New York Times bestselling author Michelle Sagara returns to the city of Elantra with a thrilling tale rife with ancient magic, assassination attempts and political intrigue.

Private Kaylin Neya already has Dragons and Barrani as roommates. Adding one injured, flightless Aerian to her household should be trivial. Sure, the Aerian is Sergeant Moran dar Carafel, but Kaylin’s own sergeant is a Leontine, the definition of growly and fanged. She can handle one Aerian.

But when a walk to the Halls of Law becomes a street-shattering magical assassination attempt on the sergeant, Kaylin discovers that it’s not the guest who’s going to be the problem: it’s all of the people who suddenly want Moran dar Carafel dead. And though Moran refuses to tell her why she’s being targeted, Kaylin is determined to discover her secret and protect her at all costs—even if keeping Moran safe means dealing with Aerian politics, angry dragons and something far more sinister.

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 on The Chronicles of Elantra series

“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 world building, 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 (4½ stars) on Cast in Fury

“Each visit to this amazing world, with its richness of place and character, is one to relish.”

—RT Book Reviews (4½ stars) on Cast in Silence

“Another satisfying addition to an already vivid and entertaining fantasy series.”

—Publishers Weekly on Cast in Chaos

“Sagara does an amazing job continuing to flesh out her large cast of characters, but keeps the unsinkable Kaylin at the center.”

—RT Book Reviews (4½ stars) on Cast in Peril

“Über-awesome Sagara picks up the intense action right where she left off... While Kaylin is the heart of this amazing series, the terrific characters keep the story moving. An autobuy for sure!”

—RT Book Reviews (4½ stars) on Cast in Sorrow

Cast in Flight

Michelle Sagara

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To the denizens of the War Room, without whom writing would be a much, much more isolated—and isolating—activity.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

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

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Extract

Copyright

Chapter 1

Morning was not Kaylin’s friend.

Helen’s Avatar stood in front of the open bedroom door, her expression as pinched as it ever got. Sentient buildings were in most ways a living marvel, but they definitely had their drawbacks.

“I’m not hungry,” Kaylin told Helen as she dragged herself out of bed. “I need sleep more than I need food.” She could see only one of her shoes. “Is there anything you can do about Nightshade and Annarion? I never thought I’d say this, but Dragons roaring at each other at the top of their lungs was more peaceful.”

“I’m sorry, dear. I’ve done what I can to isolate the noise in the house, but Annarion’s voice travels through most of my barriers.”

“It’s not just Annarion. I can hear every word Nightshade is saying.”

“That would be because you bear his mark, dear. He can’t control you through it while he’s under my roof, but the connection is still active.”

Kaylin reached up to touch her cheek. Nightshade’s mark looked like a tattoo of a small flower, and she’d had it for long enough she was barely aware of it, except in moments like these.

Helen looked down at her hands, which weren’t really hands; Helen was a building. Her Avatar appeared to be human. It wasn’t. Clearing her throat was also an affectation, and she did that, as well. “Regardless, breakfast is an important meal. You have work today. You need food.” Helen’s Avatar folded her arms. As far as Helen was concerned, this was a fight worth having, and as it happened, Helen won all these fights.

The winged lizard flapping around Kaylin’s face in obvious annoyance made it hard to pull clothing over her head. Kaylin swatted halfheartedly at her familiar.

“That’s what buttons are for, dear. If you unbuttoned—and folded—your clothing, getting dressed would be less chaotic.”

Small and squawky settled on Kaylin’s left shoulder with a little more claw than usual. “I used to daydream about having an older brother,” she said as she spied the missing shoe under her bed. “If nothing else, this has cured me of that.”

“I have a question.”

Of course she did. “What?”

“Annarion is upset at his older brother.”

“Clearly.”

“He is not saying anything that you have not said, or thought, yourself. He dislikes the governance of the fief of Nightshade.”

Dislike was far too mild a word.

“You hate it.”

Kaylin exhaled. “I grew up there. Barely. I survived. But a lot of people—a lot of kids—didn’t. When I see what Tiamaris has done with his own fief, it’s very clear to me that life in Nightshade didn’t have to be like that. Nightshade’s the fieflord. He could have chosen to do what Tiamaris is doing. The fief is his. So yes, I agree with every single word Annarion’s been saying. Or shouting. Or screaming.”

“But you feel pain on Nightshade’s behalf.”

Kaylin grimaced. “Nightshade spent centuries trying to rescue Annarion. I think he might have killed his father because his father chose to sacrifice Annarion to the green. The only person on earth Nightshade cares about that way is his younger brother. In some ways, his choices revolved around Annarion. He’s outcaste because of those choices.

“Getting Annarion back should have been a good thing. And I think it is. But...Annarion’s so disappointed, so hurt, it’s caused almost nothing but pain.” And that pain? It was killing Kaylin’s ability to sleep. No one who had half a heart could sleep through the ruckus. “To both of them.”

“And you don’t want Lord Nightshade to be in pain.”

“I think he deserves it, to be honest. But...not from Annarion.”

“People have always been complicated.”

“Even the immortal ones?”

“Especially the immortal ones.”

No one with any intelligence wanted to get between two brothers while they were fighting. No one with any sense of self-preservation got between two Barrani when they were fighting. Kaylin hoped fervently that Lord Nightshade had returned to his own castle this morning.

* * *

Kaylin chewed on her thoughts while her familiar chewed on her hair as she walked down the foyer stairs toward the dining room. The dining room’s fancy doors were open, there was food on the table, and she was—as usual—late. Annarion was seated beside Mandoran. If Nightshade was Annarion’s brother by blood and lineage, Mandoran was a sibling by shared experience. Seated across from Mandoran was Bellusdeo, her golden hair pulled back in a braid that was looped together on the back of her head. Given the slightly orange tinge to her eyes, it was clear she and Mandoran had already started their daily bickering.

Having a Dragon living in the same house as a Barrani who’d lost his family to the Draco-Barrani wars was never exactly peaceful.

Before she could enter the dining room, Annarion looked up from his untouched plate. “I want to know how you first met my brother.”

No, mornings were definitely not her friend.

“I don’t think,” Helen said to Annarion as Kaylin made her way—silently—to her chair, “that Kaylin wishes to discuss your brother at breakfast.”

Or ever.

“I told him you’d say that,” Mandoran added, half-apologetically. Half was usually as much as he could muster.

“I’m surprised he didn’t listen,” Bellusdeo said, picking up a fork as if it were a fascinating, rarely seen utensil. “Usually you’re the one who chooses to be selectively deaf.” She smiled at Mandoran. “I’ve come to find it quaintly charming.”

Mandoran’s eyes shifted to a steady, deeper blue, the universal sign of Barrani fear or anger. And he certainly wasn’t afraid. “As charming as a Dragon in mortal clothing?”

“Oh, infinitely more so. I assume once you’ve developed better command of your manners, I will be far less entertained. But I don’t expect that to happen in the next decade. Or two.”

Mandoran’s natural dislike of Dragons as a race left Kaylin stranded with Annarion, who was still staring at her. No one could outstare Barrani.

“Why won’t you speak about my brother?” he asked. The question was softly spoken, but his tone made it more of a command than a request for information.

She considered and discarded a number of replies as she began to eat. She wasn’t hungry, and even if she had been, Annarion’s question would have killed her appetite. But she’d grown up on the edge of starvation, and she could always eat.

None of her possible replies were good. The truth was, she liked Annarion. He was—for a Barrani—honest, polite, self-contained.

“I don’t suppose you could ask your brother.”

Mandoran took a break from his barbed “conversation” with Bellusdeo. “He’s asked.”

“Nightshade didn’t want to talk about it?”

“No, he talked about it.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“He was lying.”

Annarion glared at Mandoran, looking as if he wanted to argue. He turned back to Kaylin instead. “I want to know your side of the story.” Meaning, of course, that he agreed with Mandoran’s assessment.

“I’ve got the usual mortal memory,” Kaylin replied evasively. “And I might lie, as well.”

Mandoran snorted again. “Your attempts at lies are so pathetic you should probably use a different word to describe them.”

Kaylin glared at Mandoran. Bellusdeo, however, said, “He has a point.”

Kaylin wasn’t certain how she would have answered. She was saved by the appearance of the last of her housemates. Moran—Sergeant Carafel in the office—entered the dining room. Moran was almost never late for anything, even breakfast.

Clearly, she had some reason for being late now, and it wasn’t a pleasant one. Her wings—or what remained of her wings—were stiff and as high as they could get with their protective bindings. Her eyes were blue. Aerian eyes and Barrani eyes overlapped in only one color. Moran was either angry, worried or both.

Kaylin had risen before she realized she’d left her chair, which did nothing to improve Moran’s mood. Moran did not appreciate any worry that was aimed in her direction. Ever.

“As you were, Private.” She sat on the stool provided for her; Aerian wings and normal chair backs didn’t get along well. To Helen, she added, “The mirror connection was smooth and solid.”

It certainly hadn’t started out that way. Helen had a strong dislike of mirrors, or rather, of the mirror network that powered their communication. Regular silvered glass didn’t bother her in the slightest. “I made a few adjustments, dear. I’m terribly sorry that the faulty connections to date have caused so much difficulty for you.”

“They haven’t,” Moran replied, her voice gentling, her eyes darkening.

Helen’s Avatar smiled. “They have.”

“The people on the other end of the connection have caused—or are trying to cause—the difficulty. It has nothing at all to do with you. If the connection had been faultless and solid, it would have given them more time to make things even less pleasant. I’m grateful for the respite.” Her eyes had shifted to a more neutral gray by the time she reached the end of her reassurance. She looked across the table at Bellusdeo.

“Was it the Caste Court?” Kaylin asked. Helen frowned at her but said nothing.

Moran glared Kaylin into the silence Helen would have preferred, but then relented slightly. “It was two castelords and one Hawklord. Before you ask, none of them were particularly happy. And it is caste business. Aerian business. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Moran then turned to Bellusdeo. “Are you accompanying us to the Halls today?”

Bellusdeo’s eyes were golden. “Of course.”

Moran then concentrated on breakfast. Annarion’s attention had fallen on the Aerian, as had Mandoran’s. Neither of the boys interacted much with her except at meals, and while Moran was polite, she wasn’t highly talkative.

“Helen,” Mandoran said, “what happened?”

“I don’t think she wishes to discuss that, dear.”

“That’s why I’m asking you.”

Even Annarion looked pained. “He’s gotten worse since he arrived in this city. He used to be capable of actual manners,” he said to the table at large.

“When they were necessary, yes. Here, no one needs them, and I hate to go through the effort when it won’t be appreciated in the slightest.”

* * *

Less than ten minutes later, Teela and Tain appeared in the dining room as if they’d been summoned. What was left of the breakfast conversation died as they were noticed.

“What, are we not welcome?” Teela asked as she sauntered in. She was wearing a sword. So was Tain.

“You are always welcome,” Helen told her. “Any friend of—”

“Yes, yes. Thank you, Helen.” Chairs appeared at the long dining table as if by magic. Well, actually, by magic. Teela turned one of the two so that its back almost touched the table’s edge. She sat, folding her arms across the top rail and resting her chin on her forearms. To Moran, she said, “What kind of trouble are you expecting?”

Moran glared at Mandoran. She knew the boys could communicate with Teela the same way they communicated with each other. They knew each other’s True Names. All of the children that had been taken, centuries ago, to the West March did. Kaylin thought it a bit unfair that Moran immediately blamed Mandoran.

Mandoran apparently didn’t. “What?” he asked, spreading his hands. “You asked the Dragon if she was heading into the Halls today. You know it gives Kaylin’s sergeant hives the minute she crosses the threshold. You’ve never asked before. Obviously you’re concerned that something requiring brute strength—or magical competence—might happen.”

Moran was silent.

“There are perfectly competent Barrani here. I’ll be damned if I let you depend on a Dragon for heroics. And Teela has to go to the Halls anyway.”

The Dragon in question said, “I’m still going. And in case it’s escaped your notice, Barrani can’t fly.”

“Some can.”

“Not naturally.”

Mandoran shrugged. “If we’re going to get technical, you can’t legally fly, either. Not without Imperial permission.”

The word permission touched off a distinct orange in Bellusdeo’s eyes.

Teela glanced at Moran with some sympathy. “I hear,” she said, her eyes almost green, the Barrani happy color, “that you have a lovely suite of personal rooms. I do hope they make up for the shared spaces.”

Moran was silent for half a beat. “Yes,” she finally said, “they do. They’re very quiet and very peaceful.” She surveyed the table with weary resignation. “I suppose I shouldn’t have expected that the rest of the house would be the same—Kaylin lives here, after all.”

* * *

Helen wouldn’t tell Kaylin the content of Moran’s mirror-based discussion. Normally, this wouldn’t have bothered Kaylin; today, for reasons she felt were obvious, it did.

“They are not obvious to Moran, dear,” Helen replied, although Kaylin hadn’t spoken that part out loud. It didn’t matter. Helen could read the thoughts of almost anyone who crossed her borders. This bothered some of the immortals; it didn’t bother Kaylin. Helen was not judgmental about anything. “You understand that she is older, of a higher rank, and has handled far larger responsibilities than you currently officially have?”

“Yes.”

“She did not come here to put you in danger.”

“I know all that, Helen.”

“She does not wish you to worry. And, Kaylin? While this is your home, Moran is a guest here. Her privacy and her concerns are important to me. Had she no privacy, this would not be a home to her; it would be a prison. An imposition. That is not what you wished for her when you invited her to stay.”

“But Moran’s worried about her physical safety!”

“Yes. But she is not in danger while she is here.”

“She’s not staying here, Helen. She’s going to the Halls of Law.”

“Yes. That is also her choice.”

The small dragon squawked in Kaylin’s ear. When she’d ignored enough of this, he started to chew on the stick that kept her hair out of her way. “Fine.”

“Are you coming?” Mandoran shouted.

“Yes, yes, I’m coming.” Kaylin was at the front door of the foyer before the implication of his question sank in. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Nightshade’s supposed to visit today. I’m going to the Halls with the rest of you.”

“Mandoran—”

“I don’t have trouble masking my presence. Annarion still does. But he’s going to spend another several hours shouting at his brother. Or being coldly disappointed in him. I’m not sure which one is worse. Being here while he’s doing either, however, sucks.” He grinned, his eyes almost green. “And it sounds like you’re going to be having far more fun today than I would if I stayed here. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Kaylin sent Teela a mute glance.

“Don’t labor under the misapprehension that I can tell Mandoran what to do.”

“She’s already tried,” Mandoran added cheerfully. “I’ve been using some of your favorite phrases in private.”

Given what Kaylin’s favorite phrases were, the private part was probably for the best. She offered Moran a very, very apologetic glance. “It’s not always like this,” she told the sergeant.

“No,” Moran replied, her eyes a steady blue. “It’s frequently worse.”

* * *

Stepping outside the open gates that formed the demarcation of Helen’s territory, she felt her skin begin to tingle. Kaylin had what she called an allergy to magic, at least when she was trying to be polite. It made her skin ache. The stronger the magic, the greater the ache; in the worst cases, she felt as if her skin had been sanded off the rest of her body.

She looked down at her arm; the marks that covered two-thirds of her body weren’t glowing through the long sleeves she always wore. When they did, they took on a particular color—usually blue or gold, sometimes gray. It was never precisely a good sign.

Teela noticed her glance immediately, and her eyes lost their green, the Barrani happy shade.

Bellusdeo’s eyes were orange. Mandoran had annoyed her enough—or had reminded her of how annoyed she should be. The Dragon glanced at Moran, who was silent, her eyes a blue that almost matched Teela’s.

Mandoran’s, on the other hand, remained green. “Once you get used to the smell,” he said to no one in particular, “the city’s not so bad.” They had turned onto the more crowded streets; people multiplied, and carts, wagons and carriages began to demand room. Or at least their ill-tempered drivers did.

No one appeared to hear him.

“Kitling?” Teela said.

Kaylin nodded. “It’s getting worse.” And it was. Her arms now ached. Magic sensitivity wasn’t exactly directional, but Kaylin looked up. The sky—absent a few patrolling Aerians—was crisp, clear and empty.

The small dragon jerked to a full sitting position. He opened his mouth on a very, very loud squawk.

Teela cursed, drawing her sword.

“Corporal?” Moran said quietly.

“We have visitors.”

Kaylin reached out and grabbed Moran by the arm. In the Halls of Law, it would have been safer to cut off her own hand—and probably ultimately less painful. The marks on her arms flared; she could see the dim glow of their outlines through her sleeves. That cloth rubbing against her skin was hideously painful.

Moran didn’t fight her. That’s what she would remember with wonder later. Moran let herself be drawn—instantly—into the tight circle of Kaylin’s arms. Kaylin barely had time to close her eyes as the world directly in front of them exploded.

Chapter 2

Stone shattered as if it were brittle glass, fanning out from the spot where Moran had been standing. None of the resulting shards hit Kaylin or Moran; they were protected by a bubble of shimmering gold, courtesy of Kaylin’s familiar. But Darrow Lane wasn’t empty at this time of day; the shards hit pedestrians, wagons and fences. It was the pedestrians who screamed. Other voices picked up the sound as fear turned to panic and people began to flee, often into other people.

Kaylin looked up, scanning the windows of the buildings to either side of the road. Some were open. An old woman and a young child peered down at the street. While it was possible they were responsible for the magical attack, Kaylin doubted it.

“Private.”

Kaylin immediately loosened her grip on Moran. She didn’t completely release her. “Don’t move from here,” she told the sergeant. “We have no idea if that was the only attack.”

Moran looked at the broken stone inches from her feet. “I need to clear the area.”

“You don’t need to clear the area. You’re the target. If you attempt crowd control here and they’re not done yet, you’ll just get people killed.” It was a small miracle that no civilians had died, and Kaylin knew better than to bank on another one.

