap, charlatan fortune-teller.

But with this new bit of information, it was suddenly, completely damn serious. “How were the parents?”

“The parents, thank the gods, are followers of Iravatari.”

When Kaylin failed to nod as if the sentence seemed relevant, Marya rolled her eyes. “The goddess of wisdom and enlightenment? Tall, robed lady?”

“Sorry.”

“Never mind. Iravatari has three eyes. It was a shock to the parents, yes—and I think a shock to young Mellan—but when they recovered, they were not unhappy.”

Kaylin nodded.

“The second birth was more problematic.”

And tensed. “How?”

“The second birth was attended by Helen. You know Helen?”

Kaylin frowned for just a minute, and then nodded. “Older woman, this tall, brown eyes, hair down to her knees?”

“She doesn’t wear her hair down when she’s working,” was the severe reply. “But yes, that would be Helen. She attended the second birth. The second birth was a first child, a girl.”

“The child was also…different?”

“The child, at two minutes out of her mother’s womb, could speak.”

“Speak?”

“Yes. In complete sentences. There may well be a god of speech, but in this particular case, the parents were not thrilled. I believe they were confused, but the child’s grandmother insisted that the baby had been possessed by evil spirits. She did not attempt to harm the infant—”

“Not if Helen was there, she didn’t.”

“—but she insisted that the child be exorcised. Formally. The child had other ideas, and some argument ensued.”

“Where is the child now?”

“Helen is still there. The grandmother, however, is not. The mother is…not happy. The father is confused.”

“Tell me where this child was born,” Kaylin said, in a tone of voice that indicated she had a good idea. Marya’s answer confirmed her suspicions. “Can I use your mirror?” she asked, although she’d already walked behind the desk and tapped it with her palm.

“Yes, but use it quickly. Given the incidents tonight, I want an entirely open channel.”

Kaylin nodded. She waited for the mirror to blur, and when the image shifted from reflection to communication, she saw that Marcus was, as she suspected he would be, still in the office. So was Caitlin. So, she thought, were a number of Hawks, although it looked like they were mostly Barrani. The Barrani didn’t exactly need sleep.

“Marcus—”

“Where the hell are you?”

“Midwives’ guild.”

“You went to the Palace?”

“Yes. And I’m due in at the office first thing to head back to the Oracles’ Hall. With Sanabalis.”

“First thing?”

“Yes. I’m considering skipping sleep entirely.” She caught Caitlin’s expression, and added, “Just joking. But I need you to send something across to this mirror, now.”

Marcus looked as tired and frazzled as Kaylin felt, and he bared his fangs at the tone of her voice. But that was all he did; he didn’t even give her a knee-jerk refusal. Instead, he said, “Please don’t tell me that this is affecting births.”

“If you don’t want to hear it, I’ll write it up when I make my report.”

“I’ll have to read that.”

“Eventually.” She glanced pointedly at the piles that could be seen teetering on his desk in the distance. “I need Marya to have a map, so she’ll have a good idea of where things are likely to—to go bad.”

“Done. It is not to be transmitted beyond the guild’s mirror.”

Marya, who had wedged herself into the frame’s view beside Kaylin, nodded, and the mirror instantly blanked in that way that implied something more pleasant than angry Leontine face was about to appear. What did appear was the city map, complete with two circles. “Make the inner circle brighter,” Kaylin told the mirror.

The mirror complied.

Reaching out, she hit the two places on the map where the unusual births had occurred. “Mark and record.”

“What is the circle?” Marya asked softly.

“No one’s certain. You were probably busy enough to miss the whole rain of blood thing. I wasn’t,” she added.

“That’s why you looked as if—”

“I’d fallen into an abattoir? Yeah. It caused a lot of panic, no surprise. The Swords are still patrolling the streets within this boundary. Things have happened within the boundary that imply that there’s some kind of—of—wild magic.” Kaylin, who didn’t entirely understand the concept of a “potential leak” was not up to explaining it to anyone else.

“Is it going to grow?”

The thought had occurred to Kaylin. “I don’t know. We know it’s been in place for at least a day. We have no idea how large the area was when the…unusual disturbances started. We wouldn’t actually know for certain how large the circle was if it weren’t for the rain, so we’re grateful for it. The Swords, on the other hand, have no reason for gratitude, and I imagine they aren’t.”

She moved away from the mirror to give Marya some space to actually sit down; Marya did, pulling a ledger from a desk drawer and flipping it open. “How many women are going to give birth in that circle within the next, say, two weeks?”

“I’m looking at the next four weeks at the moment,” Marya replied, without looking up. She flipped back and forth between pages, made notes, and added her own square fingerprints to the map’s image, pausing to magnify streets where it became necessary. “Within four weeks,” she finally said, “this is what we’ve got.”

Not every pregnant woman came to the guildhall, but most did; the guildhall received its share of donations, and it could afford to do work for next-to-nothing. “Twelve?”

“Ten. You’re counting the two you marked.”

“Good. Can you get them out of there?”

Marya lifted the ledger. “Ahead of you there. Do you think this magic has affected the actual pregnancy, or does it just manifest itself at birth?”

“I honestly don’t know, but we’ve got nothing to lose by relocating them. If it’s the pregnancy, they’re still in the same predicament. If it’s the birth, they’re safe.”

“My thinking, as well.” She looked tired. “Will you be home if something goes wrong?”

“Yes. But the first thing I do in the morning is meet with a Dragon Lord.”

“Your morning?”

“No, sadly. The real morning. We’ll be leaving the Halls of Law immediately, and heading out to the Oracles. If anything comes up—anything at all—mirror there.”

To say that she was tired when the Halls of Law appeared around the corner would have been so inaccurate she didn’t bother. She made one stop on her jog to the Halls, and came away with three stuffed buns from a baker’s stall. That, and enough change to throw into a wishing well without worrying about lost money.

She’d had the usual restless sleep that occurs between the hours of way-too-damn-late and dawn. Because she knew that Sanabalis would be seriously pissed off if she was late, the mirror’s chime actually woke her.

Sanabalis was waiting in the office. She was bleary-eyed enough that she didn’t actually note who was on door duty.

“Kaylin?” Caitlin said from her desk nearest the office doors. “Were you at the guild last night?”

Kaylin nodded.

Clearly, it was the wrong kind of nod. “There were problems?”

“Yes.” She headed straight for Marcus’s desk, and only in part because Sanabalis was seated, more or less quietly, in front of it. The Dragon Lord looked up as she came to stand just in front of him.

“Sergeant.”

Marcus had seen her enter the office. “What happened last night?”

“We had two births. One baby born with three eyes. One born speaking. In full sentences.”

“None born with two heads?” Sanabalis asked. She didn’t appreciate his sense of humor and turned to tell him as much, but when she caught sight of his expression, she bit back the unfortunate words just before they could leave her mouth.

“Why are you asking? What have you found?”

“I found nothing that might point in that direction,” he replied. “The Arkon, however, has spent the entirety of the evening poring over some of his private collection, and he extracted some information that might be of use to us.”

“Two-headed babies?”

“Yes. They were not, however, human, if that’s any comfort.”

“Not really.” She paused. “What were they?”

“Barrani.”

“What happened to them? No, never mind. I really don’t want to know.” She turned back to her Sergeant. “Marya’s moving any of the women who are pregnant and might go into labor. She can only move the ones she knows about.”

He nodded. “You have an appointment with the Oracles.”

“Could you—”

“I’ll mirror Marrin and let her know about the possibility of abandoned newborns.”

She exhaled. “Thanks. I’d mirror her myself but—”

“Go.”

When the carriage—which, as promised, was the usual heavy, Imperial model—was in motion, Kaylin leaned back and closed her eyes. “When were the two-headed babies born?”

“The exact date is not known.”

“Meaning the Arkon doesn’t know it, or it’s not known by the Barrani, either?”

Sanabalis raised a brow.

“Forget I asked. Why did he think it was relevant? He doesn’t even know about the midwives’ guild report yet.”

“No. He was looking for reports of anomalous and unusual manifestations of magic in concentrated geographical areas. Leaving out the usual anomalies that might occur in or around what is now the heart of the fiefs, and discounting transformations that could be directly traced to shadow storms, he found two possible events.”

She didn’t like the way he said the last word. “Events?”

“The perturbations continued for a small period of time—the exact period is uncertain, but it is not more than a month, and not less than three days.”

“What happened to end them?”

“Whatever buildup of magical potential had occurred was discharged.”

“Sanabalis, what happened?”

“The conjecture at the moment, and it is simple conjecture—we do not have enough physical evidence to make a definitive statement—indicates one of two possibilities.”

If he had been human, he would have been dragging his answer out on purpose, to be irritating. He was a Dragon. Like the Barrani, they had forever, and could usually be counted on to make someone who didn’t, really feel it. She watched the streets crawl by, glancing up at the sky to see if it looked as if there might be something as ominous as rain in the near future. The sky, however, was clear. And pink.

“The two possibilities? Before we reach the Oracular Halls?”

“Very well. The reason we have so little information about a possible event of this nature is because anything within a ten-mile radius—or possibly larger—was destroyed. It could not have been instantly destroyed, or there would be no information at all.”

She stared at him. “You think the magical buildup destroyed an area that size almost instantly?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you would like an immediate answer—not precisely. If you would, however, like the longer and more thoughtful answer I was attempting to give, you will cease your interruptions.”

She tried. It lasted about ten buildings. “Not precisely?”

“The intensity of the effect seems to be confined. We are attempting to monitor its spread—and I will say that the rain itself was a blessing, however it started, in that regard—and we have begun to draw up plans to evacuate much of the central area. For obvious reasons, neither the Palace nor the Halls will be evacuated. There are also other buildings that we cannot afford to empty.”

“What was the second possibility?”

“The second possibility does not—exactly—negate the first. But… In the wake of one of these geographically confined events, the first evidence of your ancestors was found.”

CHAPTER 6

“P-pardon?”

“Humans are not native to this world, as I believe we’ve mentioned before.”

“But—” She stopped talking for a few minutes. It wasn’t hard; there were too many words trying to get out the door at the same time, and the collision made her seem speechless. She dealt with the mess as quickly as possible.

He raised a brow. “If you have some disagreement to offer, attempt to apply both rationality and historicity.” His lips curved in a grin, and he added, “I will live forever. If you require some tutoring and study in either of these, I can be persuaded to wait.”

“Can I just mention that the history of humans offered in class—such as it was—involved the Caste Courts, their separate laws, and their role in the politics of the Empire? Nowhere, in any lesson, was Origin of Species covered. I would have been interested in that.”

“And not in the rest?”

“The rest was relevant. If you go back and look at my transcripts, I passed that part.”

“Indeed,” he replied, with a nod to Dragon memory. “However, you passed in a fashion that was less than laudable.” He lifted a hand before she could speak again. “Humans are not native to our world. If you need proof of that, you have only to examine what you know of species that were created in, and of, the world itself.

“It is why the Arkon strongly believes in the overlapping world theory. The spontaneous creation of an entire species—or three—is otherwise lacking in credibility. Not when they are, to all intents and purposes, sentient.”

Since this was about as complimentary as the Immortals generally condescended to be when discussing the merely mortal, Kaylin managed to stay silent.

“There are one or two scholars who disagree with this commonly held view,” he added. “And if you wish to peruse their papers, the Arkon can point them out to you. They are in the normal section of the Library, in which it is much, much more difficult to earn his ire.”

His abuse of the word commonly was about as bad as Kaylin’s abuse of the word punctual.

“So…humans arrived here, heralded by freak storms and two-headed Barrani babies.”

“That is not exactly what I said, but it will do.”

“How did they arrive?”

“That,” he replied, “is the question. We have no solid information from that period. It was not recent, and much of the information we had was lost.”

“Lost?”

“Lost,” he replied, in a tone of voice that approximated the sound of a very heavy door slamming. “If the Arkon’s conjecture—and it is a tentative conjecture—proves true, we will have an answer.”

“And you expect we’ll also have a large crater in the middle of the city.”

“That is, unfortunately, one of our fears, yes. The Emperor has already called an emergency meeting with the Lord of Swords and the Lord of Hawks. I believe the Lord of Wolves is also involved, but in an advisory capacity.”

It made sense; evacuating even a small building in times of emergency generally required the Swords. Evacuating blocks and blocks of small buildings—many of them somewhat upscale—would probably require an army. “You can’t move Evanton,” she said.

“No. The Keeper, however, is likely to survive whatever occurs. He is not our concern.”

She nodded. “If it’s close to where he is, though, could he do something to stop it?”

“If it is necessary, perhaps.”

“You don’t think so.”

“No. And it is my belief that it would pose a risk to the Garden should he try.”

“Making the cure more deadly than the disease.” She glanced out of the window as the carriage turned up the drive to the Halls. The guards that stopped the carriage stopped it for a matter of seconds; Sanabalis was a recognized visitor, and even had he not been, the carriage was marked all over with signs of Imperial ownership. “I don’t suppose the human Caste Hall has any useful libraries?”

“Compared to the Imperial ones? No. And I would thank you not to repeat that question in the Arkon’s hearing.” The carriage pulled to a stop very close to the guarded doors. “Come. Master Sabrai is expecting us.”

Master Sabrai was, in fact, waiting at the doors. He looked, at first glance, as if he’d gotten about as much sleep as Kaylin; she wondered what was keeping his eyes open. Hers were now running on the certainty of impending doom. He executed an enviable, perfect bow as Sanabalis crossed the threshold. “Lord Sanabalis.”

“Master Sabrai,” the Dragon replied, returning the bow with a nod. He waited until Master Sabrai had straightened out to as much of his full height as a bleary-eyed, clearly exhausted man could attain before he added, “The evening was eventful?”

“Let us just say,” Master Sabrai replied, with a wince, “that your inquiries were not untimely.”

“How bad was it?”

“It has not—yet—reached the proportions of the previous incident. Not all of our Oracles are almost sharing the same dreams or visions, and we have not—yet—reached the point where those who can live off grounds are also simultaneously entering a vision state.”

“You expect it.” Flat words, no question in them.

“If last night was any indication, Lord Sanabalis, yes. I do. Some preparations are being made. They are being handled by Sigrenne and her assistant. I have some written reports, mostly taken by Sigrenne and two of the other attendants. I was…otherwise occupied or I would have seen to it myself.”

Sanabalis grimaced, a clear indication that he did not consider Sigrenne’s transcription to be of the highest quality. “Have you examined them?”

“I have not had the chance to examine all of them, no. If you are looking for an estimate of convergence, I cannot give you one that would meet the standards of the Oracular Halls.”

“What estimate would you hazard, if you were not held to those standards?”

It was clearly the question that Sabrai had been both expecting and dreading. “Everly did not sleep at all last night. He has been painting like a possessed man.”

“How serious an attempt did you make to stop him?”

“It’s only the first day,” was the evasive reply. “It is not, yet, a matter of safety. He will eat, if food is provided, and he drinks when water is provided. But he does not otherwise interact with anything but the painting.”

“Not a good sign,” the Dragon Lord said softly. He glanced at Kaylin.

“No.”

“What is his subject?”

“That, I believe, you will have to see for yourself,” was the quiet reply. “I cannot describe it.”

“It’s not, in your opinion, trivial?” Kaylin asked, speaking for the first time.

“No, sadly, it is not.”

Everly’s room smelled of paint; it was the first thing Kaylin noticed when the door was open, in large part because she wasn’t as tall as either Sabrai or Sanabalis and she couldn’t actually see past their bulk into the gallery that served as the boy’s room. They stood in the door for that little bit too long before finally moving through it and out of her way.

The canvas that Everly had been stretching with such focus now sat on a large set of wooden legs. The back of the painting, as usual, faced the door, obscuring the artist himself; the windows at Everly’s back provided the light by which he was, in theory, working. Kaylin wished, for a moment, that the office could be more like this; usually work was punctuated with little things like obscenities, gossip, and the damned window, which never, ever, shut up.

Master Sabrai approached the side of the painting, and disappeared behind its edge; Sanabalis, after a pause, did the same. Five minutes of silence later, Kaylin repented: she had heard funerals which were more lively. She didn’t wait for an invitation; she also took a small detour around the edge of Everly’s canvas, but chose the opposite side. The small, flat table that held his palette, paints, brushes, various cloths, and a box of charcoal sticks of varying widths and lengths happened to be on that side; she almost ran into it, and managed to dodge collision at the last second.