“You need the streets cleared?” Bellusdeo asked. She turned toward Kaylin. The front of her very practical clothing was smoldering. There were more holes in it than there was cloth. Bellusdeo had not been within the bubble’s radius. The Dragon’s eyes were very, very orange. If eyes were windows into the soul, Bellusdeo’s was on fire.

Kaylin nodded.

“Good.”

* * *

Bellusdeo roared.

In the middle of the crowded Darrow Lane road, this caused even more panic, which was probably why Dragons were technically forbidden to speak their mother tongue in public places. But the roar, unlike the explosion, continued for enough time that people could identify its source and get the hells away from it.

Kaylin then looked for the rest of her companions.

Mandoran was untouched; Tain wasn’t in immediate sight. Teela was. In her left hand, she carried a naked, runed blade; it was glowing brightly. Something about the metal of that blade reminded Kaylin of Severn’s weapon chain, which could combat magic if wielded properly.

“Mandoran,” Bellusdeo said, “you’ve been picking up Elantran at an astonishing rate. You’ve perhaps heard some of their colloquial phrases?”

“Far, far too many. Why?”

“I’m wondering if you’ve encountered this one: ‘it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.’”

Mandoran looked at Bellusdeo, his perfect brow rippling in minor confusion. “I don’t think either of our peoples are much given to begging for anything. Why do you ask?”

Bellusdeo roared again. The first roar had pretty much cleared the street around them for a good ten yards, although it had also panicked horses. Her smile was almost feline. She didn’t bother to shed her ruined clothing; there was no salvaging it. She dropped to her hands and knees and began to shed her human appearance, as well.

Kaylin found the transformation between two solid shapes disturbing; she always did. Flesh wasn’t supposed to be liquid; it wasn’t supposed to twist and expand, changing in both color and texture. Bellusdeo grew golden scales, the largest of which could have served as a very good shield had it been detached; she gained both height and length. And wings.

* * *

“Kitling?” Teela shouted, not bothering to glance back.

“We’re good,” Kaylin replied.

“Moran?”

“I’m fine. The road isn’t,” the sergeant added, looking down at the blistered, cracked and shattered stones at their feet. “If you let go of me, will I still be safe?”

“Depends.”

“On?”

“On whether or not Teela’s going to do something with that sword other than pose.”

Mandoran laughed. He was the only one who did. “She’s going to have to move fast,” he said.

“Mandoran, don’t—”

“I won’t hurt your precious citizens. Well, not all of them, at any rate.”

Bellusdeo spoke in a lower and fuller voice that was nevertheless distinctly her own. “I’ll leave the corporals in charge of apprehending the would-be assassins. Sergeant?”

Moran looked at the golden Dragon. And she was a golden Dragon now—a very large, very imposing one with jaws that were the size of Kaylin.

“I assume you haven’t ridden bareback Dragon before,” Bellusdeo said to the sergeant.

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“A last time, too,” Kaylin muttered. She was still holding on to Moran.

Bellusdeo’s orange eyes paused over her worried expression—which was clearly reflected in them. “Magic?”

Kaylin nodded. “I don’t think they’ve finished yet.”

“Then get on—and don’t let go of Moran until you’re seated.”

Mounting a Dragon wasn’t exactly a no-handed operation, but Kaylin kept this to herself. She understood exactly why she was going to try her best to obey the command: if it weren’t for Kaylin’s alert and bristling familiar, Moran would be dead. Kaylin would probably be dead as well, if it had come to that.

“Has anyone ever tried to assassinate you before?” Bellusdeo asked the Aerian.

To Kaylin’s surprise, Moran answered, “Yes.”

“Often?”

“No. And before you continue the interrogation,” she added, struggling her way into a seated position between spinal ridges along the Dragon’s back, “never with magic.”

“I thought the damn Caste Court wanted you back,” Kaylin said, trying not to sound as outraged as she felt.

“Some of them do. Some, clearly, don’t.”

“And both factions are going to cause boatloads of trouble at the office.”

“Yes. I did warn you.”

Kaylin snorted. As Bellusdeo pushed off the ground and lifted her wings against the pull of gravity, Kaylin shouted, “You’ve got nothing on Bellusdeo!”

“Don’t,” the Dragon rumbled in response, “make me drop you. You might deserve it, but the sergeant doesn’t.”

* * *

The streets directly in front of the main entrance to the Halls of Law were crowded; they often were. Bellusdeo could have landed in them anyway—the approaching shadow of a very large Dragon was more efficient at clearing the streets than a full squad of mounted Swords. She chose instead to land in the stable yards, which had the advantage of fewer civilians. There were more horses, and the horses weren’t thrilled, but that would quickly become someone else’s problem.

Kaylin slid off Bellusdeo’s back; Moran followed. She was a lot shakier on her legs than Kaylin, but then again, she’d never ridden on something the size of a Dragon before. Or possibly on anything else, either.

The small dragon, flopped across Kaylin’s shoulder, lifted his head and squawked.

“We’re good to go,” Kaylin said.

Bellusdeo was reassuming her mortal shape. Given her lack of clothing, she instead donned Dragon armor, scales becoming plates that girded the whole of her body. Kaylin knew this included a helm, but Bellusdeo wasn’t fond of helms. Her hair was a glorious spill down her back; it matched and softened the rest of the armor.

“The Emperor is going to kill me,” Kaylin told the Dragon glumly.

“He wouldn’t dare,” Bellusdeo said with a quirky smile. “This one wasn’t aimed at me.”

Before Moran could speak, Kaylin turned to her and said, “Don’t even think it.”

“Think what?”

“Helen is the safest place for you to live in Elantra. You’re not moving out. There’s a reason the Emperor is willing to let Bellusdeo live with us.”

“I hadn’t even considered it,” Moran replied. When she saw Kaylin’s expression, she added, “It’s the truth. I’m busy considering who might feel desperate enough to kill me today. And why.”

“How many candidates are there?” Bellusdeo asked as they headed into the building.

“More than one.” The sergeant’s eyes were a steady, darkening blue. “I’d ask you not to mention this,” she added, “but given our method of arrival—and escape—it’s impossible to keep it secret.”

“From who?” Kaylin demanded.

“Lord Grammayre.” She closed her eyes. “And the rest of the Aerians.”

“The rest of the Aerians are Hawks, Moran. There’s only one way to take this.”

Moran’s expression made her look older and frailer. “The rest of the Aerians are people, kitling.” She almost never used the Barrani-coined diminutive. “They have lives outside of the Halls of Law, and most of those lives take place in the Aerie. It’s not as simple as you’d like it to be.”

“No, of course not,” Kaylin replied. “Nothing ever is.”

* * *

The first argument occurred within the Halls, rather than outside the main doors. Kaylin didn’t want to let Moran go to the infirmary on her own. Moran pointed out—correctly—that Kaylin’s job depended on a different sergeant, and he was probably orange-eyed and long-clawed by this point.

“He needed a new desk anyway,” Kaylin replied. “I don’t expect mages to show up in the infirmary to kill you. But it doesn’t take a mage.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“You could, before. But you can’t even use one of your wings.” Those wings were not just for flight; they could be used to devastating effect in close physical combat. Although Kaylin had never seen Moran fight that way, she had seen Clint at work. It wasn’t pretty. “Let me heal it, Moran.”

“No.”

“Let me heal it, or I’m not going.”

Bellusdeo silently lifted Kaylin off her feet. “If it’s acceptable to you, Sergeant,” the Dragon said, “I would like to remain in the infirmary with you. The private, of course, has other duties.”

“The Emperor isn’t going to like that,” Moran said, but her lips were quirked in an odd smile as she met the Dragon’s gaze.

“No, he isn’t, is he?” Bellusdeo’s eyes lost a lot of their orange then.

Moran’s lost a lot of their blue.

Kaylin’s gaze bounced between them while her feet dangled off the ground.

“Yes, it’s acceptable to me. Please see Private Neya out.”

* * *

“Don’t even think it,” Bellusdeo said as she deposited Kaylin on her feet. “I am tired of being treated with condescension.”

“I don’t—”

“I am a Dragon. You are a mortal. The sergeant is willing to have me play bodyguard in the infirmary. Push the issue, and she will have neither of us. Is that what you want?” Before Kaylin could reply, she added, “I am endeavoring not to feel insulted. Your hesitation implies that you think you would be more effective.”

Insulting Dragons was the definition of career-limiting. And Bellusdeo was right. Mostly. “What if there’s an Arcane bomb?”

“Fine. If it makes you feel better, you can leave your familiar here, as well.”

The small dragon squawked.

Bellusdeo rolled her eyes. “Yes, I realize that. But they’re not going to get an Arcane bomb through the front doors, the side doors or the back doors. And anything else is just going to annoy me, not kill me.” She walked back into the infirmary and shut the door, loudly, in Kaylin’s face. The familiar stayed where he was, but complained more.

* * *

Moran was right.

As Kaylin approached the office space designated for the Hawks and their much-hated paperwork, she could practically hear Leontine growling. Marcus was seated at what remained of his desk.

He did, however, have paperwork, and it seemed to be more or less in stable piles.

His eyes were orange, his bristling fur made his face look 50 percent larger, and his fangs were prominent. Clearly, he’d already gotten the news.

“Private!”

She scurried over to the safe side of his desk, which at this point meant the side that was farthest from his unsheathed claws.

“Where’s the Dragon?”

“...In the infirmary.” Marcus’s eyes went from orange to near red. Bellusdeo was the only female Dragon in existence. Her survival and safety meant more than almost anything else to the Emperor; having her tangled up in magical assassination attempts—even if they weren’t aimed at her—was going to cause what was politely referred to as “politics.”

“Bellusdeo wasn’t injured. At all. She’s there to help Moran.” This reassurance smoothed some of the Leontine’s fur. Marcus’s eyes remained orange, however.

“What happened?”

“I’m not entirely certain.” This was apparently the wrong answer, but Marcus held on to patience. Barely. “Someone attempted to kill Sergeant Carafel. With magic. While we were on the way to the Halls.”

“They failed.”

Kaylin nodded.

“You entered the building through the stable yards.”

Kaylin nodded again. When Marcus glared at her, she confessed that Bellusdeo had flown Moran to the Halls.

“Marcus, what’s going on? Why is someone trying to kill Moran?”

“Did you see the assassin?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you see anything?”

“No. I felt it before it hit. I would have stayed to investigate, but Teela wasn’t certain they’d finished yet, and we wanted to get Moran to safety. If the assassin was actually an Aerian, we had Bellusdeo. In aerial combat against Dragons, the Aerians are kind of mortal.”

“You are going to make me lose most of my fur,” he growled. His eyes were probably as gold as they were going to get for the rest of the day. “Corporal Handred is waiting for you. Get to work.” The mirror at his desk demanded attention. Loudly.

Kaylin almost escaped it, heading for Severn, who was leaning against the wall beside the duty roster’s board. If she’d run, she might have.

“Private!”

Severn met her gaze, raising one brow in question.

She mouthed the Hawklord, her back turned to Marcus. There was no point in whispering; Leontine hearing would pick it all up anyway. She turned back to the sergeant.

“The Hawklord would like to see you. Now.”

* * *

Severn accompanied Kaylin up the Tower stairs. While they walked, she told him about her morning. Unlike Marcus, he seemed to take the information in stride. No one had been injured, except for the would-be assassin. Teela and Tain hadn’t arrived at the Halls yet, so it was possible they were still in pursuit.

“I asked Clint what was going on with the Aerians,” Kaylin added. “He won’t say a damn thing. But he definitely didn’t want Moran to be living with me.”

“Probably for your sake,” Severn pointed out. “And given the start of your morning, he’s not wrong to worry.”

“I’m going to have to invite him for dinner one day. He’ll change his mind.”

Severn glanced at her and shrugged, which was his polite way of disagreeing.

“No assassin is going to get anywhere near her while she’s with me.”

“She doesn’t spend every hour of her waking day in your house. She spends some on the way to the Halls, in the Halls, and on the way to your home.”

Kaylin glared at him.

“I’m not disagreeing with your decision. I think Helen is the safest for Moran—and given the sergeant’s general expression these days, Helen might be offering more than just safety. But Clint’s right. You’re in danger while you’re with her. You accept that danger. Don’t look at me like that—I accept it. I also acknowledge it.”

“What do you think the Hawklord’s going to say?”

“I don’t know. Even odds he’s going to tell you to ask Moran to move out.”

“He can get stuffed.”

“I didn’t say he’d expect you to agree.”

* * *

Kaylin hated politics. Hated them. She hated the stupid decisions, the game playing, the grandstanding. She hated political decisions made by people who never had to do any of the law’s actual work. She hated the pervasive sense of superiority and smugness that underlay all of the rules.

She was going to try very, very hard not to hate the Hawklord. He wasn’t the source of the bureaucratic rules that were often handed down; he was simply the mediator, and their only shield against the worst of them. She told herself that grimly as she faced his closed doors—and the door ward that girded them.

“Let me,” Severn said quietly.

She shook her head. “I don’t know if he knows you’re here.”

“He knows.”

“Fine. I don’t think he summoned you. He’ll probably tolerate your presence. You are my partner, after all.” Gritting her teeth, she lifted her left hand and placed it against the ward. As usual, the magic required to open the door shot through her palm, numbing it instantly; all of her skin screeched in protest. The small dragon squawked.

She was tempted to let her familiar melt the damn door ward. She just didn’t trust him to melt only that. And her meager pay wouldn’t stretch to cover the cost of doors specifically prepared to carry magical wards.

The doors rolled open. The Hawklord was standing in the circle at the center of the Tower, his eyes a dismal shade of blue. Kaylin was heartily sick of blue eyes, and the working day had barely started. Unfortunately, she didn’t expect to see many colors that weren’t blue or orange today. Severn, being human, had eyes that didn’t change, for which she was grateful.

“Private,” the Hawklord said.

She executed a very precise salute. Severn, by her side, did the same, and did it better.

“Corporal.” There was a question in the word; it bounced off Severn’s completely shuttered expression. “Very well.” The Hawklord gestured; the doors closed. Only when they were completely shut did he speak again. “Private, you’ve had a very eventful morning.”

“Sir.”

His brows rose very slightly. “Is that a ‘yes, sir,’ or a ‘no, sir’?”

“It’s a sir.”

“I see. You are no doubt aware,” he continued, turning away from Kaylin and toward the Tower’s central mirror, “that my morning has become vastly more eventful as a result of yours?” He gestured the mirror to life, and its silver, reflective surface absorbed his reflection, scattering it to the edges of the frame. What remained was a kind of pale, ash-gray sheen. Or at least that’s what Kaylin could see.

“How is Moran adjusting to life with you?”

It wasn’t the question she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t promising.

“Shouldn’t you be asking Moran that?”

“She is not currently present. You are.” His tone made clear that his tolerance for insubordination was quickly reaching an all-time low.

“She’s doing well. She likes Helen.”

“The...Avatar of your home?”

“Yes. Helen likes her. She has her own rooms in the house—everyone does.” She hesitated; the Hawklord was expressionless. “Helen makes rooms for people who are going to be permanent guests. She made rooms suitable for an Aerian. She’s got furniture suitable for an Aerian, and the ceilings are tall.”

“Moran is not flying.”

“No. She won’t let me heal her.”

“Yes. I forbade it.”

Kaylin stared at him in outrage. She managed to shut her mouth before words fell out.

“I did not expect you would become involved with the sergeant. She is in the infirmary; you are a street Hawk. You have a sergeant, and if he growls incessantly about the difficulty of having you in his ranks, he is capable of containing any damage you cause.” The Hawklord exhaled. “I did not expect that you would come to work with a Dragon in tow. I have been told very, very quietly that the Dragon is worth more to the Emperor than the rest of the Hawks combined—including myself.”

“...By the Emperor?”

“Yes. Lord Bellusdeo has occupied much of my time. I would ask you to leave her at home, but it has also been made clear that the choice is to be Lord Bellusdeo’s. I did not expect to add Moran dar Carafel to the list of things with which I must deal. What are you trying not to say?”

“...The Emperor is fine with Moran living with me.”

The Hawklord closed his eyes briefly. “Is it too much to hope that you did not hear this directly from the Emperor himself?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The Emperor may change his opinion soon. It is his prerogative.”

Kaylin said a lot of nothing for a long time.

“I wish to know two things. First: tell me what happened this morning. Records, map.” The mirror finally surrendered an image that Kaylin could see. She obligingly approached it, scanning the lines that were supposed to represent streets and buildings. She lifted a finger, and a point appeared—in bright, scarlet red—beneath it.

“Here.” Kaylin then recounted the events of the morning, leaving out the general snark that passed for conversation between Bellusdeo and Mandoran. In fact, she tried to leave Mandoran out of the discussion altogether. The Hawklord wasn’t buying it, and she surrendered and answered his pointed questions.

“Have you examined the site?”

“No—we came straight to the Halls. Moran was the target, and we couldn’t see the assassins; we wanted to get her to safety. The Halls have some of the most impressive protections against illegal magic in the city. Only the palace has better. Are the Imperial mages at the site?”

“That would be one of the many, many difficulties this morning has caused.”

“What difficulty?”

“The nature of the assassin is unknown, yes?”

Kaylin had just finished saying as much, and chose to wait.

“The Aerian Caste Court is, however, attempting to invoke the laws of exemption. They do not wish the incident to be investigated at all.”

As a Hawk, Kaylin despised the laws of exemption. The laws were the laws. Crimes were crimes. But exemptions could legally be granted to the racial Caste Courts if both the criminals and the victims were all part of one happy race. She understood, as only someone born in the fiefs could, that money and power created their own special laws of exemption on either side of the Ablayne River—but damn it, she hated official sanction.

“On what grounds?” she demanded.

He was silent.