Everly had clearly been working without stop. The edges of the canvas were almost blank; some sketching had been done, and what looked like flat representations of nearly familiar buildings rose in black and gray against a white sky, like inverted ghosts. No obvious signs or flags marked those buildings; they were clearly abstracted from an Elantran street, but Kaylin, who was more than passingly familiar with most of them, couldn’t immediately place which one.

And placement was made urgent by what Everly had painted.

A cloud made of night hovered above cobbled stones that were clearly colored by the sun at its height. Its edges were blurred and indistinct, but this wasn’t just smudging of paint or color sketching. Stars could be seen, and the livid glow of some thing that seemed either red moon or blood sun hung close to the blurred edge itself. The cloud was contained in what seemed almost a garish, ornate door frame, absent a door.

He had worked on that odd, messy frame, in which daytime colors overlapped in startling contrast with night colors; he had taken care to paint stars and a haze of mist that twisted, like an incongruously delicate veil, across a foreign sky. He had taken care to paint its height, and seeing that, she almost flinched; it was as tall as some of the unpainted buildings, and if it was in any perspective at all, it swallowed the road.

But at its center was white space. He had done no sketching there.

Everly, oblivious to his audience, continued to work. He was using the darker spectrum of his palette, applying paint here and there as carelessly as Kaylin applied words, but achieving the effortless effect of a slowly coalescing reality that Kaylin’s careless words couldn’t.

“Given the speed at which he’s painted this,” Kaylin said quietly, “we’ll have some idea of what’s going to emerge tomorrow. Or later tonight.”

“It is not…small, if the area he’s left is indeed something that emerges and not further scenery.”

“It’s not really the center we need, anyway.”

Sanabalis raised a brow.

She pointed to the buildings that lined either side of the street in their frustrating lack of detail. “We need to know where—roughly—this vision takes place.”

“It is not a concrete representation of place, Private,” Master Sabrai said curtly. “That is not the way Oracles work.”

“I’ve been the subject of one of his Oracles,” she replied, just as curtly. “And I think the clues will be there if we can read ’em. We need them.”

Sanabalis cleared his throat. Loudly. The sound was enough to cause Everly to lift his head for a few seconds as if he were testing the air. Speech, however, failed to hold his attention, and he went back to his quick, light movements. “Master Sabrai is correct in this, Private. What he paints is not predictive in the sense you hope for. You cannot direct him. What he finishes, he finishes.”

But she looked at the space that he had not yet started to touch, and she felt cold, although she was standing in sunlight. “Tonight,” she told Sanabalis quietly.

“I concur. I do not think, however, that it will be necessary to stand here for the entire eight hours while he paints. We now have other things to examine.” He turned to Master Sabrai. “If you will deliver the transcripts of the dreams that interrupted the Halls last eve, we will begin to attempt to make some over-arching sense of the impending difficulty. Thank you,” he added, in a more clipped tone.

Master Sabrai shook his head as if to clear it. “As you say, Lord Sanabalis. If you will return to my office, I will give you what I’ve managed to transcribe.”

“I am willing to deal with Sigrenne’s less than perfect penmanship.”

Not reminding Sanabalis of this definitive statement was difficult, because it would sound smug; Sigrenne’s hand was neither neat nor precise, and Sanabalis had clearly not spent as much time deciphering human scribbles as Kaylin had. Most of the Hawks were not in the running for world’s best penman.

Sanabalis sat in the carriage opposite Kaylin; smoke drifted from his nostrils and the corner of his lips, and his eyes were a decided shade of orange. Given the way he glared at the pile of papers—and the paper was by no means uniform in size or shape, which made it ungainly—Kaylin was half-surprised they hadn’t gone up in that smoke.

Every so often he glared over the top of a curling fold. At least one session was partially illegible because either someone with wet hands had picked it up, or it had been put down, briefly, in water. Or worse.

To prevent Kaylin from being too amused, Sanabalis handed her the occasional bit he couldn’t read. She took them with gratitude, since it was better than doing nothing, and safer than mocking a Dragon Lord. Especially given the lack of sleep. Kaylin, reading the various notes, cringed. She had an easier time interpreting Sigrenne’s scrawl, but because she had no context, it was hard to guess what the words she couldn’t read meant.

But she understood enough. In many of these dreams, there were visitors. Some were monsters. Some were ghosts. Some were—she thought the words were stray kittens, which caused some head scratching.

“How the hell does Sigrenne know that it’s an Oracle and not a normal dream?” she muttered.

“She probably doesn’t,” was the curt reply. “Which means she has to take as many notes as possible. It isn’t all Sigrenne’s writing. Some of it is probably Notann’s. The one that looks like a series of ink blots is almost certainly Weller’s. When the Oracles dream like this, one person is not going to get to all of them in time. I have another door-locker.”

She glanced across the carriage. “No, that’s the same one. That’s Tylia. Her name’s up in the left corner.” She caught a few words, and added, “but that’s more detailed than she was. There’s a door but no walls. Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Well, the lack of walls means the sky is falling, and Tylia can’t find a roof to hide under. See, there. That lines up with Everly’s painting.”

“Possibly. This is merely our attempt to understand why, and perhaps where, some future difficulty must be intercepted. I will let you out at your own Halls. I would take you to the Palace, but the Arkon dislikes interruption and you are not the quietest of visitors. You possibly also have a job, or several, to do.”

The guards at either set of doors were tense enough that the usual good-natured mockery failed to occur. Kaylin missed it.

The office wasn’t quiet. The window wasn’t impressed; it was hard to tell which was louder. Marcus was bristling, which, given the state of emergency, was expected. Caitlin was quiet and grim. Not a single groundhawk could be seen in the office, not even Severn.

“Neya!” Marcus shouted.

She walked past the duty roster, glanced at it, and shuddered. The fact that she could read it at all, given that there were now more changes than there had been original postings, was due to thirteen years of experience with the way Marcus’s writing was affected by his moods. One thing was clear: all of the Hawks were out on patrol, and it was a very tight patrol: it centered in the section of city that featured Elani at its core.

“The Swords,” Marcus told her, as she approached his desk, “have been ordered to begin evacuation.” He stabbed a piece of paper on his desk. It was the map of the streets that lay within the two circles. There were holes at the corners of a square area within the circle itself. “They’re starting at Strathanne, between Highpost and Delbaranne. They’re clearing straight through to Lattimar.”

She opened her mouth in order to let at least one question out; he flexed his claws. It was one of his more serious versions of shut up. He did, however, answer the question. “While you were out, Lord Diarmat of the Dragon Court mirrored. The Imperial Order of Mages tendered the report from their initial exploratory investigation.”

“Good or bad?”

“If you’re a member of the Imperial Order’s scouting forces, bad.”

She closed her eyes. “How many did they lose?”

“One death. Three casualties.”

His tone of voice made death seem like the better deal. She schooled her expression. “Did they transmit the Imperial Records information here?”

“No. Lord Diarmat didn’t feel it was necessary, and frankly, it is not my problem. I don’t need to worry about mages right now. The Arcanists are, in theory, the Swords’ problem. Teela has gone, by way of the Barrani High Halls, to deliver the news.”

“What news?”

“We’re sealing off the portion of the city the Swords are now evacuating. We’ve set up roadblocks and guards on all routes in and out. Evacuation should take three days at the outside. Teela is at the Halls. Tain and the rest of our crew are spread out among the Swords.”

The Swords were going to love that.

“Why?”

“Because the Arcanists are now interested, and one or two of them are causing the Swords some difficulties. While I’d like to resolve it by jailing them,” he said in a tone of voice that made jail and death synonymous, “we are understaffed. If it were up to the Lord of Swords, we’d be extending the blockade to the full perimeter of the outer circle.”

“We can’t,” she said, voice flat.

“Funny, that’s what I told him. The perimeter would include the Halls and the Palace. The Emperor declined the Swordlord’s request, and this is the compromise. I can see why he doesn’t like it. We can keep the Arcanists out of this area. We have no hope of keeping them out of the circle. The Emperor had implied that he’d just keep them locked in their damn tower.”

“On what charges?”

“Not my problem.”

She snorted. It would be, if they tried. Still, the Arcanists would be vastly less likely to cause trouble for Barrani Hawks, and if they were babysitting the Swords, the roadblock would probably not spontaneously—and conveniently—combust. Kaylin nodded grimly. “Where do you want me?”

“You’re up on the roster.”

She bit her lip; it prevented suicidal words from emerging. “I’ll check now,” she told him. She was relatively certain it wouldn’t take too damn long to find her name in the hideous mess of ink and pencil marks.

“Good. Go.” He paused, and then added, “You might want to remove your bracer and toss it somewhere.”

She’d found her name. It was beside Severn’s, and was, in fact, their regular Elani beat. “You’re sure?”

“We have Imperial Permission,” the Leontine replied, and she caught the brief flash of teeth that was their version of black humor. “Lord Diarmat looked like he’d just found out he’d been put on a vegetarian diet when he delivered it.”

Leontines, in theory, held Dragons in high regard. It was no wonder that fact had come as a huge surprise to Kaylin, because Marcus did not. “Lord Diarmat was difficult?” she asked.

“Stop gabbing, and get moving.”

Kaylin had once or twice in her seven years with the Hawks—admittedly most of them as unofficial mascot—seen roadblocks and quarantines within Elantra. They were mostly put in place to contain outbreaks of summer wasting sicknesses, but not always. Occasionally the Arcanists on the Wolf hit list didn’t bother to make a break for the outer walls or the fiefs; they headed into extremely crowded areas and attempted to hold out by using sorcery, with whole city blocks as hostages.

This was like the latter case, except there were no Arcanists you could kill to end the threat.

The roadblock was going up when she slid through. On this side of the square, the Arcanists wouldn’t be a problem, so there were no Hawks here. She nodded, briefly, and headed straight for Elani.

Since she had no way of signaling Severn when she reached Elani, she did a quick perusal of the street. The Swords had arrived, and they were, even now, knocking on doors. One Sword carried a very long, very ornate roll, around which was wrapped a long scroll. The writing on the scroll itself couldn’t be clearly seen at this distance, but the illuminated bits for the capital letters could. The scroll looked impressive, expensive, and Official.

It was, of course.

The Sword in question wore her weapon around her waist, but carrying it was optional; she was flanked by Swords who had nothing better to carry. Kaylin sometimes envied the Swords their jobs, because for the most part, their jobs were easy. But riot duty and evacuation duty made envy pretty damn hard, and the situation was dire enough that petty satisfaction was just as hollow. She cringed when she heard a door slam, because she would have bet money it had just slammed in their faces.

But Elani was close to the center of the circular area that rain had allowed them to map; here, there was no leeway possible. She wondered how many people would leave their homes voluntarily, and how many would have to be carried, or thrown, out.

It wasn’t just homes, of course; some of the merchants didn’t live above their storefronts, choosing instead to rent them out. The boarders were, like any other resident, being ordered to leave; the merchants were also being ordered to leave. Kaylin was just petty enough to smile at the sound of Margot’s operatic rage as she hurried toward Evanton’s.

There were no Swords at Evanton’s door. The door itself was ajar, and Kaylin could see Grethan standing in the window and staring, eyes rounded, at the commotion that Elani had become. She walked in, and Grethan jumped.

“I’m not here to throw you out,” she said quietly. Glancing around the empty store, she added, “Where’s Evanton?”

“He’s in the Garden,” Grethan replied. “With your partner.”

Grethan had a natural affinity for the Elemental Garden, or rather, for entering it. It wasn’t, however, necessary.

“It’s not locked,” he told Kaylin, half-apologetically. “Not when he’s in it.”

“Hmm. Have you considered locking it behind him when he’s in a mood?”

Grethan’s eyes rounded slightly, which was a definite No. On the other hand, if Evanton got out of the locked Garden, the minor hilarity of trapping him in it probably wouldn’t be worth the consequences. But the young apprentice’s eyes narrowed again as he grinned. “There’s only one key.”

The itchy feeling that covered most of Kaylin’s body—not coincidentally the same portions that were also covered by glyphs—was almost painfully intense as she stood in front of the rickety, narrow door that led into Evanton’s Elemental Garden.

She touched it. It wasn’t warded—she was half-certain that attempting to ward this door would just destroy it, because the wood would probably collapse under any attempt to enchant it—but her palm suddenly hurt, and she withdrew it almost instantly.

Suspicious, she examined the door as Grethan’s slow steps retreated. But there was no rune or mark on it, certainly not where her palm had touched it. To make matters worse, the flesh on her arms was now goose-bumping. She grimaced, but still, she hesitated. Since her own hesitations annoyed her, she shook them off and opened the door.

“All right, door,” she muttered under her breath, “take me to the heart of the Elemental Garden.”

The door didn’t open into a gale that would have sunk ships in the harbor if it had happened on the outside of the Garden.

Given the last time she’d visited, this came as a relief. She walked into the Garden, leaving the door open at her back; she didn’t walk very far. The Garden itself seemed, in composition, to be in its rest state: she could see the small shrines and candelabras, the shelves and reliquaries, clumped together in at least three areas.

She could see the surface of the small pond that was water’s domain, and she frowned as the light slid across it. What she couldn’t see was Severn or Evanton. She started forward; the grass was soft, short, and smooth. She even cast the normal shadow one would expect when the sun was at this height. Lifting her face, she felt no breeze. In the Garden, that was rare. But maybe the Elemental Air was calm today.

She headed toward the small pond in the Garden’s center. It was there, as it always was, and moss beds lay against the flat, large stones to one side. There was a small mirror that lay face-down on the stone, as if it had been casually lifted and set aside; she didn’t touch it.

But…the pond looked wrong. She stood at its edge, her toes almost touching the water. The water was still, and it was clear. But some of the darkness that hinted at its endless depth was…missing. Bending, Kaylin touched the ground. It felt like, well, grass with a bit of dirt underneath.

In fact, the Garden itself felt like the cozy, quiet retreat of a rich eccentric. Which was, of course, what was wrong with it. That, and she could see no sign of Severn or Evanton at all. It was as if she’d taken a turn through the wrong damn door and ended up in something that looked like Evanton’s Garden, without any of its substance or life.

It was not a comforting thought.

Turning, she headed back in the direction she’d come. The door stood slightly ajar, and she stopped five feet from the narrow glimpse of hall, resting her hands lightly on her hips. She realized, as she looked at it, that there had never been a door out without Evanton, something she should have bloody well considered before she’d entered. But here it was, and it looked, from this vantage, to be the same door into the same dim hall, lined with the same bookcases, half of which were so packed they looked as if they were about to dump their contents on the poor fools who wandered by at the wrong time.

This was wrong. It felt wrong. She took a step toward the door anyway, and felt the hair on the back of her neck begin to rise. The fact that the Garden was magical was known. The fact that she felt magic only here, this close to the door, was bad. And, of course, she hadn’t yet removed the bracer that existed to confine her own magic. She had no idea—at all—if the damn thing would follow Severn home, the way it normally and inexplicably did, if she took it off and dropped it here.

Cursing in Leontine, which sounded unnaturally loud in the sudden and suspicious silence of this Garden, she pulled up her sleeves, exposing the gemstones that lay in a vertical line on the inner side of the thick, golden manacle. She pressed them in sequence, and waited until she heard the familiar click. Prying it off her wrist, she looked at the grass, the Garden, and the now-distant pond, and then she shoved it into her tunic, above her belt.

She reached out to touch the door, and her hand froze just before it made contact. The air around her hand was wavering. The closest thing she’d ever seen was a heat mirage, but heat mirages generally didn’t come with color, and, aside from the sweat the heat itself caused, didn’t cause sensation.

Something intensely uncomfortable passed through the whole of her body, like a moving, permeable wall. She grimaced, jumped back, and found that the distance didn’t cause the sensation to stop. But it did change the perspective through which she viewed the door, or rather, the hall on the other side of said door.

What had been the span of a door frame away now seemed to be visible through a long, long tunnel. The tunnel itself was not door-shaped; it seemed to have no shape at all. It was as if the frame and the world to which it was attached had been sundered, and what lay between them was a gap into sky, or cloud, or unbound space.

Walking through it to the door was almost not an option. She glanced over her shoulder at flat, empty garden, and wondered where it was, truly; it seemed, for a moment, as substantial as the space that now existed between the frame of the door and Evanton’s shop. Color was here, yes, and the grass was not dry or dead. It looked right, but everything else about it was missing.