“First,” she said, raising a finger, “the attack took place on Darrow Lane. It’s one of the busier stretches of Elantran streetfront, and it is definitively not in the Southern Reach or the Aeries.” The Hawklord nodded. “Second, we couldn’t see the would-be assassin. We have no idea who, or what, he or she was. They could have been Barrani. They could have been mortal. In order for the laws of exemption to be invoked, the assassin would have to be an Aerian.” She slowed down then.

“Is there a third point?”

“Third: there was visible property damage. The street was shattered. No argument can be made that the magic used didn’t affect the rest of the non-Aerian population. People were probably injured by bits of flying debris. Um, can I go back to the second point now?”

“Yes.”

“If the Caste Court is attempting to invoke exemption, they’re pretty much declaring the assassin was Aerian. Which strongly implies that they know who the assassin is. Or was.”

“Yes.”

Kaylin swore. A lot. The Hawklord didn’t even grimace.

“Lord Grammayre, who exactly is Moran?”

He exhaled and turned back to the mirror. “You said that Teela, Tain and Mandoran were in pursuit of the assassin.”

Kaylin nodded. “Teela must have expected serious trouble. She brought her runed sword. If they catch the assassin, and the assassin isn’t Aerian, the Caste Court can go—”

“Yes. The second matter I wished to discuss with you is Moran’s rooms.”

“Her rooms have nothing to do with the Halls,” Kaylin replied.

The Hawklord waited.

“She’s a guest. She’s under Helen’s protection. If Moran won’t discuss the rooms with you, it’s not right that I do.”

“I have spoken, briefly, with Moran about her current living situation.” He waved a hand across the mirror. “Records, personal.”

Kaylin dared a glance at Severn; Severn was frowning. It was his concentration frown; he wasn’t expecting danger. He watched the mirror’s rippling surface while it stilled.

The Hawkord did the same.

* * *

The image that came into view made Kaylin wonder if the Hawklord had somehow already seen the inside of Moran’s rooms. She understood that asking questions to which one already knew the answer was an interrogation technique—a way of gauging how much someone else knew, or how much they were willing to admit to knowing. It was also a way of determining how much truth you were likely to get.

“Do you recognize this?” the Hawklord asked.

The Records capture looked like Moran’s rooms. The ones he’d asked about. But as the mirror’s view pulled back, she realized that these weren’t Moran’s rooms. There was too much sky and too much rock in the distance. Mostly rock. She could see Aerians flying precise, tight circles to the right and above. She thought she recognized the formation, but it broke and regrouped.

“No,” she said, to the Hawklord’s question. “I don’t. This is in the Southern Reach?”

“In one of its outer recesses, yes. It is considered a primitive—a very primitive—residence. They are not much used in modern times.”

This primitive residence, however, wasn’t uninhabited.

All of Kaylin’s experience of Aerians was in the Halls of Law, or rather, with Hawks. There were no old Aerians in service to the Imperial Law. This was Kaylin’s first glimpse of an elderly Aerian. Her hair was silver with age; hints of iron added color to what otherwise would have been a uniform white. Her wings were frosted in the same way, but they showed no other sign of age to Kaylin’s admittedly unfamiliar eye. But they were rigid, held high.

“Who is she?” she heard herself ask the Hawklord.

“She was Gennet.”

“Her flight?” No one used flight names in the office; the Hawklord had gently forbidden it. But Kaylin knew—from racial integration classes—that the Aerians were not distinguished by family name so much as flight name. She’d badgered Clint for his, but he pointed out that he was working on roster time, which meant he wasn’t obliged to answer. Was, in fact, obligated to do the opposite.

The Hawklord was silent for so long, Kaylin was certain he didn’t intend to answer. “She had no flight,” he finally said.

“How could she have no flight?”

“You think of flights as family,” he replied. “They serve that function; they are almost analogous. But they are more—and less—than that. Gennet, at the time of this Records capture, had kin, but she had no flight.”

“Did they kick her out?”

“No, Kaylin.”

“Did she leave?”

“No. And it is not of the flights that I meant to speak.” But he watched, and so did Kaylin, as a child came running out of what looked like the mouth of a cave. An Aerian child. She was young, perhaps six or seven, maybe older. Her hair was dark, long; it fell about her shoulders and down her back, swishing as she moved. She was looking up, and up again. Kaylin could see the shadows cross her upturned face.

“That girl,” Kaylin began.

The Hawklord lifted his left wing in a snap of motion, as if he were shaking off liquid. The image shattered, scattering across a surface that quickly became simple and reflective. Kaylin faced herself and the Hawklord in the oval frame.

“That child was all that remained of Gennet’s family.”

“Gennet’s dead,” Kaylin said flatly, although she meant to ask instead of state.

“Yes.”

“How do you have this in Records?”

“It is personal.”

“These are official Records!”

“Yes. Yes, they are.” He turned to study her. “Have you seen Moran’s quarters?”

Kaylin nodded. When he failed to look away or respond, she said, “Yes.” And then, taking a deeper breath, and remembering everything she owed this Aerian, she continued. “Yes. Her rooms look very, very much like this impoverished residence. I think—I think she was happy there. That was Moran, wasn’t it?”

The Hawklord didn’t answer.

Chapter 3

Teela and Tain had arrived at the office by the time Kaylin had finished her meeting with the Hawklord—or until the Hawklord had dismissed her, which was more accurate. She had gotten no further information from him, and she wasn’t certain what to do with the information she had gotten. She couldn’t figure out what the Hawklord wanted her to do.

But she was angry—and disturbed—by the Aerian application for exemption status. She wasn’t certain what she hoped Teela and Tain had found. No, actually, that wasn’t true. She wanted the assassin to be a Barrani Arcanist, because everyone with any capacity for thought considered them to be raging social evils.

She didn’t want them to catch an Aerian.

She accepted, as she glumly made her way down the stairs, that she was being unfair. The only Aerians she’d met were all Hawks, and she desperately wanted the Aerians to be above something as grim and illegal as assassination. But of course Aerians were people. If the Hawks managed to be Hawks first, it didn’t mean there was nothing left over.

Kaylin had always wanted family, ever since her mother died and maybe even before that. But she wondered if the lack of family was a possible advantage to her working life. She didn’t have family responsibilities that tied or bound her; she didn’t have to choose, consciously and continuously, between being a Hawk and being a human.

She hadn’t expected Clint’s reaction to Moran’s injury. She hadn’t expected to be told to butt out, to not care, to offer no help—except by Moran. She wanted to storm to the front doors and shout at Clint the way she’d been smart enough—barely—not to shout at the Hawklord.

She’s a Hawk, damn it.

“I think everyone knows that, kitling,” a familiar voice said. “Everyone knows you think that’s the only thing that matters, as well.” When Teela came into view at the arch that separated the Tower stairs from the office, she looked up. “I assume you didn’t mean to say that out loud?”

“Does it matter?” Kaylin replied, flushing. “It’s not like it’s going to change anyone’s attitude anyway.”

The Barrani Hawk shrugged. “If you’re going to think out loud, you might want to do it in a place with less acoustical emphasis.”

* * *

Teela had not chosen to meet Kaylin at the foot of the Tower stairs for no reason. Although Tain was absent, Mandoran could be seen in the distance, sprawled across Teela’s chair. The rest of the Barrani Hawks—there were only two in the office at the moment—viewed him with healthy suspicion. If he noticed, he didn’t care.

“Did you catch him?”

“That’s making an assumption.”

“Fine. Did you catch her?”

“No.”

“Did you at least see the assassin?”

“Not directly.”

“Teela—”

“Kitling,” Teela said gently, “we’ve been pulled off of the investigation. The Aerian Caste Court—”

“Can stuff itself!”

“Perhaps,” was the neutral reply. “But until the Caste Court is told to, as you put it, stuff itself by the Emperor, that call’s not ours to make. What did the Hawklord say?”

“He told me that the Caste Court had applied for pretty much instant exemption.”

Teela nodded, as if she’d expected no less. It made Kaylin feel vaguely stupid or naive, neither of which she enjoyed. Her life in the fiefs—or her life since she’d been thirteen—should have destroyed that naïveté completely.

But they were Aerians.

“You need to stop idolizing the Aerians.” As comforting statements went, this was about rock bottom—but it was pure Teela.

“I don’t idolize them.”

“You do. Kitling, they have wings, yes, but they’re mortal. They’re people. Wings don’t give them any moral or ethical advantage over anyone else who lives in this city. I know there were no Aerians in the fiefs. But there were no Dragons, either, and you don’t expect the Dragons to somehow be paragons of virtue. They’re not a single thing. They’re people, like the rest of us. And some of them are going to be unpleasant sons of bitches. It’s just the law of averages.”

“I don’t expect them to be paragons,” Kaylin replied.

“Good. That’ll make things in the near future much less painful for you.”

* * *

Kaylin did not immediately leave to go on patrol. She should have, but Marcus was busy growling at paperwork and his mirror. He was aware that she’d returned to the office, but he wasn’t yet of a mind to object. Or dock her pay.

She tapped Mandoran on the shoulder. He looked up at her. “Are we leaving?” he asked, deserting the chair Teela was almost certain to kick him out of anyway.

“Yes. We’re patrolling Elani. You always enjoy that.”

“And the Dragon?”

“She’s staying here.”

“Good.”

Kaylin exhaled heavily. She liked Mandoran, most of the time. It didn’t stop her from wanting to smack the back of his head. “You know, I think you’d actually like her if you could treat her with a smidgen of respect.”

“Not worth the effort,” he said, straightening his clothing. His hair, being Barrani hair, was straight and perfectly untangled.

“I like Bellusdeo.”

“Yes. And she likes you. Bellusdeo and I were born, raised, and trained in a world that doesn’t exist anymore. I am never going to be happy about Dragons. And she is never going to be happy about Barrani.”

“She seems to like Teela.”

“Teela is hardly Barrani.”

“I heard that,” Teela said, a distinct edge in her voice. “And if it came from anyone else, they’d be picking up teeth. Or body parts.” To Kaylin, she said, “Try to keep him out of trouble, hmm?”

* * *

Kaylin’s beat was Elani Street, and she headed there with Severn and Mandoran in tow. Only years of long practice stopped her from patrolling in ground-eating, angry strides. She made clear what she thought of politics in several different languages, settling at last on Leontine as the most appropriate, because it implied the most violence.

Mandoran understood every word; he’d picked up most of the phrasing from Teela without the need to actually learn it himself. Kaylin’s extremely foul temper seemed to be a balm to what had started out as a gloomy, bored mood.

“Did you see the assassin?” Kaylin demanded.

“Of course I did.”

“Did Teela?”

Sensing her mood, he answered. “No. And before you ask, I don’t know why I could see her and Teela couldn’t. She could, however, take a look through my eyes.”

“Male or female?”

“Is there a bet riding on the outcome?”

Kaylin rolled her eyes.

“What? If you could be careful enough to count every breath you take during an average day, you’d bet on that.” It was more or less true, which was annoying. So far, the morning had been nothing but annoying.

“Let me guess. You didn’t think to make a bet.”

She hadn’t. “It doesn’t matter. Was the would-be assassin an Aerian?” It was the only question that actually mattered. She desperately wanted the answer to be no, because she desperately wanted to be able to thumb her nose at the Caste Court. And if she were being honest, that wasn’t the whole of the reason.

She was upset because Teela was probably right. For some reason, Kaylin expected better from the Aerians.

“It depends.”

Kaylin glared. “On what? Did they have wings?”

“Yes.”

What was left of her hope curled up in a ball on the inside of her chest. Mandoran, however, stopped walking, forcing her and Severn to stop. When she turned back, he said, “Am I Barrani?”

* * *

She didn’t answer the question immediately, although anyone else looking at Mandoran would have. He looked like the Barrani. He didn’t look young or old; his age was only obvious, according to Teela, because of his behavior. But he had the same skin tone, the same eyes, the same perfect hair and flawless skin, and even the same height.

But she knew that the answer was both yes and no. Mandoran was in Elantra for Annarion’s sake, but he was trying to relearn the art of being Barrani, the race to which he’d been born, for his own.

“Does Teela know?”

“Of course she does. Teela couldn’t see her,” he added. “I imagine only your familiar and I could. She could see what I saw, when she chose to look.”

“Her.”

Mandoran grinned. Kaylin couldn’t. “Teela’s talking to your sergeant now. Oh, no, wait—she’s heading up the Tower stairs to talk to the Hawklord.” He frowned. “She’s just shut me down, so I can’t give you a report on what he has to say. This is bad information?”

“It means the Caste Court is likely to get its damn exemption, yes.” She walked for two full blocks, Mandoran keeping easy pace with her stride. “She wasn’t like you.”

“No. But she wasn’t entirely Aerian, to my eye. She had the form, the shape, the wings—and she also had an odd weapon, as well as a healthy command of magic. But Teela said her invisibility wasn’t entirely due to a spell.”

“What was it due to, in Teela’s opinion? Don’t give me that look—if I ask Teela she’ll just pat me on the head and tell me to mind my own business.”

“Not entirely clear.”

Kaylin hesitated. “Can we take a small detour?” she asked Severn.

He nodded. “Darrow Lane?”

“How did you guess?”

* * *

As it happened, they didn’t make it to Darrow Lane—an area that would have taken “investigational difficulty” to new heights, given the midday traffic. Kaylin had been considering the logistics glumly while they walked very briskly to the site of the attack, but she stopped as a passing shadow grew larger and darker overhead. It was an Aerian shadow, and it wasn’t doing a patrol flyby. She wasn’t surprised to see Clint join his shadow as he landed.

She wasn’t even surprised to see that his eyes were very blue. Disheartened, but not surprised.

“I’ve been sent to find you,” he told her.

“You’ve been sent to chase me away from Darrow Lane.”

“I’ve been sent to make certain that you observe the...etiquette of the laws of exemption, yes.” His expression made clear that he didn’t care for exemptions—but no one in the Halls did, unless the exemptions were for the Barrani. That was just practical. The Barrani were pretty much death for any Hawk who wasn’t.

And, Kaylin thought silently, even the Barrani didn’t care much if the Barrani were murdering each other.

“Clint—what’s going on?”

“I’m not on the Caste Court,” he replied. “And no matter how much I rise in rank, I’m never going to be on the Caste Court. I can’t answer your question.”

“Would you, if you knew?”

“Laws of exemption,” he replied.

Her hands found her hips as she looked up at her favorite Aerian. “Laws of exemption apply to legal consequences. They don’t govern answering bloody questions!”

“Kitling, the human Caste Court isn’t the Aerian Caste Court. They exert different powers. The human Caste Court might as well call itself the ‘Order of Merchants with Jumped-Up Titles and Pretensions’ for all the difference it makes to anyone who isn’t the Emperor. Do you know what happens to outcaste humans?”

Kaylin frowned. “What do you mean, what happens?”

“Are you, that you know of, outcaste?”

“No.” She paused. “I don’t think so.”

“Exactly. The human Caste Court doesn’t give a damn about you. As far as I can tell, they don’t give a damn about humans in general, except the rich or powerful ones. You don’t give a damn about them—you probably can’t name the members that constitute the Caste Court.”

“It’s not relevant to my life or my work,” she said, sounding defensive, hating it and unable to stop. She’d never liked being called stupid, even by implication, and while she’d made strides in her response, the feeling never completely vanished.

“No, it’s not,” Clint replied, his voice gentling. He’d known her for years. “You’re a Hawk. You’re a human. There’s no point in learning all of this crap because it doesn’t make a difference to either your life or your work. But, kitling, the Aerian Caste Court isn’t the human one.”

“You’ve never mentioned it before.”

“It’s never been relevant. If Moran weren’t a Hawk, it wouldn’t be relevant. There’s a reason she’s in charge of the infirmary.”

“Because she’s terrifying?”

He winced, giving in for a moment to amusement. It died fairly quickly. “Other than that. Do you know what happens to outcaste Aerians?”

She didn’t. She shook her head. “Was it covered in racial integration classes?”

“No. The human Caste Court adopted many of the practices of the Barrani Caste Court. They adopted many of the same attitudes and the same pretensions. If Barrani are made outcaste, and they are powerful, they are simply shunned.

“But the Aerian Caste Court adopted many of the practices of the Dragons. Do you know what happens to outcaste Dragons?”

“They die. Unless they fly into Ravellon.”

“Yes. It is the duty of each and every Dragon to exterminate the outcaste.”

“Well, yes—now. There’s only one remaining flight, and its boss happens to be the Eternal Emperor.”

“The Aerian Caste Court is far crueler, in my opinion, than the Dragon Court.”

Kaylin almost gaped, and pressed her mouth into a tighter line to stop that. “What happens to outcaste Aerians?” She had never asked. It had never occurred to her that it would be relevant, and—damn Teela, anyway—she had never truly imagined that an Aerian could be outcaste.

“They cut off our wings and abandon us on the ground.”

She stared at him. “Cut off your wings.”

“Yes.”

“Your wings.”

“Yes.” He looked down at her, some of the harshness leaving his expression.

“But Moran—”

“The sergeant will never be made outcaste.”

“So...they’ll just murder her instead.”

“Yes.”

“Clint, I don’t understand what’s going on.”

“No. But, Kaylin—you have a knack for kicking the hornet’s nest, even when you can’t see it. Look, I’ve known you since you were a kid. I know that you’ll only kick the nest when you’re in a big hurry to help someone; you probably won’t see it until there are swarms of angry insects buzzing around your face. I can ask you not to get involved.” His acute stare made it clear that he already had. “What I need you to understand, in this, is that the hornets aren’t going to sting you.

“If you kick this nest, they’re going to sting Aerians. In the worst cases, we won’t get welts. We’ll lose our lives in every meaningful sense. And yes, before you ask, mutilation is covered by the racial laws of exemption as long as both the involved parties are Aerian. The only person—the only person—who can safely discuss this with you is Moran. Ask me, ask anyone else, and get any answer...” He trailed off, his meaning clear.