Note to self, she thought, clenching her jaw. Do not enter Elemental Garden when magic is unpredictable right next-damn-door. On the other hand? There weren’t any shadows here; it wasn’t as if she’d walked into the heart of the fiefs on an aimless stroll. At the moment, whatever might kill her—and given the total chaos of unpredictable magic that wasn’t even her own, that could be anything—was likely to be starvation if she didn’t leave. The shelf-lined hall was not getting any closer.

Backing up, she tensed, bent into her knees, and approached the door at a sprint. Passing through the frame was easy. Getting to the other side, not so much. There was solid ground beneath her feet, but running across it was like running across soft sand; it ate momentum. She couldn’t see what lay beneath her boots; it seemed to exist without any visual component.

And that, of course, was magic; the marks along the insides of her thighs, arms and the back of her neck were now aching in that all-skin-scraped-off way. She clenched teeth, gave up on sprinting, and walked instead. She could walk quickly. The hall on the other side, however, seemed to be moving, and it wasn’t moving in the right direction.

Come on, legs. Come on. Widening her stride, she tried to gain speed; she managed to gain enough that she wasn’t losing ground. But she wasn’t gaining any, either. A pace like this, she could keep up all day. But magic in its infuriating lack of predictability probably wouldn’t give her all damn day, and if the sight of those damn bookshelves suddenly faded, she’d be stranded in the middle of a nowhere that was ancient and totally unknown.

Because she was certain it was ancient. The only place she had encountered anything similar was in the heart of a Tower in the fiefs, and those Towers had been constructed by gods. When the rest of the city had started their decline into crumbling ruins, the Towers had mimicked them—but nothing destroyed them. Nothing broke them.

They, on the other hand, were perfectly capable of destroying the people who wandered through their doors. She walked. The hall receded, as if it were teasing her. But it was the kind of teasing that caused tears and heartbreak.

“Severn! Evanton!”

Her voice was clear, strong, and completely steady; she was proud of the last one. There was no echo, no subtle resonance that indicated either geography or architecture in the distance to either side. The only clear reality loomed ahead, always ahead.

She had no idea how long she’d been walking; she broke into a run every so often, but the run was almost as slow as the walk, and it was more tiring. Her arms and legs still ached, and at length she rolled her sleeves as high as they would go because the cloth brushing her skin was almost agonizing.

It didn’t surprise her much to see that the runes were glowing. Their color, on the other hand, did: it was gray, almost an absence of color, in keeping with the rest of her environment. It made the runes seem, for a moment, like windows into the Other, and windows were not meant to grace the arms of living people. She let her arms drop back into the wide pumping swing of a brisk walk, and then stopped and lifted them again.

Severn.

No answer. No answer at all. She tried again, gazing at the only reality she could see. Silence. Turning, she dared one backward glance over her shoulder. There was no frame, no door, no Garden; the gray of this nonplace had swallowed them.

The hairs on the back of her neck rose so sharply they might as well have been quills. She turned instantly, and then stopped moving. She had taken her eyes off her destination, and the destination had, like the Garden, vanished.

CHAPTER 7

Kaylin had had nightmares like this, but they didn’t usually start someplace bucolic. They didn’t usually end in a gray, empty space, either. They ended, frequently, with the voice-of-pissed-off-Leontine on the other end of an active mirror. She didn’t panic, largely because she wasn’t in pain, didn’t appear to be close to death by starvation, and, more important, it wouldn’t do her any damn good.

Instead, she kept moving forward. There wasn’t anything to move toward, anymore, and the movement didn’t appear to be doing any good, but she still hoped. And cursed. There was an awful lot of Leontine cursing where no one could hear it; she also practiced her Aerian, and her translation of either into common.

Since there was no sun, and none of the usual geographic markers by which she told time, she had no idea how much had passed. It could have been very slow minutes—and probably was—but it felt like hours. And hours. And hours. The whole lot of nothing began to wear on her nerves, and she let it. More time passed.

And more.

And more.

She could jog with her eyes closed, because there wasn’t anything to trip over, run into, or avoid. Sometimes it helped, because the darkness beneath lids felt natural, and this was as close to a dream—albeit boring and featureless—as anything real generally came. Unfortunately, dreams had a way of taking sharp turns or steep drops into nightmare. She opened her eyes.

When her stomach growled, she was almost grateful, because it gave her some sense that time—in a decent interval—was passing, not that she wasn’t often unreasonably hungry at random times throughout the day. But when she heard the second growl—a distinctly external one, she froze. Her legs and arms still ached; nothing short of getting away from this damn place was going to solve that.

She fell silent, listening; she wondered if her stomach’s growl could produce the echoes her natural voice—in tones of Leontine, even—couldn’t. Funny, how little she appreciated the answer. The growl—the only other evidence that someone else was also in this space, seemed to come from somewhere below her feet.

She stopped cursing. Which meant she stopped speaking at all, and started to move.

She could hear the sound of deep and even breathing. Sadly, it wasn’t hers; hers was now shorter and sharper. And quieter. There was no obvious wind—but it felt, now, as if the gray, amorphous endless space was a living thing, and she was trapped inside it. She left off the specifics of where, because it didn’t seem to have anatomy, and any answer she came up with was not good.

She stopped jogging. Stopped running. She kept moving, because it was better, for the moment, than standing still. The bracer was now warm against her stomach, and she thought about tossing it away. Thought about what the Emperor would say—possibly even to her—if it failed to reappear again, ever. Or the Arkon. She had some suspicion that it came, indirectly, from his hoard.

Then again, that would mean he’d parted with it, so maybe that was inaccurate.

She crouched, pressed her hand against the ground. Her palm passed through it, as if it didn’t exist. She hated magic. Her feet, clearly, were being supported by something; her hands, however, couldn’t touch it. She stood, took a step forward, and fell.

So much for exploration.

Falling was like flying without options.

She didn’t scream; it wouldn’t have done any good. But she held her breath for an uncomfortable length of time while she waited for the ground—or what passed for ground here—to rise up and splatter her. When it failed to happen—or at least, when that breath ran out—she swallowed air and opened her eyes. She’d closed them when the ground had suddenly dropped out from under her. It hadn’t made much difference.

The sickening sensation of stomach being pressed up against throat diminished; instead of falling she was now floating. But the growling grew slowly louder, and almost instinctively she began to jog again. Falling stopped, and not the usual way, which involved ground and pain. This was good. But the growling had changed or shifted; it wasn’t directional, and it seemed to bypass her ears and head straight for the base of her spine, where it then traveled up and down like a hysterical child.

Severn!

The silence was worse, this time; it hit harder. The growl that answered—that seemed to answer—the silent invocation was now louder. She spun, hands dropping to daggers, but could see the same nothing she’d seen since she’d arrived.

Severn…

No answer.

This time, she realized that no answer would come. He would look for her, if he knew—but the chances are, he didn’t. He was with Evanton, and the real Garden, in some other place. He hadn’t known that she was coming; he therefore didn’t know that she hadn’t arrived. She had given him her name, it was true: the name she had taken for herself from the Barrani stream of life. But she’d taken no name for him; what he gave her, as always, was acceptance.

She didn’t have his name.

If he called hers, she might hear it—she wasn’t certain, because she had no damn idea where she was. But…he had never used it. He understood that in some ways it felt wrong, to her; it wasn’t her, it wasn’t what she knew of herself. He let her approach. He let her speak, in the silent and private way that Barrani names conferred, and he didn’t pull back, didn’t hide, didn’t offer her fear.

But he didn’t call her. He didn’t invoke what was so foreign and inexplicable.

She swallowed. The growling was louder and thicker; it was one sound, but it seemed to come from everywhere. Closing her eyes, she whispered a single word.

Calarnenne.

Silence. She opened her eyes, and the world was still gray, still formless, still empty. Her marks were the same shade of empty, but the edges of each rune were glowing softly, not that the light was necessary. She looked up, down, and shuddered once as the only other sound she’d heard since she arrived repeated itself.

It wasn’t Feral growling; it wasn’t angry dog; it wasn’t the Leontine sound that meant you were a few seconds away from needing a new limb or a new throat. She’d dreaded all of these in her life, but the sound she heard now?

It was death.

Kaylin personally preferred a civilized, more or less human personification of death, which was the one that usually got into the stories she’d heard as a child. Hells, as an adult. She drew her daggers for the first time since entering the nonworld. They looked pathetic in her hands, but they were all she had, and they were better than nothing.