“I can’t even look at the attack site?”

“No. The exemption has been granted.”

* * *

There were no more detours on the way to Elani.

Mandoran’s eyes were a restless green with hints of blue when he turned to Kaylin. “He’s wrong about the Barrani Court. In theory, it is the duty of Barrani Lords to kill the outcaste.”

“Nightshade,” was her flat reply.

“We’re a pragmatic people.”

“You invented freaking table manners, I swear. How is that pragmatic? Using utensils I get, but why do we need five forks?” Kaylin had to force herself not to march.

“It’s almost never five.” More seriously, he continued, “We’re pragmatic. Only when politics are heavily involved does it become trickier.”

“Meaning?”

“If the High Lord wished to rid himself of a particularly fractious member of his Court, he would order that lord to destroy the outcaste in question—let’s use Nightshade as our example. If the fractious lord doesn’t wish to become outcaste on a flimsy technicality, he has only one choice. He must attempt to destroy Nightshade.” Mandoran’s tone made clear how unsuccessful this theoretical lord would be.

“So...don’t tick off the High Lord.”

“That’s always good advice. Nightshade has survived all prior attempts on his life, and he is considered a favorite, in spite of his status, with the Lady. And now you’ve distracted me.”

“You were doing most of the talking.”

“True. What I meant was, if the High Lord were intent on the destruction of a Barrani Lord, that lord would die. Period.”

“Clint’s not wrong. That wasn’t what he was saying.”

“No? I admit Teela doesn’t have all that much information about him, at least that she’s willing to share.”

“He’s telling me that my interference could cost him his wings. His literal wings. Because the implication is the Caste Court takes its excommunication very, very seriously. And clearly, Moran is at the heart of it. He’s also telling me that Moran won’t be stripped of her wings. The worst she can do is die.

“But he didn’t make that claim for the Hawklord.” Her shoulders were bunching themselves up near her neck, which annoyed the familiar, who squawked loudly. “And I owe Lord Grammayre my life. All of it.” She glanced at Severn. “What do we do?”

“Our jobs,” he replied. “And until we figure out where the hornet’s nest is, only our jobs.”

* * *

The Elani beat was relatively quiet. The Hawks broke up one fight, stopped someone from breaking a window, gave directions—and withheld advice, which was much, much harder—to new visitors to the quarter. Mandoran headed into Margot’s house of fraud, leaving Kaylin and Severn to their actual work.

“If you’re doing that just to annoy me, it’s working,” Kaylin told him.

Mandoran grinned. “Teela’s advice. So you know who to blame.”

It was, if one ignored the assassination attempt—and apparently, she’d been ordered to do just that—a very normal day. The type of day she yearned for every time she left her own front doors.

* * *

The unusual part of the Elani patrol—and really, on a street full of fortune-telling frauds and miracle-medicine sellers, angry ex-customers trying to cause damage was the usual—came at the end of the patrol. Mandoran had rejoined them, his lips a suspicious shade of red that didn’t look entirely natural. He probably deserved to be clipped by a door that flew open without warning.

The door belonged to Evanton’s shop. Grethan, Evanton’s apprentice, stood in the open frame, looking vaguely anxious. The anxiety cleared as the small dragon launched itself off Kaylin’s shoulders and onto the young apprentice’s.

Kaylin and Severn, who had come to an instant halt, shared a glance before speaking. “Were you looking for us?” Kaylin asked.

Grethan nodded. “Evanton wants to speak to you. He’s in the kitchen with tea. And, um. Tea.”

“Um?”

“He has another guest. The lady’s been in, on and off, for the past three weeks. She wants him to make something he’s not certain he wants to make.”

“And...he’s asking my advice? Did he fall and hit his head?”

“No. If he fell, he’d probably manage to hit my head instead,” was the morose reply. “I’m not sure why he wants to see you,” he added.

“Does he want to see the rest of us?” Mandoran asked, remaining outside in the street. Given Mandoran’s previous visits—which had involved a lot of water in the wrong places—this was a perfectly reasonable question.

“He didn’t say,” Grethan replied. “But I think it should be fine.”

Mandoran looked dubious.

“I think he actually likes you and your brother. He just thinks you’re walking disasters waiting to happen.”

“They are,” Kaylin said before Grethan could continue. “You coming in or waiting outside?”

* * *

The small dragon liked Grethan; he always had. Grethan therefore remained his perch of interest while the apprentice led them to Evanton and his mysterious guest. They were, in fact, in the kitchen, a functional room that had never been intended for guests. The table could comfortably fit four. Evanton’s expression made clear that it was going to uncomfortably fit five, although he did take pity on Mandoran after everyone else was seated. “You can wander around the store, if you’d prefer. I would ask that you not touch anything without checking with Grethan first.”

Mandoran looked to Kaylin, who nodded with some envy.

Kaylin tried to gauge the importance of this visitor. Evanton didn’t let just anyone into his kitchen—probably some mix of pride and self-preservation—but guests of import or power were usually led through the rickety hall in the back to the Keeper’s Garden.

Tea was poured, and Evanton had a cup situated somewhere in front of him, although he didn’t generally like to drink it. He watched Kaylin for a long, silent breath.

“What did I do wrong this time?” It was a surrender on her part. Someone had to speak first, or they’d be here all afternoon.

“That really is the question, isn’t it?” Evanton exhaled. He turned to his guest. “This is Private Kaylin Neya, and Corporal Severn Handred. They are, as you can see, Imperial Hawks, ground division.”

“I’m not sure we call it a division,” Kaylin said. “The rest is accurate.”

She was an older woman. Not as old as Evanton, of course, but her hair was silver with shots of rooted black, and her square face was lined. Her eyes were a pale gray. She was what Kaylin thought of as handsome: there was nothing frail about her, but she had a compelling face. At one point in her life, she might have been considered beautiful. She apparently had no name she was willing to have divulged, because Kaylin and Severn were the only ones who were introduced.

Kaylin didn’t much care about manners for their own sake, but she was as curious as the next person, and the lack of an introduction made her wonder who the woman was, what she was hiding and what laws she’d broken. Then again, Kaylin was a Hawk, and her mind often ran in that direction, full tilt.

“Grethan said you wanted to see us.”

“Yes. I wish to ask your opinion.”

Evanton’s guest clearly didn’t want him to do so. She drank her tea looking stiff and increasingly uncomfortable in every possible way.

“Ask, then—we’re on the clock, and the sergeant is in a foul mood.”

“I would imagine he is, given the assassination attempt.”

Kaylin stiffened. Severn appeared to relax. Only one of these things was accurate. “You’re not just bringing that up to make conversation.”

“No. I try very hard not to waste my own time, given the number of people who seem willing to waste it for me.”

“What do you know about it, and how much do you want me to pass on?”

“I know that the would-be assassin was an Aerian.”

“How do you know that?” Severn asked, in the conversational tones people used to talk about either sports or weather.

Evanton ignored the question. “This is not a matter for the Hawks,” he said. “I believe it will be classified under exemption status. The target was Aerian, the assassin was Aerian. And I do not believe the target will seek to have justice done in the Imperial Courts. I would even be willing to wager on it.” Evanton was aware of the Hawks’ propensity for betting, and he knew whom most of that habit had come from.

“With your own money?”

“Not with money.”

“Odds?”

“Any odds.”

“Fine.” Kaylin folded. “What do you know about the attempt?”

“Very little. It was carried out by magic. The mage responsible will not be catalogued in the Imperial investigative archives, so there is no point at all in bringing in Imperial mages, even if the case were remanded to the regular system.”

“Do you know why?”

Evanton looked to his guest, who stiffened, her hands tightening around the bowl of the teacup as if to draw strength from it. She looked across the table at Kaylin. “If Moran dar Carafel is dead, the wings will pass on.”

“The wings?”

The woman’s lips tightened; this was followed by a downward shift of shoulders as she bowed her head. She was silent for long enough that Kaylin thought she wasn’t going to answer.

Evanton said nothing; he waited, as if he were patience personified. Given the way he generally treated both Grethan and Kaylin, this was unusual. “I was reluctant to involve you,” he said—to Kaylin. “I am still reluctant. You have a way of causing snarls and snags in the cleanest and simplest of tasks—most of which are not predictable and therefore not controllable. But in this case, there is no other option. Lillias, if you will not speak, I must allow the Hawks to go back to their duties.”

Lillias. It was not a familiar name. Kaylin waited while the woman struggled in the silence left by Evanton.

When she finally lifted her head, her eyes were a deep blue.

Chapter 4

Part of Kaylin was wondering if she’d seen the woman’s eye color incorrectly the first time, because part of Kaylin wanted that to be the truth. But this blue was a color specific to Barrani and Aerians; she had never seen humans with eyes this particular shade.

And she had never seen Aerians without wings.

She wanted to ask the woman if her wings were somehow hidden, invisible, but she already knew the answer, and her mouth was suddenly too dry for questions. Every word Clint had said while he stood in Darrow Lane came back to bite her. She tried to keep the horror off her face, but had no idea whether or not she succeeded.

But she would not show pity to a stranger she knew almost nothing about, even if the thing she did know was larger than nightmare.

“Moran dar Carafel’s wings are unique in the flights of the Southern Reach. They are not unique in the history of the flights. They do not exist in every generation. But if one is born with those wings, they are the only ones who can or will bear the markings. No others will be born while the bearer lives.” She spoke slowly, as if weighing all of her words and picking out only the good ones.

“Are the marks determined by gender?”

“No.”

“Are they significant in any other way?”

Silence. When it was broken, it wasn’t broken with an answer. “Moran dar Carafel was injured in her duties here, duties which would be almost anathema to the leaders of the flights. She was not given permission to undertake them; she was not given permission to risk her life in combat. She could not, however, be made outcaste.” The last word was said bitterly. So bitterly. “And now, she is crippled.”

“The wings will heal,” Kaylin said, with more force than the statement merited.

“Will they?”

One way or another, they would. She nodded grimly. “Aerians are trying to assassinate Moran because they want someone else to be born with those wings.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

“Her birth was a grave disappointment,” Lillias agreed, staring into her tea as if she were reading leaves and not much enjoying what she found there. “She was not, originally, Carafel. Her mother, and her mother’s line, lived in the outer Aeries, beneath open sky. We have a saying in the Aerie—” She stopped. Shook her head. “Her mother was adopted into dar Carafel—and even that was bitterly divisive.”

“Her father?”

Lillias grimaced. “The child was not legitimate. Were it not for the wings, nothing would be known of the father.”

“And because of the wings?”

“It was proof that he was of the first families. No one came forward to claim either the mother or her daughter as their own, and the mother never revealed the father’s identity. There is prestige, of course, in bearing such a child, or there should have been. The mothers of such children are accorded respect in great measure; there is no equivalent in human society. But the child was illegitimate. Either the father perished, or the father was mated, bonded—or both.”

“Wouldn’t this also elevate the father?”

“Yes. But not if the father was bonded—married?—to another.”

Evanton nodded.

“If he was of the high clans, and he was married, it would be a disgrace. It is possible Moran’s father is alive and well. It is possible he is dead. It is also possible that he would have been free to marry her when evidence of the child’s importance was known.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“No. Moran did not have a happy childhood. Her mother withered in the confines of the High Reach, treated with the contempt reserved for an unbonded mother in the upper reaches, and when she finally passed away, the child was returned—for a time—to her grandmother’s care. It is there that she was happiest.”

Kaylin nodded.

“She could fly,” the woman’s voice softened. “You have never seen her truly fly.”

Kaylin could remember seeing Moran fly only once—but even so, it was a blur; Kaylin had been on the back of a Dragon at the time, and she’d been watching large chunks of the High Streets turn into molten rock. She’d been watching Aerians falling from the sky. Some would never rise again.

She shook herself. “No,” she said. “I’ve never seen her fly.” It wasn’t even really a lie. She had never seen her happy, either—but she’d imagined that, as a sergeant, happiness had somehow magically been drained from her; Kaylin didn’t know any happy sergeants.

This was different. The silence that fell after her comment was heavy, weighted; it destroyed all movement at the table, and all sound. Kaylin dragged her head around to meet Evanton’s gaze, because it was Kaylin, not Lillias, that he was watching.

“Why did you want to see me?” she asked him.

“Because Lillias needed to speak with you.”

“You said she asked you to make something?”

“No, Kaylin, I did not.” His frown was pure Evanton—well, pure Evanton when he was displeased with poor Grethan. He exhaled. “Lillias?”

“She is not of the people,” Lillias mumbled.

“No, she is not. But technically, neither are you.”

Kaylin sucked in air. Sucked it in and had trouble expelling it again. Evanton’s voice had been, was, gentle. But the words...

“Can I ask why you were made outcaste?” She cringed even as the words left her mouth. “No, I’m sorry, let me take that back? Can I ask if it had something to do with Moran?” The woman was older than Moran, even given the age that despair and desolation added to her features.

“Yes.”

“Have you spoken to Moran since?”

Silence.

Mandoran had said that he had seen wings during the failed assassination. Lillias clearly didn’t have any. Whoever the assassin had been, it wasn’t her.

“How much danger is Moran in?”

Evanton clearly considered this a stupid question.

“More danger,” Lillias replied, “than you can imagine. The Keeper told me that you were responsible for her survival this morning.”

“Not me,” Kaylin said. “She survived because of my familiar and a Dragon.”

Lillias frowned and turned to Evanton. In Aerian, she asked, “Is this true? Is there a Dragon involved?”

Kaylin answered before Evanton could. In Aerian. “Yes. It’s true.”

The woman’s eyes were already as blue as they could get, so they didn’t darken. Her skin did; it flushed. It occurred to Kaylin that the elderly seldom blushed.

“I’m a Hawk,” Kaylin said gently, although she was wearing a tabard that clearly marked her as such. “We’ve got a lot of Aerians working in the Halls, and I joined the Halls when I was a child. My Aerian isn’t great, but I can speak it. I’m sorry.” Keeping her voice gentle, she asked, “What did you ask Evanton to make?”

The woman’s hesitation was sharp, filled with questions or doubts or both. But she eventually bowed her head and said a word, in Aerian, that Kaylin had never heard before. “Bletsian.”

“I’m sorry—I’m not familiar with that word.”

“No, you wouldn’t be,” Evanton said. “Neither would the majority of the Aerian Hawks. It is an old word. The Dragons would be familiar with it.” He frowned. “Or at least the Arkon would.”

“It’s magical?”

“Yes. Before you look askance, you have two enchanted daggers on your person. Not all magic is of the Arcanist variety, as you should well know.”

Kaylin, still frowning, turned to Lillias. “Why would you come to Evanton for magic?”

“Why did you?” Evanton countered.

“Teela made me. I would never have known otherwise, given the location of your shop.”

“Margot,” Evanton said, pinpointing the chief source of Kaylin’s dislike, “is not entirely a fraud.”

“We’re not talking about Margot.”

“No. I merely point out that your dislike of her—while possibly deserved—does her an injustice. It is possible to be both genuine and distasteful.”

“Most of what she does—”

“Is fraud, yes. But not all. And, Kaylin? Where else would she be safe to practice her gift? She is in the open here.”

“Look—”

“She is not confined to the Oracular Halls. Or worse.”

Kaylin closed her mouth. “We weren’t talking about Margot.”

“No. You were implying that nothing genuine is known to be found in Elani.”

“Baldness cures? Come on, Evanton.”

“Elani, very much like any other neighborhood, is not all one thing or the other. I, after all, am here. And it is to me Lillias came.”

Lillias was listening to this conversation with obvious confusion. “Where else would I go?”

“Private Neya feels you should have approached either the Imperial Order or the Arcanum.”

“Kaylin doesn’t feel anyone should approach the Arcanum,” Kaylin snapped.

“Ah.”

“Lillias,” Severn said, joining the conversation—as he so often did—late. “Forgive our ignorance. What is a bletsian?”

“It is a blessing,” the old woman replied. “A blessing of wind, of air.”

“It is a gift,” Evanton told Kaylin, “that she wishes delivered to Moran dar Carafel.”

“Moran’s not big on gifts.”

Evanton ignored this. “She cannot deliver it in person. You, however, can. If you are willing to do this, I will create what has been requested, and I will hand it directly to you. There will be no tampering and no interference.”

“Lillias, what does this blessing do, exactly?”

“It confers,” Evanton said, after it became clear that Lillias would not answer, “flight. Literal flight. It does not, and cannot, last, but some small part of the elemental air will carry the bearer as the bearer desires until the breath of wind is consumed.”

Kaylin looked at this wingless, outcaste woman. “You’re certain,” she said to Evanton, although she didn’t move her gaze, “whatever you give me will be safe for Moran?”

“Yes.”

“Because the assassin used magic. And not a small amount of it,” she almost growled. “And no, I don’t—and won’t—know who the assassin was, or what magic was used, or how powerful the spell was, because the entire thing is under exemption embargo.”

“Kaylin,” Evanton replied softly, “stay out of this.”

“You’re asking me to deliver a magical trinket to a sergeant in the Halls of Law, and I’m supposed to stay out of it? She’s living in my house, Evanton.”

“I am aware of that. I do not disapprove in any regard save one: you know too many Aerians, and you consider them family.”

“I consider them Hawks!”

“They are. My point, however, stands. This is not your fight, Kaylin. Do not make it your fight.” To Lillias, he said, “You see how she is?” As if Kaylin had been a topic of discussion.

Lillias turned to Kaylin then, as if making a decision. Her expression was more open, more generous with pain and loss, than it had been when Kaylin had first entered the kitchen.

“Moran’s mother did not immediately reveal the child. She was poor, even by the standards of the flights. She was considered fine-feathered, strong, healthy—but she was of no good flight. She bore a child, hidden, with only her own mother in attendance. But the child was Illumen praevolo.”

Kaylin opened her mouth to ask the obvious question, but before the words could fall out, Evanton reached out and placed a hand over hers. He shook his head, his expression implying that an interruption wouldn’t just break the flow of words—it would dam it entirely.

Lillias spoke the words as if they were almost a prayer. Given Lillias’s constant hesitance, Kaylin filed the words Illumen praevolo away for later use.

“Had she gone to the Upper Reach immediately, it is likely the child would have been removed from her and passed off as the legitimate issue of a more suitable man—and that is why she did not do so. She kept the child hidden until the child could no longer be hidden.

“And so, the flights came, at the whispered rumor that a praevolo had been born. Before you make that face, understand that humans are not the only sellers of dreams and fraud. The rumor was not given credence until it grew; such rumors are always with us in the absence of a praevolo.

“She was underfed, undereducated, undertrained. Were it not for her markings, her wings—so unlike her mother’s—she would have been considered mediocre at best. But she was, indeed, praevolo. They could not deny it and did not try. They offered the mother respect, praised her for keeping the child alive and hidden. They bade her to continue to do so, flew her to new quarters vastly larger and better appointed, and left to make their report.

“The castelord was enraged at what he considered the waste of it. A child who might have been a boon if born to the Upper Reaches was now a weakness. Had she been just another—what is your word? Bastard?”

At Kaylin’s stiff nod, she continued, “She would have been insignificant. But the castelord felt that she had illegitimately taken hold of the equivalent of an artifact, something to which she should not have been born, and of which she could never be worthy. The Caste Court decided, at that time, that her death was regrettable, but necessary. If she perished, the wings would return again, and this time, they would be watching, they would be alert. They would not make the same mistake.”

Kaylin hadn’t touched her tea; if she were drinking it, she’d’ve choked.

“It was the Caste Court’s decision to make.”

Kaylin hated the laws of exemption with a blinding passion at this moment, because Lillias was talking about the perfectly legal murder of a child. She managed to contain every visceral Leontine phrase that tried to tear itself out of her mouth. “Moran’s still alive,” she said. “Did they decide to wait and see?”

“No. An attempt was made. Three attempts were made, actually. Two involved poison. Neither poison was successful. It was assumed that the poisoner was incompetent, or deliberately treacherous. As it happened, they were neither. They poisoned the food. The child ate the food. The poison failed to take effect, and the child did not die. Her mother, however, did.

“History was then studied, but our historical records are not like your Records. The castelord could find histories of the deaths of the praevolo, but not one had fallen to disease or poison. Not one died in childhood of the things that might otherwise take the young.

“And so it was decided that she would have to die in a different fashion—history did record other deaths; the praevolo were not immortal or invulnerable. Moran’s grandmother died in the third attempt. Moran had servants, of course, but they did not serve her, and they were ordered to other duties that day. The child was alone with her grandmother.

“Not all of the servants who absented themselves intended to turn a blind eye. One traveled some distance up, to find someone who would listen—and care. The orders were quiet but absolute—they were not meant to leak down to the people beneath the Upper Reach, as there was some concern that the decision would not be popular.

“Someone intervened. Not in time to save the grandmother, but in time to save Moran.”

“But wouldn’t they just try again?”

“They would, yes. They would have. But Moran’s wings were then made public. She was flown—no, Kaylin, she flew—through the entirety of the Aeries; through every crag, every valley, to every peak of the Southern Reach. She wept and she raged and she soared until flight was the only thing she felt, the only thing that mattered. And we saw her. Upper Reaches to Outer, we saw her. We knew that she was Illumen praevolo. Every one of us.

“They could not kill her then.”

“But they’re trying to do it now?”

“She cannot fly,” Lillias said, as if that explained everything.

“She can’t fly yet.” And this was going to get them both nowhere. “What do the wings mean? What exactly is the Illumen praevolo?” Kaylin demanded.

“The wings mean nothing,” Lillias replied, ignoring the second question. “Because Moran dar Carafel will allow them to mean nothing. In the past, that was acceptable, but only barely. But now, it is much less so. As I said, she cannot be made outcaste. She can be summoned to the Aerie, but because she is an Imperial Hawk, she can disobey. The laws of exemption require her permission to be invoked if she is at the center of the controversy.”

For one moment, Kaylin saw the bright gleam of a way out. It guttered. If the laws had been invoked, if Clint believed they had been accepted, it meant Moran had accepted them, too.

Lillias shook her head. “She has not chosen to heed the summons.”

“She probably can’t, if she can’t fly. Yet.”

“She was capable of flight before. She has never heeded the summons. The castelord responsible for the death of her mother is dead. The Caste Court is comprised of different men, different women. Until she was injured, she lived in the Upper Reaches, but she spoke with no one. She has never forgiven the Aerie for her mother’s death.”

“Or her grandmother’s?”

Lillias said nothing.

“Why do you want to help her?”

“Is that what you think I am doing?” the old woman replied. Before Kaylin could answer, the woman closed blue eyes. “Do you believe in her?” she asked softly.

It wasn’t the question Kaylin had been expecting. Then again, she wasn’t certain that she’d expected any of the conversation Evanton had forced on both of them.

“How can I not believe in her?” Kaylin replied, although it took time. “I’m a Hawk. She’s a Hawk. She got her injury fighting something that was powerful enough to take down Dragons. Plural. She got that injury doing her duty—doing what the Aerians could do that the rest of us, wingless, couldn’t.”

“And her duty to her own people?”

Kaylin struggled with this for longer. The Aerians had murdered her mother and her grandmother. She owed them nothing. There were racial tensions among Hawks. But there were personal tensions, as well. They were all people. And they were all people who’d decided, despite race or even because of it, to serve the Imperial Law that protected those who didn’t have a lot of money or power. Were they perfect? Hells no. But they were trying. It was more than the fieflord of Nightshade had ever done. It was more than any fieflord, with the exception of Tiamaris, had ever been rumored to do.

Kaylin felt no particular attachment to her own race. She had daydreams of being born to a different one—Aerian, usually. She hadn’t ever considered what she owed the human race. Then again, she hadn’t really considered what she owed anyone who wasn’t a Hawk.

She was Chosen. That was special. But Chosen, or rather, being Chosen, didn’t depend on race. Kaylin wasn’t certain what it did depend on. She wasn’t even certain what it meant on most days.

Had it been dependent on being human, had humanity somehow required it, would she have changed her entire life to fulfill the debts and obligations she’d never asked for? Would she do it if that debt and obligation had indirectly killed her mother?

“I’m sorry, Lillias,” she finally said. “I don’t know. I admire her. She’s always been slightly terrifying—especially if you’re already injured and she decides you need to be strapped to a bed for a week—but she’s a Hawk. I don’t see her the way you see her.”

“Do you even know how I see her?”

“No. You haven’t said. I’m willing to listen, if you want to talk about it.”

Lillias nodded. She turned to Evanton instead of speaking.

Evanton turned to Kaylin. “I will do as Lillias has asked. But, Kaylin—stay out of this. Everything you can safely do, you’ve done. And I do not think you are ready to pay the cost for more.” He rose. “I will see you out.” To Lillias, he added, “I will be but a moment.”

* * *

Kaylin hit the street in an internal fog of confusion and anger. She had retrieved her familiar from Grethan’s shoulders, and he had immediately wrapped himself around hers, squawking in soft complaint as he did. She barely noticed, he was so much a part of her life. “Did he do that on purpose?” she asked her partner. Mandoran, retrieved from the bowels of the oldest shelves in the building, glanced at both of them.

It was Mandoran who answered. “Of course he did.”

“Do you even know what I’m talking about?”

“Introducing you to the Aerian woman. The wingless one.” Mandoran stared at Kaylin, his eyes an odd shade: not green, but not blue, and not the usual blend of both, which was almost the Barrani resting state. “You like Aerians. You like Hawks. You like Aerian Hawks better than you like most of the rest of the Hawks, with some obvious exceptions. She lost her wings. She’s outcaste.

“If you push this, some of your Hawks are likely to end up the way she did. He wants you to understand that as more than theory.” Mandoran stopped in front of Margot’s sandwich board. “Did you?”

“Did I what?” she asked, irritable and restless.

“Did you understand it? Could you imagine Clint without wings?” He froze for a moment, his eyes going flat. “Teela tells me I should apologize for that.”

“Don’t bother unless you mean it.”

“That’s what I told her.”

* * *

The rest of the day was uneventful. The Hawklord did not demand to see her again, and Marcus, while growly, was content to snarl at everyone and not Kaylin in particular. Teela and Tain had not returned from their own beat when Kaylin checked out; Severn remained with her instead of heading to his place.

She stopped at the infirmary to pick up Bellusdeo and Moran and discovered that there had been trouble on the banks of the Ablayne—no surprise there. If there was trouble anywhere in the city, odds were it had occurred on or near the Ablayne’s many bridges. The bridges that fed into the fiefs, with the growing exception of Tiamaris, were in low-rent areas.

But this trouble was only a mundane knife fight, and the Hawks had come out on top, although they’d pulled in a couple of Swords; it was the Swords who required medical attention, and they received it with their usual stiff upper lips. The Hawks, Kaylin reflected, cursed more. And in better languages.

They were late heading home, and by the time Moran was ready to leave, Teela and Tain had returned. They were waiting, lounging really, outside the infirmary doors. The infirmary was strictly for mortals, as far as the Barrani on the force were concerned. Moran contested this from time to time, but the Barrani, accustomed to kin who were just as likely to kill them as come to their aid, weren’t bothered by the sergeant’s demeanor.

Moran’s lips tightened as she caught sight of the Barrani, but she said nothing. She locked the office with the touch of a palm and a three-word command, and headed out of the building.

The guards had changed shifts, and happened to be human, not Aerian, which made passage between them less awkward. And it was going to be awkward, because Mandoran’s question still cut her when Kaylin returned to it.

She wanted to help Moran.

Was she willing to risk Clint losing his wings, if she made a mistake?

Was she willing to risk Lord Grammayre losing his?

* * *

Helen was waiting for them at the door, and as Kaylin stepped into the front foyer, she felt her jaw unclench. There had been no further problems on the way home. No invisible assassins, for one. Helen gently draped an arm around Kaylin’s shoulder, taking care not to crush the familiar, who lifted a lazy eyelid to look at her before he shut it again.

“Why is he so exhausted?” Helen asked.

“Who knows? All he’s done today is complain and sit on people’s shoulders.” Except for saving Moran’s life. Kaylin glanced apologetically at the familiar, who failed to notice.

The small dragon squawked without opening his eyes.

“You visited the Keeper?” Helen asked Kaylin.

Moran stiffened. “I’m going to take a bath,” she told Helen. “I’m not sure I’ll be down for dinner.”

“That’s fine, dear. I’ll have food sent up if you aren’t.” She watched Moran mount the large staircase, but waited until she had disappeared before speaking again. “She’s worried about you,” she told Kaylin.

“I’m beginning to understand why people hate worry so much,” Kaylin replied. “You guys eating here?”

Teela glanced at Tain, who shrugged. “Looks like a yes. We’re going out drinking after, if you want to come.”

“Maybe.”

The Barrani exchanged another glance.

“I’m going to get changed for dinner,” Bellusdeo told them all. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t leave without me.” Her eyes were close to gold as she met Teela’s. Teela’s were closer to blue.

Unable to ditch her Barrani guests, Kaylin looked to Severn, who raised a brow. But he did nod, and headed toward the dining room, which had become the equivalent of an informal parlor. There was a lot of room, it had chairs and it was always well lit. The Hawks used it the way they used the benches in the mess hall; the parlor was almost intimidating in its formality by comparison.

Kaylin hung back.

“She knows what you’re doing,” Mandoran said cheerfully.

“Great. Can you tell her that I enjoy being worried about as much as she does?”

“Yes,” Teela said, before Mandoran could reply, “and when you’ve got centuries of experience under your belt, I’ll stop.”

Which, of course, meant never, because Kaylin wasn’t immortal and was, in all likelihood, never going to see one century.

She kept seeing Clint without wings. It was his wings she had loved first. Everything else had followed, as wings—and what they meant to Kaylin—made way for the person to whom they were attached.

And yes, that probably meant Teela was right. The Aerians were people, just like any other people; the fact that they had one physical characteristic that was at the heart of Kaylin’s many, many daydreams and longings was Kaylin’s problem, not theirs. They didn’t owe her her dreams. They didn’t have to live up to them.

To Helen, she said, “Can I use the mirror?”

“Now, dear?”

Sarcasm came and went. Kaylin managed to keep it to herself, but Helen, who could read the thoughts of almost anyone who entered the house, heard it all. Helen, like Tara, didn’t mind hearing it all.

“Why is now bad?”

“Lord Nightshade is still speaking with his brother.”

“And?”

“I still don’t trust him. It requires a diversion of attention in order to properly contain the intrusion of the mirror network.”

“I honestly don’t think he’s going to do anything damaging or stupid—at least not to you.”

“No. But Annarion is at his least stable when his brother is visiting, and it takes some effort to contain the possible danger of his instability, as well.”

Kaylin exhaled, nodding glumly.

* * *

Moran did not come down to dinner. Bellusdeo and Maggaron did, the former dressed in something other than her armor. Kaylin was certain she’d be hearing about the armor sometime in the morning, and tried not to think about it too much.

The entire dining table fell silent when Annarion joined them, because Annarion brought his brother. Both he and Nightshade were blue-eyed, and it wasn’t the resting state of caution and natural superstition; it was dark.

Annarion bowed very formally and very correctly; Mandoran snorted. Loudly. While both Teela and Tain had stiffened into the type of formality that signaled the possibility of upcoming death, Mandoran lounged. He nodded at Nightshade as if the fieflord were mortal.

Helen set a place for the unexpected guest without being asked. But Helen, like Teela and Tain, had an air that was distinctly more martial. The dining room became, with the insertion of Nightshade, a small battlefield. On the other hand, the cutlery didn’t turn into daggers or swords.

Nightshade’s seat was not beside Annarion; nor was it beside Kaylin. It was between Bellusdeo and Teela. A dark, perfect brow rose as he glanced at Helen; his lips folded into something too sardonic to be a smile. An acknowledgment, perhaps. Her suspicion did not offend him.

No, Kaylin thought with some surprise. The only thing in the room that appeared to do that was the younger brother he had come to visit.

Chapter 5

The table was silent for a good five minutes. This was almost miraculous for a house that contained Kaylin and Mandoran. Kaylin was willing to swallow words; she was too ill at ease to speak without thinking, and her thoughts were so tied up in the Aerian problem she didn’t have any left over to waste on not offending Barrani.

You will not offend me. No one but Kaylin could hear Nightshade’s voice, a reminder—probably deliberate—that they were bound by his True Name. She started, flushed and met his gaze. His eyes were much greener, but given his seating, not green.

You have this thing about dignity and proper respect. All of you do, except Mandoran, Kaylin replied.

I was long considered overly tolerant among my own kin.

How many of those that believed this are still alive?

His eyes widened. She’d surprised him. And amused him; the two expressions chased across his face, easing the lines of tension slightly. A few. At least one of them is at this table now.

He could only mean Teela. Kaylin’s gaze swiveled toward her, and veered at the last minute. Too late. This amused Nightshade, as well. It had never been Kaylin’s life’s ambition to amuse Lord Nightshade.

“I hear,” he said gravely, “that you had an eventful morning.”

She nodded, glaring at Mandoran. Mandoran shrugged his lazy, bored shrug. It was too long, too indolent, and too graceful to properly be the fief shrug that he was trying to copy. “Annarion was worried.”

“Don’t try to shift blame,” Bellusdeo said. “You were bored.”

“Well, I was until the street cracked,” Mandoran replied with an unrepentant grin. “Pursuit was interesting, as well. Everything else has been a letdown.”

Nightshade glanced at his brother, who was glaring at Mandoran silently, but not, Kaylin was certain, wordlessly.

“Annarion said only that there had been an attack, a possible assassination attempt. Did he not refer to Lord Bellusdeo?”

Mandoran snorted. “No. I’d understand it if someone tried to kill her.”

Maggaron was destroying cutlery in the sudden tension of his grip. His very large grip. No one spoke.

Interesting. Who was the target? Nightshade asked Kaylin.

She really hated Mandoran at the moment.

And that is interesting. You lie even when no one else can hear you.

Someone can always hear me, she shot back.

I have been somewhat occupied of late. Your Helen does not trust me at all. She is willing to tolerate me, but only for Annarion’s sake. She does, however, bear obvious fondness for him. I am therefore guarding myself on two fronts, and even this conversation is likely to annoy her immensely.

He was probably right.

I cannot hear your thoughts when you are in your home.

You can hear them now.

Yes, and that is unexpected. I am not certain why she allowed my words to reach you. Perhaps she hoped that it would make the rest of the discussion less awkward.

What discussion?

He chuckled, although his face was perfectly composed. You did not answer my question.

Not mine to answer. She thought of Moran—just a brief flicker of awareness of how little Moran wanted to be the subject of any discussion. And of course, that stray thought was enough.

But she hadn’t expected the stillness that spread out from Lord Nightshade. She’d thought him still and composed when he sat; she’d thought him still and composed during the opening salvos of what promised to be a less-than-comfortable dinner. He was frozen now, for one long minute that threatened to spiral out of control, taking what little sound and light there was entirely out of the room.

“What,” Nightshade said, “are you doing housing the lllumen praevolo? Have you lost your mind?”

* * *

Kaylin wondered, briefly, why he’d asked the question out loud.

“I thought it best,” Helen replied. “I am somewhat occupied at the moment, and I did not feel that dinner conversation would become difficult. I apologize for my lapse in supervision.”

Kaylin realized two things then. First: Nightshade would no longer be able to speak with her through the bond of True Name; Helen had killed that avenue of private discussion. Second, and more troubling, that Helen had allowed it to begin with. Kaylin didn’t believe that the lapse, as she called it, was accidental. Nor did she think that Helen truly believed that the conversation would not be difficult, given the way she clearly felt about Nightshade.