She began to curse the growling noise in soft, steady Leontine—because that seemed to make no difference, either, and it made her feel better. A little. She threw in an Aerian curse or two, and dropped a few brittle words of High Barrani into the mix; she saved the most heartfelt of her curses for later use.

But cursing, she finally heard something that wasn’t a growl, although it was, in its own fashion, as deadly, as dangerous, and ultimately, as unknown.

Kaylin.

She froze. She had just enough experience with the Lord of the fief of Nightshade to know when he wasn’t particularly pleased by something she’d done, and she’d had twelve years in the fief he ruled to develop a visceral and instinctive fear of his anger.

But she’d had seven living well away from Nightshade, and if her automatic reaction was to drop or hide, she could fight through it and remain more or less calm. Less, today, but she didn’t usually have conversations like this while standing in the middle of nothing.

Nightshade.

You…called me.

She swallowed. I did. I can’t—I didn’t—

You did not mean to compel.

She hadn’t even tried. In theory, she could, if she were strong enough. She held his name. But she’d always doubted that she would be strong enough, and if she weren’t, and she tried, she’d be dead.

I only wanted to get your attention.

Ah. And now that you have it?

There’s a difficulty in Elantra. She swallowed. It was habit; she wasn’t actually speaking. But if she had stopped, the growling hadn’t, and she heard it clearly.

Kaylin. His voice shifted, the sound simultaneously sharpening and losing some of its edge. Where are you?

Funny thing, she began, as the growl grew louder.

Kaylin. Sharper, sharper. Wherever you are, leave. Now. When she didn’t answer, he added, This is not a joke. It is not a matter for your mortal sense of humor. You are in danger. You must leave.

I…I don’t know how. It was hard, to say it. To admit it. Especially to Nightshade. Ignorance was weakness.

No, she thought. Ignorance was only weakness if you clung to the damn thing. Obviously, hours in gray nowhere had unsettled her, and Nightshade’s voice pretty much always had that effect; they weren’t a good combination.

But he could hear her. She thought he was possibly the only person she knew who would.

I can hear you, he continued. But I cannot see where you are. I cannot see what you see.

Kaylin. Call me.

Running, she closed her eyes and she called his true name again, putting a force into the syllables that she never spoke aloud. And this time, she felt the syllables resist her; she felt them slide to one side or the other, their pronunciation—if you could even call it that, because she didn’t open her mouth—shifting or changing as they struggled to escape.

Again.

She ignored the urge to point out who held whose name, be cause there was, in the absolute intensity of the command, the hint of desperation. That, and the damn growling had finally reached a level where she could feel it. Not as strongly as she could feel Nightshade’s voice, though. It almost seemed—

Whatever it is—it can hear you. It can hear you clearly, she told him. And then, before he could answer, she struggled with his name. Struggled to say it, while he pulled back, while he fought her. Because she suddenly understood what the point of the seemingly pointless exercise was. When she struggled for control of the syllables, when she struggled to force them to snap into place, she could feel him pushing back against them; she could feel the way they slid when he exerted his will.

But more significant, she could feel, for just the moment she encountered each small act of resistance, the direction from which it came.

It can hear me. It is surprising that it cannot clearly hear you. Come, Kaylin. Come to me.

She called his name once more, and this time she let the syllables slide as far as they could without losing them; she existed for as long as she could in the moment of the struggle, as if conflict were the only road home.

Opening her eyes, she saw, in the gray folds of nothing ahead, something dark that wavered around the edges. It wasn’t Nightshade, but it was something.

Closer. Closer, Kaylin. Be ready.

For what? She didn’t ask.

But he heard it anyway. You will not have long. I do not know how you came to be where you must be—but I cannot join you. I can hold a window open. You must take it.

The growling—

Yes. A very small window. I am sorry. I have neither the resources nor the ability to offer more.

The dark patch of space became larger and more distinct as she approached it, and she saw, standing at its heart, the Lord of Nightshade, his eyes almost black in the shadows, both hands extended to the sides as if, by physical force, he had ripped a hole in the world. His arms were shaking with the effort.

The gray beneath her feet began to ripple, as if it were the back of a horse that was trying, with unexpected savagery, to unseat her. Spikes formed, like stalagmites made of cloud, glittering although there was no source of light. She dodged them, because she could, but the ground directly beneath her feet still felt like soft sand.

Soft, hot sand. Or miles of flesh.

She pivoted sideways between two growing, jagged spikes; one clipped the inside of her arm. She bled. Where blood struck ground, it sizzled.

She felt Nightshade’s curse. It had the force of Marcus in fury, although it was entirely subvocal; High Barrani lacked the words to encompass it. But she kept running. Nightshade didn’t recede the way the halls of Evanton’s shop had, and she knew that if she lost sight of him now, it would be because he couldn’t hold.

She felt his response; he didn’t form words around it. He was not, however, pleased at the doubt the thought implied. You had to love Barrani arrogance.

And at the moment, she did.

She stopped trying to say his name. She stopped trying to do anything but reach him. He didn’t offer her a hand; he couldn’t. The weight of the world—as if strange, shapeless clouds could have weight—wasn’t something he could support with one hand.

But all she could see was Nightshade: Nightshade and darkness. There was no hall behind him, no stone floors beneath his feet, no glimmer of torches or lamps; even his hair seemed to blend with the background, highlighting pale skin and sapphire eyes by contrast.

Kaylin—quickly. Quickly.

Gods, the ground was thick now. She’d run across mud that had less give—and that had been ankle bloody deep.

Kaylin!

She tensed, grinding her teeth as she felt something sharp cut the back of her left calf. She heard roaring; the growling had clearly escalated into something that could handle primal rage. Dragon roars were just as loud, but far less threatening.

She saw the wavering shape of this hole in the middle of nothing begin to collapse, and although she wasn’t close enough to make a clean leap through what was left of it, she tried anyway. Nightshade—

She felt his curse; he didn’t speak. But more than that? She felt the mark on her cheek begin to burn. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck straighten as if they were made of fine quills, and she felt the inside of her thighs and her arms almost freeze in sudden protest.

Magic. His magic. The momentum the ground and her own legs couldn’t give her, his power could. She cleared what was left of the dwindling rent in space, her arms and right shoulder hitting his chest and driving them both back. His own arms fell instantly; he grabbed hold of her, and he pulled.

Which was good, because something began to pull from the other side. She could feel it grab her legs, and the wound in her calf ached and burned with the unexpected solidity of its grip. She didn’t want to lose her leg.

But she knew that Nightshade didn’t care if it was only her leg that was lost; she could feel the thought, absent words to shape or form it. All that mattered now was that she remain here, with him. He lifted his face; she felt his chin rise, although hers was pretty much plastered to the front of his robes. She could almost see what he saw: the small gap in space, through which her legs had yet to emerge, and the edges of the place she was trying so hard to escape. Closing her eyes didn’t help; the sudden disorientation, the unwelcome glimpse of Barrani vision and Barrani sight, made her head and her stomach do the same hideously unpleasant lurch that Castle Nightshade’s portal did.

But even as she began to spin into the nausea of portal passage, she saw what now existed on the other side of the rapidly shrinking tear: darkness, broken by stars and the borealis of a foreign sky. And in it, some shape that was not shadow as she understood it; it was far too solid, far too real, for that. She could see no eyes, no mouth, nothing that made it look like the monsters of her nightmares—but in the lack of those things, she thought the darkest of nightmares lay waiting. And it needed no form, no face, no pathetic rendering of shape to devour.

No, it just needed her damn legs.

I am sorry, Kaylin, she heard Nightshade say. Knew that he meant to cut those legs off at midcalf. Knew, as well, that she couldn’t allow it—how could she be a Hawk without legs? How could she patrol, how could she run, how could she do the only things that defined her? She cried out in anger and fear and even the darkness on the other side of life—which was death, all death—didn’t look so bad.

But she was spinning, disoriented, even while clinging so tightly to him that her hands crushed the fabric of his shirt and his hair. She kicked, struggling to pull herself free. His magic enveloped her, and she felt his desire to preserve her life over what her life meant to her, and she spoke a single word of denial.

It was not, however, an Elantran word. It wasn’t a Barrani word. It wasn’t Leontine, or Aerian or Dragon, the last of which would have been impossible anyway. It was a true word.

And true words, she discovered, like true names, had power.