Her house had lied to her. What she couldn’t understand was why—and just in case Helen was listening in, she made it clear that she didn’t need to understand why right this very second. Later would do, if they all survived the meal.

“What did you say?” she asked Nightshade.

“I asked if you had taken leave of your senses.”

“Before that.”

“Illumen praevolo?”

They were the exact words Lillias had spoken. Lillias had been fragile, nervous, afraid. Nightshade was none of those things. “Yes, that. What does it mean?”

“It means nothing to humans,” he replied. His eyes were a glittering blue, hard as sapphires as they absorbed the room’s light. “It means much to Aerians. Was it the Illumen praevolo who survived the assassination attempt?”

“Yes.”

“They do not belong here.”

“Thanks, but it’s my house. My castle. I get to decide that.”

“Did you know, before you offered shelter?”

Kaylin was irritated. “What do you think?”

“I think you were ignorant.”

“Good. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, tell me why you think she doesn’t belong here.”

“She?”

Damn.

“How did you even come to meet her? I suppose I should not be surprised; you are certainly acquainted with the Lady and with Lord Bellusdeo.”

“She’s not like the Lady,” was Kaylin’s flat and certain reply. “And she’s not like Bellusdeo, either.”

“No. She is not, but she occupies a central, singular place for the Aerians, as the Consort does for the Barrani, or Lord Bellusdeo for the Dragons. It should not surprise me,” he said again, “but it does.”

“Do you know what her role is?”

“We will trade information, perhaps. How did you encounter her?”

There was a beat of silence before Kaylin exhaled. “She works in the Halls of Law.”

His eyes shifted from blue to a very surprised gold, a color she very seldom saw in Barrani. “You must be mistaken.”

“I think I know the Halls of Law, and I think I know a sergeant when I see one. She works in the Halls.”

“A...sergeant.” He closed his eyes; when he opened them again, they had reclaimed the color blue. It was a lighter shade than Teela’s. So was midnight sky. “No wonder they tried to kill her. This has happened before?”

“Not while she’s been a sergeant.” Kaylin set her cutlery down and folded her arms, tilting her chair back on two legs. She wasn’t hungry, and while that didn’t usually stop her from eating, she wanted to concentrate.

“Never?”

“Not that I know of, no. But I’d say ‘never’ covers it.”

“Ah. And before that?”

“It’s not in Records.” She stonewalled. He couldn’t read her mind now. He couldn’t see her thoughts. “Why would you expect that this wouldn’t be the first attempt?”

He smiled. “Because she is living here, Kaylin. Perhaps you do not understand why this is a crime in the minds of the Aerians.”

“Some of the Aerians.”

“As you say. Why does she not dwell with her kin? Why does she choose menial employ? She is Illumen praevolo.”

“And I’m the Chosen,” Kaylin shot back. “But I need to eat.”

“The Chosen does not mean to humans what your Aerian will mean to the Aerians. Perhaps it should.”

“It certainly should,” Bellusdeo interrupted. “She is not treated with nearly the respect her burden is due.”

Kaylin lifted a hand in Bellusdeo’s direction, and the Dragon fell silent. She probably wasn’t happy about it, but Kaylin didn’t check; she was watching Nightshade as if he were the only person in the room.

“Do your Aerians not speak of it?” Nightshade asked her.

“No. And I can’t ask them.”

“And she does not explain?”

“No. She thinks it’s not safe for me to know.”

He smiled; it was winter, but beautiful. “And so you come to me.”

“I didn’t—” She exhaled and regrouped. “Yes. Yes, I’m asking you.”

“Has it occurred to you that your companion may be correct? No, don’t answer. You will say yes, but mean no. It is vexing. If you wish to know how I come by this information...” he began.

“I know how.”

“Ah. I forget. Yes, you probably do. The praevolo is not a position like the Consort within the Barrani. To become Consort, there are tests. Tests of the Tower. Tests of the Lake. Failure does not always mean death, but the closer one comes to success, the higher the possibility of death becomes. We are not, like humans, a people to whom children come quickly or easily; the risk of death can be a strong deterrent.

“But it is the line’s risk to take. Your friend did not have the distinction of determination or choice. She was born to it. It has been an essential part of her nature since that birth.”

Kaylin nodded, trying not to be impatient. Or not to be obviously impatient, at any rate. “I understand that part. I don’t understand why it’s significant. I don’t understand what it means.”

“As I have said, to humans, it means nothing.”

“She’s not a human, and she’s living here.”

“How much do you feel you have a right to know?” he asked, almost gently. It was gentleness from Nightshade that she didn’t trust. His violence, his arrogance, his intimidation were things that were obvious threats. “If she does not wish you to know, and it is her secret, her life, how much do those wishes count to you?”

There was a disgusted snort—a sergeant’s sound—from the doorway; everyone looked up. Moran stood in the frame, arms folded, eyes a blue that almost matched Teela’s in shade. “Lord Nightshade, I presume.”

He raised dark brows.

“You were the Barrani who marked Private Neya?”

Kaylin almost stood; Annarion’s expression had drifted from mild interest into disgust and anger and disappointment.

“It is not one of my many titles,” came the cool reply. He was staring at her, at the rise of her wings, or her one wing, at the bindings that kept the other more or less safe and in place. “Is it you?”

“Don’t ask questions when you already know the answer.”

“Among my kin, it would be considered polite.”

“We’re not among your kin here.” She glanced at Annarion. “We’re in Kaylin’s home. And Kaylin has never entirely grasped the intricacies of manners.” She entered the dining room as a place—with a stool—magically appeared for her at the table. It was beside Kaylin, and required some minor shuffling.

“I asked you,” Moran told the private, “to stay out of this.” She didn’t sound enraged. She sounded disappointed, which was worse.

“They tried to kill you.”

“Believe that I’m aware of that.”

“I’d like them to never try again.”

“And I’d like to have normal, healthy wings and a living mother,” Moran said with a shrug. “We don’t always get what we want, especially when it comes to the big things.” She glanced at Nightshade. “You were about to explain to the table what the praevolo is.”

“But you are now here; your knowledge has precedence.”

Moran shrugged again. The gaze she leveled at Nightshade was about as warm and friendly as Teela’s. “My view is colored. If you’ve heard about the Illumen praevolo, you didn’t hear about it from the Caste Court or the Upper Reaches; you heard about it from the rank and file. I’d like to know what they think.”

“You’ve never asked?”

“No. It’s not something that is ever discussed in the Halls. By any Aerian.”

“Very well, if you have no objections.”

“My objections have rarely counted for so little.” She shot Kaylin a glance, and Kaylin flushed the color of guilt. There was so much awkward tension in the room, it might as well have been a fractious office meeting with the Lords.

“This is not the world to which the Aerians were born.”

“No.”

“It is the world they reached, in an era long past, through a stretch of endless sky, the etande, as it was called.”

Moran was staring at the side of his face, her brows slightly furrowed.

“They had their reasons for leaving their home.”

“The World Devourer?” Kaylin asked.

“No, nothing so immediately deadly. You are aware that the Aerians’ flight is...improbable? They are, in build and general density, almost human. The activities that do not depend in any way on flight are not hampered by physical strength or build. Their wings, were they attached to the body of similarly weighted avian, could not achieve flight.”

Kaylin frowned. No, she hadn’t been aware of that, and she wasn’t in a great hurry to claim her ignorance.

“They are not magical creatures. In an absence of any magic, they will not cease to exist. They will, however, cease to fly.”

Moran was really staring at the side of his face now, but the midnight of her blue eyes had drifted into an early shade of clear night sky while she listened.

“So...their world ran out of magic?” Kaylin asked.

“Yes.”

“And our world is more magic-rich?”

“Yes. Understand that in a world without magic, door wards and streetlights would not function. In order to utilize magical energies, there must be some sort of conduit—in most cases, training. But not in all.”

“And the Illumen—”

“Yes, the importance of the praevolo in this escape was critical. It was the duty of the anointed to find a different world; the Aerian ancestors entered the etande without a compass.

“The praevolo is said to have preserved the power of flight for the people, and the praevolo followed a trail that only they could see; it led to this world. It is here they arrived—a world of Dragons, Barrani, humans, Leontines.

“And here, too, there was Shadow.”

“Too?”

“I believe—although I am not certain, as the legends were somewhat garbled—”

“That it was Shadow that drove the Aerians from their first home,” Moran said quietly. “At least that is most of our tale. The Shadows deprived our wings of flight.”

“You are skeptical?” Nightshade asked her.

“Yes, actually. The Shadows seem a thing of magic, to me. But it’s possible that, to destroy Shadow, the ancestors found some way to destroy magic. I don’t think they understood what the cost would be, and I think that the Shadows did wane in that world. But the people could not survive—not as they had.”

“Ah. And so, indirectly, the necessities of war with Shadow did cause the death of flight.”

Moran nodded.

“So the praevolo was born during that time?” Kaylin asked.

“It’s complicated,” Moran finally replied. “Understand that we have legends and tales; we’re not Dragons. We don’t have ancient Records to which we can refer. I’m not sure that born is the right word.” She hesitated. “It’s the word that’s been used. In theory, the praevolo is born to the Aerian people at a time of great need or great conflict. But I believe, even in the tales that are handed down, that the first praevolo was born then.”

“You don’t think born is the right word?”

“I was born. I wasn’t created. There was no cabal of ancient, powerful mages standing beside my mother as she conceived me; there were none in the birthing rooms where I was born.” Her smile was wan. “When I first encountered Records in the Halls, I searched them. And I went outside of the Halls, searching. I wanted information.”

“Were you not told anything about your wings?”

“I was told a great deal,” Moran replied. “I heard times beyond count that I was unworthy of the gift I had been given. I was told constantly about humility, chief among the characteristics I was to develop to be worthy.”

“Yes, of course, dear,” Helen said, although no one had spoken. She carried a drink—a hot drink, in a very mundane mug—to Moran, and set it in front of her, where lazy swirls of steam rose.

“I asked, in the beginning, what I was to be worthy of.”

Kaylin leaned forward, hurting for the child that Moran had been, and hoping it didn’t show. No one wanted pity, and Moran was not that child now.

“I was told that to prove my worth, I was to respect the authority of the Caste Court. They were wise and learned and of course, deserved their positions by consequence of birth. I was a bastard, illegitimate, and my father refused to step forward to claim kinship with me. I still don’t know who he is,” she added, staring at the rising steam as if reading some fortune in it. “I doubt I’ll ever know.”

“Would it make a difference?” Teela surprised Kaylin by asking. “Before you reply, I feel it necessary to point out that I killed mine—and I spent centuries building enough of a power base that I could survive doing so. He murdered my mother.”

Moran took her time digesting this information; it wasn’t information the Barrani who worked in the Halls would ever think to share. Her wry grin, and eyes that were now drifting into a more normal Aerian gray, cut years off her apparent age. The grin dimmed. “It’s possible that my father murdered my mother. I don’t know. He certainly did nothing to protect her, and he did nothing to protect me, either.

“But for all I know, my father might have been a younger son—no, less, a younger cousin, part of an Upper Reach flight in name only. He might have had no power.”

“You don’t believe it, though.”

“...No.” She shook herself. To Teela, she said, “Did killing him change anything?”

“Yes. I became the line.”

“That would never happen—I was illegitimate.”

“The Barrani do not fuss with legitimacy in that fashion,” Teela reminded her.

“I confess I don’t understand it; the Barrani inheritance wars are brutal enough when they start that legitimacy would seem to be of paramount import.”

“To an outsider, yes. But primacy is decided by power. What I take, I must be able to hold against all. If I am foolish, stupid or incompetent, I will die. The line, however, requires someone who is none of those things. My death might be regrettable, but it would be seen as necessary. And our children are not so numerous that the parentage defines them. The only exception is the lineage of the High Lord—and even in that case, new reigns are ushered in by politics and death in almost all cases.”

“Not the most recent one,” Kaylin said quietly.

“No. And believe, kitling, that there are lords who have been working constantly to ensure that the throne is in the hands of a ruthless, powerful man. A different man.”

Kaylin frowned.

“Told you,” Mandoran said as he turned to Kaylin. “He’s been fighting a constant succession war since the death of his father. It shouldn’t take more than another decade or two of your time before those challenges wither. Teela assumed you understood this.”

“And that has nothing to do with our current predicament.” Teela sent Mandoran a death glare; it didn’t faze him at all. “You do not know your father. Of your wings, you know only that they are of great import to the Aerian people—but not how or why.”

Moran nodded, shaking herself out of the web of memory that Teela’s words had evoked. “What was I saying? The praevolo. I believe, although again, it’s conjecture, that our ancestors did not suddenly find themselves in possession of a miracle baby. Birth is not quite the word used, but there’s no analogy that I can easily think of in Elantran. Maybe blessing?”

Kaylin stiffened, but said nothing.

“And it’s clear, given the stories, that the praevolo of that time could both fly—soar is the word that is used to refer to him—and fight. His prowess in both was considered proof of the benevolence and love of our gods.”

“And their existence, no doubt.”

Moran nodded. “I’m not terribly religious.”

“You’re a Hawk, which requires an entirely different kind of stupid,” Mandoran said.

“Mandoran,” Helen chided, as if she were his mother.

“Am I offending anyone?”

“In all probability, no,” Helen replied. “But you are offending me.”

Mandoran went still.

“Hazielle, my first tenant, was quietly and devoutly religious. Kaylin, my current tenant, is devoted to the Hawks. You are a guest here, and greater leeway is given to guests—but you will not insult them.”

“I insult Kaylin all the time!”

“He does,” Kaylin said, partly in his defense. Mandoran didn’t appear to hear her. He was staring at Helen, and Helen—or Helen’s Avatar—returned that stare with emphasis.

“Fine,” Mandoran eventually said. His voice was all sulkiness, except for the bits that were humiliation. Kaylin wasn’t certain this was smart, but even if it was her house, she wasn’t Helen.

“No, dear,” Helen said gently. “But that’s why you can be my tenant. I could never live with another presence that was too similar to me.”

Mandoran’s snort was rude, but wordless. Teela pointedly turned her attention back to Moran. “You think that the praevolo was magically created?”

“I think the power of the praevolo must have been, yes. We know that a flight’s worth of Aerians of both genders went into seclusion. They prayed,” she added with a hint of self-consciousness. “Those that were unworthy faced the wrath of the gods.”

“They died?”

Moran nodded. “They did not approach the gods with the proper humility and respect,” she added. “Believe that I heard this particular story frequently. I couldn’t make sense of it until I joined the Hawks. I had no idea how many gods crowded each other for space in Elantra until then.” Her gaze darted to Bellusdeo and away. “I didn’t entirely understand how dangerous the Shadows could be in a global sense until very recently, either.

“Be that as it may, I believe it was an investiture of power. And it worked.”

“But the power isn’t conferred that way now?” Kaylin asked.

Moran shook her head. “But it’s only the flights of the Upper Reach—or the offspring of those flights—that are born with the wings. It’s not a constant; there isn’t always a praevolo. We went three generations without one. But the birth of one—of me, in this case—implies that their power will be needed.”

“Has this proved historically true for the Aerians?” It was Bellusdeo who asked—of course it would be. If the genesis of Moran’s damaged wings was related in any way to Shadow, it would suddenly become hugely relevant to the golden Dragon. She had lost a world to those Shadows, and she had the memory of immortals. She did not forget for one second.

“I am not permitted to speak of that.”

“You aren’t permitted to speak of this, either, if I had to guess.”

Moran flashed a wry grin. “Technically, there is nothing in this discussion that circumvents the proscriptions. But...yes. Yes, they’ve been relevant. I’m aware that the relevance could be entirely in the hands of historians; historians weight everything with their own particular set of observations and meanings. And even if it was forbidden, and my discussion were to be discovered, the hands of the Caste Court are tied. I cannot be made outcaste.”

Kaylin had assumed, until this moment, that this was because she was special, that her unique gift granted her immunity to the judgments of the Caste Court. But memories of Lillias, and of Clint’s lecture, now blended together with Moran’s information.

“They can’t cut off your wings.”

Moran stiffened. “My wings,” she told Kaylin, “are not immune to damage, as you’ve seen for yourself. They could quite possibly cut off my wings, if they had enough power and the will to do so.”

Kaylin felt cold in the brief silence that followed. “The Caste Court doesn’t cut off wings.”

“No.”

“They remove them.”

“Yes.”

“Magically.”

“Yes.”

Kaylin’s Leontine response was loud and heartfelt. And long.

* * *

She wanted to ask if the wings could be put back. If they’d been magically taken off, why couldn’t they be magically returned? She wanted to ask how the wings were magically removed. How did that work? Could the Caste Court magically remove arms or legs, too? Or were wings like arms and legs? Once they were removed, did they rot?

Bellusdeo, however, had other ideas—and they weren’t bad or wrong; they just weren’t where Kaylin’s head was mired. Kaylin therefore surrendered curiosity and pulled herself back into the discussion at hand.

“Were all such emergencies of, or related to, Shadow?” Bellusdeo asked.

“You mean the ones I’m not supposed to talk about?” Moran replied.

“Their relative secrecy is less of a concern, I admit.”

The sergeant grinned. “I confess, Lord Bellusdeo, that you are not like any other Dragon I’ve ever met. I can’t give you a definitive answer, and not because of secrecy. I honestly don’t know.”

“But they believe—or you believe—that it is involved now?”

“I am not, sadly, in the councils of the Caste Court. If I am not outcaste, I am—what is your word?”

“Pariah?” Mandoran helpfully supplied.

“Yes. I am a relative pariah. Speaking to me will not immediately target an Aerian for Court censure—but befriending me would draw much more attention than the rank and file really want. And don’t make that face, Private.”

“What face?”

“The one which implies you’re about to storm off to the Halls and shout at the closest Aerians.”