She heard, for the first time, something rise out of the roar at her back that sounded like language. It had syllables, the shape and texture of words, the small dips and rises in tone; it had the elements of voice, which had always been important to Kaylin. It had the force of will behind it, a force just as visceral as hunger or desire—she knew, because it had those, too.

What it didn’t have, what she couldn’t hear, were actual words, and she was grateful for it. She spoke again, and this time—this time she heard Nightshade raise a cry of alarm; she felt his arms slide away from her as if she could no longer be safely held.

But for a minute more of her weight was on the right damn side of the portal. She kicked, and fell free. It would have helped if there had been anything to land on.

“Kaylin.”

She pushed herself up off the ground, and saw, as she opened her eyes a crack, that she was looking at gleaming, polished marble. She wanted to heave, she really did. Which was not outside of the norm, because she recognized this room: it was the foyer that graced Castle Nightshade. She had never arrived through the front door feeling human.

This time, she hadn’t even bothered with the portal.

Nightshade was considerate, as always; he waited until she could lever herself off the ground and stand—very shakily—on her own two feet. He hadn’t, however, dimmed the damn lights, and they stabbed her vision in a very unpleasant way. She exchanged a few words of Leontine with their bleeding bright haloes; they didn’t respond.

“Kaylin,” Nightshade said, when the last of the syllables had stopped echoing.

She looked up. His eyes were a shade of green that was almost, but not quite, blue. This was about as safe as he ever got. Waiting until the last of the nausea subsided would mean she’d be silent for another hour. Keeping her head very still, she said, “Thank you.”

He raised a dark brow, and offered her the briefest of smiles. It didn’t really reach his eyes. “I admit,” he said quietly, “that I was surprised.”

“That I called you?”

“Ah, no. That you have not, since the fief of Tiamaris was founded, returned to Nightshade. One would think it was almost deliberate.”

The problem with portals, and with Castle Nightshade’s portal in particular, was that she arrived feeling like she’d mixed alcohol on an all-night drinking binge. It wasn’t the best state of mind in which to have a conversation with her friends; it was a dangerous state of mind in which to have a conversation with the fieflord whose mark she bore. “It was deliberate,” she told him, because she knew he knew it anyway.

“May I ask why?”

She stopped herself from shrugging, and then met his eyes for a second time. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

“No. Forgive my lack of hospitality. Let us repair to a more useful set of rooms.” He hesitated, and then added, “Take my arm.”

“Pardon?”

“My arm, Kaylin. The Castle will be slightly more difficult for you to traverse at the moment than is the norm.”

Given what the Castle was normally like, this said something. He offered Kaylin his arm, in High Court style, and she placed her hand on it. It was difficult not to also place a large part of her weight on it. She made the effort. “Why will it be harder?” She asked, because it gave her something to focus on that wasn’t her nausea or his nearness, both of which were difficult for entirely different reasons.

He ignored her question as he led her along a hallway that seemed familiar.

They stepped through doors into the safety of a very large, and as usual, sparsely, but finely, furnished room. Only when the doors closed did Kaylin release his arm and step away. While the halls seemed to expand or collapse with no warning and no rhyme or reason, she had never seen the rooms change around her.

She made her way to the long couch, and sat heavily on cushions that were that little bit too soft. Nightshade remained standing. He had the decency not to offer her either food or drink. Her cheek was warm; the rest of her skin felt cold.

“How did I travel through the portal? Did you carry me?”

“No.”

“Did I walk?”

“No.”

Are we going to play twenty bloody questions while my head pounds and I want to throw up?

She didn’t say the last out loud. It didn’t make much difference; his smile was very chilly when he offered it.

“You dislike the portal of Castle Nightshade. I would have thought, given how deep that dislike is, that you might recognize it when you see it.”

“Oh, I do.” She paused as her thoughts, such as they were, caught up with her mouth.

“You were standing in the portal when you found me.”

Very good.

She closed her eyes. It helped, a little. Portal travel was bad enough to make her queasy—or worse—but it usually passed a lot faster. At the moment she wanted to fall over onto her side and curl her knees into her chest. Maybe sleep a little. Instead, she was having a conversation with Lord Nightshade.

“I was at Evanton’s,” she said, speaking slowly and clearly. “I walked into his Garden. Or I thought I walked into his Garden. But it wasn’t. It looked the same. It wasn’t the same.”

He nodded.

“So I tried to leave it. I ended up…nowhere. I could see his shop—but I couldn’t reach it. And eventually, I couldn’t see it, either.”

“That is when you…called me?”

She nodded. “You know where I was.” Not a question.

“I have some suspicion. Don’t rearrange your face in that expression. I am a Barrani Lord, Kaylin. I am not more, or other.”

“What was chasing me?”

He said nothing.

“Nightshade—”

“I have no definitive answer for you. I will not condescend to pointless conjecture.” He wasn’t quite lying; he was certainly not telling the truth. Which was about as much as anyone sane could expect from the Barrani, although given the turn the afternoon had taken, Kaylin wasn’t certain she qualified as sane. “But I could not find you by conventional means. I chose a…less conventional approach, through the Castle’s portal. It would not be an approach open to many. Perhaps the High Lord, or another fieflord—but only if you held their name.”

She opened her eyes. “What happened in Evanton’s store?”

“The Keeper’s domain is bound by many, many magics. Most of those are older than any known Empire. I cannot say for certain what happened. You might wish to speak with him, but I am not sure he will be able to enlighten you. May I suggest, for the duration of the current crisis, that you avoid wandering in his shop when he is not actively present?”

She grimaced, and then her eyes narrowed. “Current crisis?”

“I believe you are suffering from rains of blood, among other difficulties.” He raised a brow. “Come, Kaylin. You did not honestly think a difficulty of that magnitude would stay across the Ablayne?”

“I wasn’t thinking about it much at all. It’s not fief business.”

“Not yet, no. But I believe that your difficulty in the city and the difficulty you encountered in the Keeper’s abode are linked. “Remain here. I will return with food and water, now that you are somewhat more settled.”

Kaylin drifted off while Nightshade was absent. The room was quiet, the couch too comfortable. She was cold, here, and there were no convenient throws that she wanted to touch; she felt too damn grubby, and even at its simplest, Castle Nightshade was out of her league. But her stomach had settled enough that the complaints it now issued were the usual ones. She was hungry, damn it.

Nightshade had implied that he’d had to go to the portal to find her. Which said something about the portal. One of the many things it said? Entering it at the moment was probably not a great idea, so leaving might prove difficult.

But one of the other things it implied was that the portal existed in an entirely different space than the rest of the Castle. Or at least the rest of the fief. She turned that one over for a few minutes. What did she know about the Castle, after all? Its well, if you fell all the way down to the bottom and miraculously survived, contained a cavern with a vast lake that the Elemental Water could actually reach out and touch; its basement contained a literal forest of trees that seemed sentient—certainly more sentient than the Hawks when they’d been out drinking all night and had work the next day; somewhere beyond that forest, there was a huge cavern that was covered in runes that were very similar to the ones that adorned half of her skin.

She grimaced. What else?

There was a throne room. She’d seen it once. It contained statues of almost every living race in the Empire, and when Nightshade desired it, those statues came to life. Were, in fact, in some way, always alive. He’d said he used the power of the Castle to create them, but made it clear that he had started from flesh. But…how? How had he used that power? What had he told it to do?

She stood, found that her knees no longer wobbled, and began to pace in a rectangle around the low table.

What was the Castle, at heart? It was not the Tower of Barren. Or rather, of Tiamaris. It didn’t speak, or think, or plan, or love.

Or did it?

“No,” was the quiet reply.

CHAPTER 8

Nightshade stood in the open doors, a tray in his hands. Or rather, between the open palms he held to either side. She hesitated, and then walked quickly over to where he stood and lifted the tray the normal way. Watching the Lord of the fief play servant always unsettled her.

He raised a dark brow; his eyes were still the shade that exists just before emerald falls into sapphire. His hair, unbound, draped across both shoulders; his skin was pale. The tray shook in her hands; she looked at what was on it. Water, or a liquid just as clear and colorless, fruit, cut cheese, meat. No bread. She carried the tray to the table. He followed in silence.

She was always aware of where, in a room, Nightshade was. It might have been because of the mark; it might have been because she knew his true name. But she thought she’d have been just as aware if she’d had neither. Even his silences demanded attention. She could more easily ignore the Dragon Lords whose company she kept than the Lord of Nightshade.