“I won’t,” Kaylin told her, thinking of Clint. And Lillias.

“They have families. They have flights. They have, in many cases, children. Their concerns are very correctly with the people for whom they’re responsible. I am never going to be one of them.” Her voice softening, she said, “And I’m happier that way. I don’t want to be the reason their lives are destroyed. They don’t owe me that.”

“And you don’t owe them anything?” It was Teela who asked.

Moran’s smile was grimmer. “I’m a Hawk,” she said. “There’s that, if nothing else.”

To Kaylin, being a Hawk was not supposed to be a—a consolation prize. It was more, it was much more, than that. The tabard, the ranks, the laws, were supposed to be the thing that cut across the racial differences. No matter who, or how, they’d been born, Hawks had chosen to serve. To protect. And that service was offered independent of race, to anyone of any race.

“I’m proud to be a Hawk,” Moran told Kaylin, as if Kaylin had been shouting out loud. “I wasn’t very good at it, at first. As you might imagine, I didn’t relish authority. I didn’t trust people in power. I didn’t trust the people of my own rank—and the Aerians were colder than even the Barrani. But I was determined to show them all. To prove to the doubters that I could, and would, do the work. The same work.” She shook her head. “It’s hard. The Hawks don’t understand what my life has been like.”

“Have you ever explained it?” Teela asked.

Moran look horrified at the idea. “And become an object of scorn or pity?”

“It would have the advantage of being based on facts. As far as I can tell, you were already an object of scorn.”

“Perhaps. But not pity. Never pity. Do you know what would have happened to the Aerian Hawks if they knew the truth?”

Kaylin said, “Maybe you should let them decide whether or not it’s worth the risk.” But Clint—and she adored Clint—had made clear that to interfere in Moran’s business courted a fate worse than death. And maybe the rest of the Aerians would feel, did feel, the same way.

If Kaylin were Moran, and in Moran’s position, and that was what she could expect, Kaylin would be damned if she exposed herself to the hope of more. She understood why Moran had remained silent, then. If life was crap, you could accept it. There was no point having a temper tantrum, and in the wrong streets of the city, a tantrum would just hasten your death. You learned to accept what you couldn’t change, and you accepted it quickly.

Justice, fairness, kindness—you could rail against the lack of those things in your life. Kaylin knew, because she’d done it. And then, she’d set about trying to survive that life, because justice, fairness and kindness were simply not on the menu anywhere she could afford to eat. Figuratively speaking.

She knew that hope was worse, somehow. If you had hope that things would change, you stood on the edge of a precipice. You stood on the edge of an abyssal chasm. And if hope was betrayed, you ended up worse off than when you’d started.

Yes, she understood.

But she also understood that without hope, without that taking of chances, nothing changed. Nothing could change. It was something she hadn’t known when she’d first stepped foot across the Ablayne. It was something she had grown to understand with time.

“You’re being arrogant again, kitling,” Teela said.

Kaylin blinked. “Me? Arrogant?”

“Yes—in the most well-meaning way possible, but the end result is probably the same. You haven’t lived Moran’s life, she’s not asking for your advice, and you’re presuming that you can offer advice that would fundamentally improve her life.” Teela’s eyes were now blue green. “I personally prefer well-meaning, but would just as soon avoid condescension.”

“I never give you advice.”

“Exactly.”

“It’s just that I want—” To help. Kaylin bit back the rest of the words. Maybe Teela was right. But she didn’t feel powerful enough, significant enough, to be arrogant. To be condescending. Awkward, flushing, Kaylin turned to face Moran. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Teela thinks I have an obsession with Aerians.” It took her another minute to fully meet Moran’s gaze.

Moran, however, didn’t look offended. Gently, she said, “I’m like the corporal in one regard. I prefer well-meaning. And, Kaylin? The Aerians have taken you under wing—and that phrase has a different meaning for my people. They’ve been kind to you. They’ve offered you acceptance, understanding and tolerance. You have no reason to resent them.”

“I can’t resent them on your behalf?”

“I don’t resent them,” Moran replied. “And I don’t expect them to be perfect. You’re already upset at them, and they’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Shouldn’t they have to do something right?”

“Not according to Imperial Law, no.” When Kaylin failed to reply, she continued, “I don’t know what your life in the fiefs was like. I’ve never asked. You don’t know what my life in the Aerie was like. You’ve never asked. You assumed it was like the rest of the Aerian lives. The truth is harder, of course—but I often think we all have harsh, hidden truths. I would never have starved. I was not moved to theft or thuggery simply to keep myself fed or warm.

“I did whatever the Caste Court told me to do. I obeyed them. I tried—for years, I tried—to be what they wanted. There was only one thing left in my life that I loved, and I knew what would happen to it if I rebelled. And if I endured every insult, every beating, every ugly half-truth, in order to preserve the things I loved, how can I judge the rest of the Aerians for doing the same damn thing?

“How can I tell them what they should be doing instead? How can I tell them to put their lives outside the Halls at risk when I didn’t have the courage to do that myself?”

Kaylin was silent.

“You understand?”

And she did. It was why she still had trouble dealing harshly with beggars and street thieves. She’d been there, she’d done that, she’d been desperate. Were they breaking the law? Yes. On this side of the bridge they were.

She bowed her head a moment, found her voice and lifted it again. “Can we go back to the praevolo, or would you rather we not talk about it at all?”

“Let’s compromise. Once we leave the dinner table, you never ask me about it again.”

“Deal.”

Moran then turned to Lord Nightshade. “I don’t know how you came by your information, but I’d like to hear what your informant had to say. I consider my own sources to be highly dubious at this point.”

* * *

“Some centuries ago, I met an Aerian,” Nightshade began. “He was dar Carafel, a young man with magnificent wings and a strong dislike for politics. He had had some conflict with his flight, and when that conflict became dangerous, he fled. It was not possible to hide his wings—he was not a mage. Nor had he lived a life in which anonymity was essential. His father was a man of considerable power and considerable expectations.

“A child had recently been born to the flight, and that child possessed pale, flecked wings.”

Moran was silent.

“It was, of course, a cause for celebration—but not for the young man. Not for his father. The balance of power had shifted with that single birth. The newborn infant’s father gained instant respect and instant political support. The child was an infant, but the wings were significant, as I’m certain you are aware. The father of the Aerian with whom I spoke grew increasingly bitter as the praevolo aged. He grew to resent his son for the lack of those wings. I offered the Aerian shelter, and he chose, in the end, to remain within my castle.” He glanced at Kaylin.

Kaylin said, “The statuary.”

“Yes. What I know of the Illumen praevolo, I know from him. It is perhaps textured with his envy and his yearning; to him, the praevolo was both exalted and chosen. That child would have a life of luxury, a life of respect, a life of power.”

Moran’s face was about as expressive as stone, which, in a way, was expressive enough.

“The praevolo is born when there is a threat to the flights.”

“Was there one?” Moran asked.

“I do not know. If there was, it was never large enough to be made public.”

“What was his name?”

There was a long pause. “Karis.”

Moran’s eyes widened slightly.

“We spoke of the praevolo, and the significance of the praevolo. It was not theoretical, to him. He did not, however, understand all of the specifics. There were items that were associated with the praevolo; they had the weight of the Emperor’s crown, to the Aerians.”

Moran nodded slowly.

“You do not possess them?”

“I was a child. I was an illegitimate child. Nothing of the praevolo’s was given to me.” She hesitated.

He marked it.

“Nothing of significance.”

He nodded, then. “Your legitimacy has been questioned.”

“Yes. Constantly.”

“And you were not given the opportunity to prove your legitimacy.”

“Oh, I was,” was her bitter reply. “But never, ever publicly. The Caste Court did not know of my existence until I was almost seven. They were deeply suspicious of me, of my mother, when I finally came to their attention, and they tested me. Thoroughly.” She looked down at her hands. “I wish I had had a chance to speak with your Aerian. I would have told him what life as praevolo was actually like.”

Nightshade’s smile was slender, but genuine. “He grew less unhappy with the passage of time.” He rose; he hadn’t eaten much. He bowed to the table, and to his brother. “It is late, and I am expected at the castle. It was an honor to meet you.”

Chapter 6

Breakfast, the meal that Kaylin was never allowed to skip, was waiting. Moran had already come down from her room, and was speaking quietly to Annarion, of all people, when Kaylin entered the dining room.

“Where’s Mandoran?”

“He should be here shortly.” It was Helen’s disembodied voice that answered. “There was a minor accident in the training room this morning; I have been making adjustments.”

“Did it hurt him or you?”

“We are both quite fine,” Helen replied, which wasn’t much of an answer. But Kaylin had come to recognize that tone of voice. It was the only answer she was going to get.

Kaylin started to sit, but Helen interrupted her.

“Teela’s coming to the door. Tain is with her. Shall I let them in?”

“Yes, please.”

Helen appeared at the door to the dining room less than five minutes later, slightly in front of Teela and Tain. “Mandoran asks me to tell you that you will have to leave without him. He should be able to accompany you on the morrow.”

“What, exactly, did he do?”

“He tried to walk through a wall,” Annarion replied.

“Let me guess. He didn’t bounce.”

“No. He did some damage to the wall, and some to himself, but managed to separate the two before more serious injury could occur.”

“Why in the hells was he trying to walk through a solid wall?”

“Curiosity. He’s been playing with shape, form and solidity. We can’t do it outside, at the moment.”

She stared at Annarion. “Are you telling me you can do it inside?”

“I can’t.”

“But Mandoran can.”

“Yes. But Helen says he’s practically screaming look at me while he does it. But louder. He hasn’t tried it outside of Helen’s borders. And he won’t,” he added quickly. “But he wouldn’t have had the mishap if he weren’t trying to do it silently.”

“Why can’t you do it?” Kaylin asked him.

“I don’t want to try, which is considered cowardly by half our cohort, and sensible by the other half.”

“I consider it extremely sensible,” Teela said. “And I’m sitting right in front of you.”

Annarion grinned; Kaylin had no doubt he was passing information to the rest of the cohort, who were across the continent. The grin faded. “My brother will be here later this afternoon. Can I ask you a question?”

Kaylin nodded.

“If he were willing to remove the mark, would you be willing to have it removed?”

“It would make my life in the office a lot easier,” she replied, then hesitated.

“But?”

“I think it’s saved my life at least twice. Maybe more. I don’t know why he marked me. I know it’s the mark an erenne bears, but I’m still not sure what an erenne is. I can’t get much of an explanation out of any of the Barrani I know—but I’m guessing it’s bad, because they hate the mark. Mostly, they’ve gotten used to it, though,” she added, trying to be fair.

“That’s not an answer.”

“I have his Name,” she replied.

Annarion and Teela both rolled their eyes in an identical grimace.

“Would it be easier for you?” she asked him.

“It would be easier for me if he’d never marked you at all. It is comforting to know that it’s only the mark, and not the rest of it; that you don’t really understand what it means. But, Kaylin—he could have made you understand it. He could make you do it now.”

“I have his Name,” she repeated.

“One of the reasons Mandoran is willing—more than willing—to tell you his True Name is that you’re not actually powerful enough to use it.”

Kaylin reddened. “I don’t think it’s about power, per se. And I have used someone’s Name against them, just...not your brother.”

“They were probably trying to kill you.”

“It makes a difference?”

“All the difference in the world, yes.”

“What I was trying to say was that if he needs to find me, he can. We’re connected that way, and as far as I can tell, there’s no way to forget a True Name. I don’t need the mark for that. Did he offer?”

“...No. I just wanted to know.” Annarion rose. “Mandoran is cursing. I’ll go and help Helen before he shrieks the walls down.”

“Not that I want to defend Nightshade or anything,” Kaylin said when Annarion had left the room, “but he had to survive centuries without his brother. He was outcaste. Is outcaste,” she corrected herself. “It’s not possible to be perfect for centuries. I can’t even manage it for a day.”

“An hour,” Teela corrected her.

“You know what I mean.”

Teela nodded, grinning; the grin faded as she considered Annarion. “It’s not enough for Annarion that his brother hasn’t harmed you. You hate the fief of Nightshade and what it meant to you. You particularly hate it now that Tiamaris has set up shop in the neighboring fief. You were afraid of the fieflord when you lived in his fief. You were terrified of the Barrani who served him. You had every reason to be both.

“Annarion is disillusioned. If you believe that that makes no difference to Lord Nightshade, you fail to understand the kinship they had in their youth. It’s not your fight, Kaylin. It’s not your responsibility. Nightshade is guilty of everything that has so disappointed his younger brother. Youngest brother, and only surviving one. So many of us,” she added, voice softening as she fixed her gaze on the flame of a candle at the center of the table, “slip away from the ideals and the dreams of our youth.

“Many of my kin are raised without them. My mother—” She shook her head. “Those ideals, those beliefs—they’re tested. They’re broken. We accept their loss because we wish to survive. And perhaps we accept their loss because they’re onerous, in the end. It is hard to live up to a dream, a daydream. We surrender, then, the beliefs. We tell ourselves that those beliefs were proof of our naïveté, our foolishness. We deride our youthful selves, because we’ve faced the reality, the truth. We all do this. You did.”

“I—”

“You thought that when you crossed the bridge, when you left the fiefs and the Ablayne behind, you would find paradise. A place where everyone was happy, where people were free, where starvation was impossible, where people would be kind and accepting.”

Kaylin flushed and closed her mouth. All of this was true.

“Experience robbed you of that belief pretty quickly.”

Kaylin nodded, squirming a bit in her chair.

“Not all of our early beliefs are simple naïveté, simple daydream. But it is sometimes hard to differentiate which are true, or possible. It is impossible for you to have the world-across-the-bridge that you daydreamed of with such visceral longing, because Elantra is occupied by actual people. People cannot be that perfect, even if every one of them had the same dream that you once had.

“We dream smaller dreams,” Teela continued. “Nightshade is being reminded, in a way most of us will never be, of what he’s lost. No; of what he surrendered. It is not comfortable. And Annarion is coming face-to-face with that loss, as well. The brother of his memories is not the Nightshade of today.

“But it’s possible that enough of what Nightshade once was remains, somehow; Annarion believes that.”

“You don’t.”

“No, kitling, I don’t. My cohort accepts me because I was their equal, their companion. I was as helpless as they were, and was given as much choice as children generally are in my own future. They didn’t dream of me.”

“They did,” was Kaylin’s soft reply. “Terrano came for you. They were waiting.”

Teela’s smile was pained but genuine. “They didn’t dream of me the way Annarion dreamed of his brother. The way any of us dreamed of our brothers,” she added, remembering. “Annarion practically worshipped Nightshade in his youth. He knew that Nightshade would not abandon him; knew as well of the bitter, bitter fights between Nightshade and his father. Those fights were not enough to free Annarion, of course; Nightshade was much younger then, and much less powerful.

“Annarion isn’t disappointed because Nightshade is outcaste. The Barrani are largely political when it comes to that designation, and some of our historical outcastes have been figures of great drama, great heroics. No, it’s what he chose to make of his life, of the fief of Nightshade and even, in the end, of you. You’re the harshest divide because Annarion actually knows you. He knows that you freed them—us, really—and that you risked your life, multiple times, to do so.

“He knows about your work with the foundlings. He knows about your work with the midwives. And he knows that being a Hawk isn’t just a job for you; it’s a vocation. He knows that you’re Chosen,” she added. “He looks at you, and sees someone who is mortal, but who is trying, constantly, to be more than the sum of her parts.

“And he knows that had his brother asked you, you would have done what you could to help.”

“Asked me?”

“If Nightshade had told you about Annarion, if he had told you that he suspected Annarion was still alive, if he had told you that so much of his adult life involved attempts to reach him.”

“I’m...not sure.”

“Ah. A pity. Your opinion is noted.”

“I mean it, Teela.”

“I’m certain you do. In this, however, I concur with Annarion. Tain?”

Tain shrugged. “Not that I care one way or the other, but Teela’s right.”

“You have to say that—you’re her partner.”

Moran, minding her own business until now, jumped in. “I’m not her partner, and I agree with Teela’s observations.”

“Helping orphans and mothers is not the same as helping a fieflord.”

Teela’s eyes were green. She was both amused and relaxed. “Kitling,” she said fondly, “there is a reason that people actually like you. To go back to my previous comments about daydreams and harsh reality, you want to be helpful. To be kind. You have learned from the things that have hurt you—but you haven’t learned the same lessons that either Nightshade or I learned.”

“When Nightshade was young, there was no Elantra.”

“No.”

“And mortals were pets. Or slaves.” Or worse.

Teela nodded.

“Mandoran still talks about us as if we’re trained rats.”

“Mandoran enjoys baiting Dragons,” Tain pointed out. “If you have to choose a Barrani example of wisdom, look anywhere else.”

Bellusdeo snickered.

“My point is, Nightshade didn’t make my choices. And Annarion wouldn’t have made them either. Whatever he’s done, it’s what the Barrani of that time would have done.”

“Yes. But Annarion doesn’t see you as mortal, not really. He sees you as Chosen, but more. You held what remained of his Name. Of all of their Names. Only mine was absent. And you returned that knowledge without ever absorbing it first. You did what only the Consort could have done. It is difficult for the rest of them. They’re not what they were, and they know it.

“But it’s that flexibility that allows the difference in the way Mandoran views you and the way Annarion does.”

“He’s expecting too much from his brother.”

“Of course. But, kitling, would you rather he expected too little?”

* * *

She had no answer to that. Breakfast finished; the Moran escort formed up: Bellusdeo, Teela, Tain, Kaylin. Severn didn’t show up at the front door. The familiar lounged, as he usually did, across Kaylin’s shoulders.

Only when they were at the halfway point between Helen and the Halls of Law did she answer Teela’s question. “...I think so.”

“You would rather he had lower expectations?”