He knew. It amused him. Which annoyed her. “Why doesn’t Castle Nightshade speak?” she asked, veering away from both annoyance and compulsion.

“I think you know the answer to that better than I.”

Clearly, if she were interested in forcing the conversation into safer channels, she was going to have to carry most of it. “You were there. You were there when the Tower of—of Tiamaris—woke.”

“I was there for only some part of it. My knowledge of the Towers at that time—and it was not without significance—was based in its entirety on their nascent forms. I understood, how ever,” he added, voice softer, gaze fixed on her face, “that I was not to be bored. I had encountered a mortal—a mortal with the unfortunate manners of a wild human, or a coveted one—and she bore my mark.” His glance brushed the sleeves of her shirt, and his eyes flared—literally.

Magic caused her skin to tingle and the hair on the back of her neck to rise. Before she could speak or move, the ties at her sleeves fell open, and those sleeves were rolled, end over end, up her arms until the inside of those arms were exposed. Both arms, simultaneously. It was a neat trick, for a value of neat that was also distinctly uncomfortable.

“You bore, as well, the marks of the Chosen. And you seemed both powerless and ignorant, in the main, of what those marks might mean to you should you survive them.”

“But the Tower—” she began, attempting to control the conversation. Or anything, really.

“The Tower of Tiamaris heard you,” was his reply. “As did I. You were there when his Tower woke. You were not, however, here. Nor were you in the other fiefs in which such Towers woke and found they were powerless. What you touched, Kaylin, you changed. You have not touched the heart of Castle Nightshade, and before you ask—if you are so foolish as to entertain the notion—no, you will not wake the Castle’s heart.”

But as he said it, she felt both the force of his declaration, and the tremor of uncertainty that lay beneath it. He wasn’t sure that she could be kept from it if she wanted to go to the heart.

“You are wrong,” was the cool reply. “But the only certainty is your death, and I am reluctant, at this moment, to kill you.”

“But at this moment,” she replied, half touching his thoughts, half speaking them as if they were also her own, “you can kill me. And you’re not certain that’s always going to be true.”

One brow rose, revealing more of the blue his eyes had become. He didn’t deny it, however; there wasn’t any point. Not that he wouldn’t have lied if there was any chance it would be effective; the burden of truth for any Barrani was decided by the gullibility of the audience, and the possible consequences of the lie itself to said Barrani.

She glanced at her arms.

“Yes,” he said quietly.

“You knew. You knew I would live in Nightshade. You knew it centuries ago.”

“I knew,” was the quiet reply, “that you would be born in the fief of Nightshade. I knew that you would grow here. I also knew that until the moment you were old enough, there would be no way to distinguish you from any other motherless human urchin.”

The words, and the callous sentiment that informed them so perfectly, caused Kaylin’s jaws to ache.

“I knew, when Severn Handred came to my Castle for the first time, that the long wait was almost done. Barrani are immortal, but we are not famed for our patience. I was not, initially, absorbed by the boredom and frustration of waiting. There was much, indeed, that I had to discover, much to achieve, before your arrival.”

“You knew that the Outcaste—the Dragon—would be here.”

“No. That, I did not know, not immediately.” He stepped toward her, and she stood her ground, tensing slightly as he raised his hand to touch her cheek. It was, oddly enough, the cheek that was unmarked. “I was not, then, the man I am now. What I could read from you—and I did try—was not so complete.

“But I waited, Kaylin.”

“You marked me.”

“Yes.”

“But you never said a word.”

“No. I knew, when we first met, that the time for speech would follow. But I did not wish to influence or change what might occur in the Tower in my past and your future. Had I, who knows what might have occurred in the darkness there? We might have no fieflord, no Tiamaris, and the shadows might now be spilling across the Ablayne, and from there, to the whole of the Empire.

“I interfered very, very little in your life. I knew very little of my role in it. I learned, for instance, that you would go to the High Halls, that you would face the test of the Tower there. You are not guarded or careful with your knowledge. Perhaps, if you lived to be my age, you would learn this caution.

“But perhaps not.” His fingers stroked her cheek; his eyes were a blue that spoke of sky, not cobalt. She didn’t know what it meant, and didn’t want to know. “I have been careful. I have been cautious.

“But the fief of Tiamaris now exists. The moment our paths crossed at that Tower in your timeline, I was free. I am no longer constrained by the possible future. I am no longer constrained by any attempt to meet the future as promised, by a single day, in the past.

“I understood,” he continued, “when Illien fell, what the significance of that long-ago meeting might be. I understood what the fall of Illien might presage. And I understood, as well, that you might face death when you returned, after centuries, to the Tower you had wakened.”

“That’s why you were there?”

“It is why I took that risk. Understand that I have played many games in the long stretch of years between our first meeting and that one. I explored, as Lord Tiamaris explored, and I learned what was possible for one with my abilities to learn. The Castle was not entirely expected, but I had explored such buildings before. I could not be certain that you would survive this entry into the Tower.”

“I might not have.”

“No. But I could no more join you in Illien’s Tower than Illien could join you in mine.”

“Would the Tower have known?”

“That I am bound to another? Yes.”

She wanted to ask how he knew. She didn’t.

“And in truth I would not risk my fief in the attempt. Had the Tower fallen, or had you fallen in the Tower, the shadows at the heart of the fief would now have two borders to my lands, and my power and ability to defend what I have taken—and held—would be taxed. Possibly to the point of failure.” He let his hand trail down to the underside of her jaw, and then, slowly, let it drop.

“But Tiamaris now exists. I feel his name as strongly as I have ever felt Illien’s or Liatt’s. In truth,” he added with a grimace, “it is stronger. He will never again venture across this border, and I fear that any forays I make across his will be instantly known.”

She took a deep breath, because now that his hand was not so close to her skin, she could. “Why does Castle Nightshade have a portal? The Tower doesn’t.”

“Tiamaris’s tower…does not?”

She mentally kicked herself. “No. The Tower’s Avatar thought it wasn’t needed.”

He raised a dark brow. “You mean, the Tower’s Avatar felt that you disliked them enough that she chose not to have one where you might be forced to use it.” Not a question.

Since it was more or less true, Kaylin shrugged. It was a fief shrug.

“It will compromise her security,” Nightshade offered, his eyes darkening into a more familiar shade of annoyance at the gesture itself. “But if you think there are no portals in her domain, you are mistaken. There will be at least one. She cannot be so foolish as to leave her heart unguarded.”

“I know what lies at the heart of that Tower,” Kaylin replied.

“I know. But there will be a portal somewhere within the Tower. You might never see it, although I think it unlikely that you will be able to avoid it entirely. The Tower trusts you, inasmuch as it is allowed to trust one not its Lord.” He walked over to the low table, and lifted a silver goblet. The contents absorbed some of his attention. “You gambled, Kaylin. It is an interesting gamble.

“A Dragon has never, to my knowledge, been fieflord before. It will also be interesting.” He sat, slowly, on the couch opposite Kaylin, who stood, motionless, to one side of the low table. “You cannot know how you intrigued me, the first time we met.

“You, dirty and underslept mortal urchin, bearing marks of power that even now you do not understand. Severn, who bears a weapon that whispers if you are aware of how to listen accompanied you, and Tiamaris, Dragon Lord, was by your side but clearly not your master.

“I had spent much of my life in the West March, and some of it at Court. I had endured—and passed—the test of Name. I had survived my family and my extended family’s particular exuberance for political power plays. It is something that whiled away time, and I learned to excel at it.”

No surprises there.

“But the entry into the Tower made the first meeting almost unremarkable. The Tower’s voice…I can still hear it. I can see her wings,” he added softly, “and see the obsidian glint of her skin as she landed and took the throne itself.”

“I can still see the bodies,” Kaylin replied, and this time, she did sit.

“You could see those before the Tower,” he answered. “The Tower did not tell you anything you did not already know. She helped you, in a fashion, to unburden yourself. Not more, and not less.”

Kaylin nodded; it was true. She was uncomfortable here, in this room, and she couldn’t really tell herself it was because of the portal transition—if that’s what it was—because she didn’t believe it. Nightshade’s gaze was now upon her face; it was as if there was nothing at all between his eyes and hers. Honesty with Severn, she could manage.

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