She nodded, pensive. “It’s the expectations that are killing him. Helen says he’s very unhappy. I know Nightshade’s unhappy as well, but in some ways I kind of feel like he’s earned some of that. I like Annarion. I hate to see him so miserable.”

The usual rejoinder failed to emerge, and Kaylin remembered that Mandoran was stuck in a wall in the basement somewhere.

* * *

Four city blocks from the Halls of Law, the familiar suddenly stiffened. He sat bolt upright, and this time, he spread a transparent wing across Kaylin’s eyes.

“Moran!”

Moran moved instantly. She also tried to lift her wings, and failed with the injured one. It didn’t matter. Kaylin threw her arms around the Aerian’s waist.

Teela drew her sword, and Bellusdeo looked up. The Dragon said, “I’m running out of inexpensive clothing, and I don’t want to work at the Halls in full court regalia.”

“Can you see them?”

The Dragon shook her head. “How many?”

“Three, I think. They’re all Aerians, but...but they look funny.”

“Funny how?”

Kaylin cursed in Leontine. The three looked down on the city streets, and their formation—and they had been flying in formation—changed. “You know those nets you dropped?” she asked Moran.

“Yes. I need to breathe,” she added.

“They’re flying with something that looks like those nets. You can’t see them?”

Bellusdeo growled. In Leontine. She said something sharp, harsh and syllabic without speaking actual language. The hair on Kaylin’s arms and neck stood on end. Magic.

“They’re not those nets,” Bellusdeo said. “We’ve got to run.”

“What are they?”

“Shadow,” the Dragon said.

* * *

It was impossible to run while looking up. It was impossible to run while holding on to someone’s waist, if that someone wasn’t under the age of two. Kaylin shifted her grip on Moran, holding her hand rather than her torso. She made it a block before she realized that the net itself had elongated as the Aerians had moved. That kind of precision flight-in-place was difficult. Whoever the three were, they were damn good.

She could see that Clint was on the door with Tanner; she could see that the doors were open.

And she could see that the net itself was going to fall regardless. Bellusdeo had said it was Shadow, somehow. It didn’t seem to be sentient, or at least it didn’t seem to be the type of Shadow that would consume the Aerians holding it.

But those Aerians, she saw now, were wearing some of that Shadow across their arms and chests, as if it were armor.

“Bellusdeo, fly?” she asked of the golden Dragon.

“Run.”

The small dragon pushed off Kaylin’s shoulders; the minute he did so, she lost all visual impressions of the Aerians and their dark, dark net, as he hadn’t left his wing behind. She could, however, see him. He squawked.

Kaylin let go of Moran’s hand. Without the small dragon, she had no protection against magic to offer, and Moran, wingless, could still run.

“What is he going to do?” Moran shouted as she sprinted toward the doors of the Halls, and the theoretical safety they provided.

“Hells if I know!” Kaylin shouted back. Teela could outpace her, as could Tain. Bellusdeo deliberately pulled up the rear, and Kaylin let her. She was displaced, yes—but she was a Dragon. A single Dragon was more than a match for anything the Barrani could do; Kaylin suspected she was more than a match for anything Shadow-enhanced invisible Aerians could do, as well.

She hoped.

Clint and Tanner let them in; Tanner headed in after them. “What’s going on?” he demanded—of Kaylin, of course.

“We’ve got invisible assassins,” Kaylin replied. “Aerians. Three, in the air.” She started to add more, but was cut off by the very audible sound of screaming. This was fine, because the very audible screaming caught Tanner’s attention in a stranglehold, and he headed back out.

Clint was cursing in Aerian. “Sergeant!”

To Kaylin’s surprise, Moran turned immediately.

“We’ve got Aerians in trouble.” He pointed.

Two of the three Aerians were visible. And they appeared to be injured enough that flight was causing them difficulty. The third, however, was nowhere in sight.

Moran, tight-lipped and incredibly grim, watched them falter. “It’s Caste Court business,” she said, voice flat and hard.

Clint opened his mouth. Closed it.

“I mean it, Clint. You call out the Hawks to aid in any way, and you’re interfering in Caste Court politics—which is far, far above your pay grade.” She looked out the open doors, and added softly, “And if you bring them in here, you’ll probably be causing a breach of integrity in our security that will bust you down to an even lower pay grade.”

Tanner, however, had done whatever it was that the guards on door did when they needed backup right now. Aerians filled the sky directly in front of the Halls; they saw immediately what Clint had seen.

Moran bowed her head in resignation. “Private. Lord Bellusdeo.”

“Infirmary?” the Dragon asked.

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” the Dragon replied. “There are two possibilities here. One: they did not consent to the use to which they were put. Two: they did. I’ll agree with you on one thing, though: I wouldn’t have them brought into the Halls. You might want to speak to whoever’s in charge. Now.”

* * *

Moran went to the infirmary. What she’d said to Clint was true, and it was all steel, all iron will. There had been anger in it. But the Hawks had flown to the aid of the Aerians, and the Aerians had been injured; they would bring them—bar interference—to Moran.

And Moran, Kaylin understood, would hold her nose and help. It wasn’t her job. The infirmary was for Hawks, not random civilians of any particular race or political stripe.

“I don’t see why we have to help them when they were trying to kill you.”

“We don’t know that,” Moran said, voice stiff. “The rest of the Hawks didn’t see what you saw. Hells, I didn’t see it, either. They saw injured Aerians—”

“Who appeared out of nowhere?”

“Carrying Shadow nets as an act of benevolence and aid,” Teela added, with just as much sarcasm as Kaylin felt.

“I’m not sure the nets were meant for me.” Moran cast a guilty glance at Bellusdeo. It bounced off.

“I’ll be back,” Kaylin told them.

“Where are you going?”

“Hawklord.”

* * *

The Tower doors were open by the time Kaylin had run up the stairs, which was unusual but appreciated. The Hawklord was standing in the Tower; the Tower’s aperture opened to morning sky. Even from the door, Kaylin could see Aerians flying in numbers too great to be simple patrols.

She saluted as she entered and came to stiff, almost vibrating, attention.

“What,” he asked, hierarchical preamble forgotten, “has happened?” He didn’t say what did you do this time, but his tone—and his glare—implied it. He didn’t give her permission to relax her stance, and she considered remaining at attention, but he sounded annoyed and very tired.

She told him as concisely as she could, staring at a spot just past his left shoulder.

“...I see. I believe you have a visitor,” he added.

The familiar came fluttering down through the open aperture to land more or less on her shoulder.

“Did you have something to do with the current emergency?” the Hawklord asked the small dragon. The small dragon huffed, squawked and settled.

“That’s a yes,” Kaylin translated.

“Did you ask him to intervene?”

“No, sir.”

“He did it on his own?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Invisible Aerians. Shadow nets.”

“Moran said—” She reddened, and corrected herself. “Sergeant Carafel said that we’ve got no proof they meant to kill her.” She hesitated, and then added, “It’s possible the net was meant to slow the Dragon down. Last time—”

“I am aware of what occurred.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Very well. Have the Barrani thoroughly inspect the injured before they are relayed.”

“Why don’t we just send them to the cells? We can offer medical help there if it’s required.”

“What a clever, intelligent idea. I’m certain it’s one that would never have occurred to any of your commanding officers on their own.”

Kaylin kissed corporal goodbye for another promotion cycle.

“Join the Barrani in their inspection,” he continued. “If you notice anything out of the ordinary, report it immediately. To me,” he added.

Marcus was not going to like that.

* * *

Severn met her in the office as she headed to the front doors, and fell in beside her. She filled him in as she jogged. He stopped to unwind his weapon chain. When spinning, it was proof against a lot of magic. Among other things. He caught up as she hit the streets. The Barrani had clearly been alerted by mirror before she’d made it down the Tower stairs. Teela was there, as was another of the human women—Rakkia. Tain and Rakkia’s partner stood back, armed and silent.

Teela met Kaylin’s eyes, shook her head slightly. Rakkia said, more pragmatically, “I see nothing.” She stepped out of the way as Kaylin approached the Aerians and stopped.

“What—what did you do?” she whispered at her familiar. She might have shouted, but for the moment, shock had robbed her voice of strength.

The familiar crooned. He set a wing, gentle this time, against her eyes.

She saw nothing at all out of the ordinary. No Shadow. No weird nets. No strange armor. But she saw normal wings. The familiar lowered his wing, and she saw very damaged wings. She’d seen Aerian wings take injury before. This was nothing like that.

“Kitling.”

Ignoring this, she poked the familiar, who lifted his wing again, sighing loudly enough to tickle her ear. The familiar then lowered his wing as she approached the Aerians. They were male, and given their build, younger than most of the Aerian Hawks; they hadn’t developed the training muscles the Hawks had. They were shades of brown, paler than Clint, and their eyes were decidedly blue, but no surprise there.

They were conscious, but mostly silent, except for weeping. The weeping made them seem younger than they probably were; they huddled together in pain. Or in terror. She wanted them to be terrified for one long minute. She was certain that the net they’d carried would have done Bellusdeo or Moran no good whatsoever.

But she’d always had a problem with tears.

“They’ve spoken some Aerian.”

“Anything intelligible?”

“Yes and no.” She glanced at the Aerians who were almost literally hovering on the periphery of a wide circle. “They’re terrified. They’re begging us not to take their wings. More or less. I didn’t understand the last phrase. Clint translated.”

Kaylin cringed.

“Half the Hawks are disgusted.” By which she meant the Aerian Hawks, because the Barrani Hawks were clearly all disgusted. “Are they clean?”

Kaylin hesitated.

“You’d better be certain they’ve got no magic on them,” Teela said. “And soon. The Hawklord is probably going to descend any minute now, and he’s not in the mood to have to wait for answers.”

“He told me to report to him directly if there was a problem.”

“Yes. Directly will be to his face in probably three minutes or less.”

* * *

Kaylin took advantage of the three minutes, focusing on her work. She did find time to utter a loud Leontine phrase, but that was as natural as breathing. The familiar squawked at her, and she sighed. “Yes, please.”

He obligingly lifted one wing in what was almost a caress. Or a sympathetic pat on the head. He covered only one eye. She looked through both, closing one or the other as it became necessary.

In winged view, the Aerians looked normal. They were obviously in some pain, but given what they had probably been attempting, she considered that deserved. It was the unwinged view that was disturbing. They were missing feathers. They were missing some essential parts of their winged anatomy. She didn’t know very much about the anatomy of wings, but these ones didn’t appear to be recently injured. There’s no way they could have flown with them. “Clint.”

He came to her, wary now. She hated it. She understood it—he’d made it perfectly clear—but she hated it. It made her aware of the vast gulf that separated them; the Hawk they wore wasn’t enough to bridge it. Not today.

“Can they fly?”

He looked at the ruins of their wings. “In an emergency, they could land,” he finally said. “They cannot fly.” But his expression was shuttered; it was wrong. There was pity, yes, but something else, as well.

She studied their wings through the wing of the familiar. She looked at the feathers, the ridges of their wings, the things that were missing in this world. She turned to look back at Clint; he looked the same when viewed through either eye.

Frowning, she asked, “Clint—could they ever fly?”

“...I’m not a doctor. But no. No, I don’t think so.”

Kaylin glanced up at Teela. “I wish Mandoran were here.”

“You’ve lost your mind,” Tain snapped. He might have said more, but Teela turned to look at him, and he fell silent. If it was a grudging silence, it didn’t matter.

“I believe he sees what you see. It’s not, however, standard magic.”

Bellusdeo, silent until then, said, “It is Shadow magic.”

* * *

Teela was right. The Hawklord landed five seconds later. He barely glanced at Teela, but did demand a report. The Barrani Hawk’s voice was toneless as she described the events she’d personally seen. Since she’d more or less seen nothing until the familiar had taken to the sky, her part was pretty simple. But the Aerians had appeared shortly thereafter, struggling to stay aloft, all thoughts of possible assassination or capture forgotten in their desperation to touch down the right way.

The Hawklord approached them.

The two huddled together like frightened children. “How,” he demanded, “were you able to fly?” He spoke in Aerian, his voice a crack of brief thunder. His eyes were blue; they matched the eyes of his prisoners.

The prisoners remained silent, their wings—what remained of them—drawn tightly to their backs in either fear or deference. Or both, since one was often a product of the other. It was clear that they had no intention of answering.

“What is your flight?”

Silence again. Other Aerians had joined the Hawks on the ground, and one or two were looking at the prisoners the way Clint had—but not all of them. Interesting. Clint knew, or thought he knew. But so did the Hawklord. She wondered how political this was all going to get.

“Are they a threat in their present condition?” the Hawklord demanded. The general consensus among those who could detect telltale traces of magic was no. The Hawklord therefore turned to Kaylin, blue-eyed, almost quivering with what Kaylin assumed was rage. She had never seen his wings so combat ready, so rigid, as they were now. No wonder the two men were terrified.

Kaylin said, “I think they’re safe.”

The familiar whiffled.

“Is that a yes or a no?” she asked him as quietly as she could, and with no hope at all that it would go unnoticed.

“You are hesitating.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?”

The familiar lowered his wing and hissed. He was laughing.

“I don’t understand what I’m seeing,” Kaylin began. “But...you know how the familiar’s wing works, right? Well, according to what I’m seeing through his wing...there’s nothing wrong with the wings of these Aerians.”

“And as a healer?”

Chapter 7

Kaylin blinked. This was not a subject that came up often, and never in full view of the rank and file, unless the only rank and file present was Kaylin herself. She swallowed. She looked at the terrified Aerians and had no desire at all to touch them.

“Can you ascertain whether or not what you see is relevant to us?”

She swallowed.

“Private.”

Rolling up her sleeve, she exposed the ancient bracer that had been a gift—a dire, mandatory gift—from the Imperial Court years ago. She wasn’t, in theory, allowed to take it off. In practice, it inhibited the use of the magic that had become hers when the marks that covered so much of her skin had first appeared.

The Emperor who had issued the orders was in the Imperial Palace. The man who was responsible for her livelihood was standing a couple of feet away, wings spread and eyes a study in fury. She took the bracer off. Severn took it before she could toss it over her shoulder.

The captive Aerians regarded her with both hostility and fear. At the moment, she deserved it. She wondered if this was how the Tha’alani felt. Healing was not supposed to be invasive or unwanted.

Clint came with her, as did Severn; weapons were leveled at the Aerian prisoners, the warning in their presence clear, but unspoken.

She reached out and very gently placed a hand on the forehead of the slightly older man. His wings were as they appeared through normal vision. They weren’t the result of an old injury. They were his body’s actual shape.

Kaylin couldn’t give sight to the blind or hearing to the deaf, unless either condition was caused by an injury that had occurred fairly recently. She withdrew her hand and touched the second man, who was staring up at her in misery. Like the first man’s, his wings were complete in their damaged form.

These two hadn’t flown in a long time, if ever. Until today.

“They’re clean.” She turned to the Dragon. “Whatever you sense, I don’t. Shadow?”

“Not now, no. But it was faintly tangible when they were invisible.” Her eyes were a very vivid orange; they hadn’t yet descended into red, but it was a close thing. Bellusdeo’s experience with Gilbert had softened some of the edge of her hatred of Shadow—but it was a pretty hard edge, and the blunting wasn’t terribly obvious at the moment.

“Is it possible that the Shadow formed wings?”

“Clearly. You think the wings are still present.”

“Yes, but I don’t understand how. Maybe it’s an afterimage, an aftereffect.”

“Lord Bellusdeo.” The Hawklord’s terse voice interrupted what might have become a rather long-winded theoretical magic discussion. “Do you feel that the threat of Shadow incursion is present? The Halls are very heavily protected against magic we understand, but they are not a Tower otherwise.”

“I wouldn’t take the risk,” Bellusdeo replied in Elantran. “Would you have any objections if I roasted them for the sake of certainty?”

“Yes. You consider it an actual risk?”

“I consider it a theoretical risk. Shadow magic is chaotic and unpredictable; we could defend against much of it, but it’s always more inventive when it pairs itself with the living.” She looked vaguely disgusted. She didn’t, however, breathe fire.

The Hawklord appeared to be considering a matrix of unpleasant possibilities. “Very well. Take them to the holding cells.”

* * *

“Weren’t you supposed to be in the infirmary?” Teela asked the gold Dragon once the Hawklord was safely out of hearing range.

“I considered this to be the greater danger to Moran,” Bellusdeo replied. “Also, I’m not on the payroll.”

“Fair enough.”

Kaylin glanced at Clint. Some of the other Aerians’ eyes had shaded into a more natural gray. Not Clint. His eyes were still blue. He wasn’t as angry—or as combat-ready—as the Hawklord had been, but he was close. Kaylin wondered if anyone was going to use the front doors today if they had any other choice. She certainly wouldn’t.

Kaylin, Bellusdeo and Severn made their way to the infirmary and found Moran behind a locked door. The door was unlocked after some muffled conversation, which, on Moran’s part, included a few choice Leontine phrases.

Kaylin forgot what she’d been about to say when she saw Moran’s eyes. They were a pale shade of blue, too dark to be gray in any light. It was a color she hadn’t seen all that much of until after the attack on the High Halls; she knew it now as sorrow, the natural response when people you respected and fought beside had perished.

Moran said quietly, “I’ve applied for a leave of absence.”

It almost broke Kaylin’s heart. Her mind, however, was still intact. “Did you recognize them?” she asked.

Moran said nothing.

“Kaylin,” the Dragon said, putting an arm around the Hawk’s shoulder. “Perhaps now is not the time.”

But the answer was clearly yes. “They’re in the holding cells,” she told Moran. “Unless the Caste Court demands their release, that’s where they’re probably going to be staying. Moran—who are they?”

“I don’t know them personally,” she replied, ill at ease. “And it’s going to be complicated for the Caste Court now. If the existence of Shadow spell or augmentation is proven, the Emperor will...not be pleased.”

“The Emperor.”

“The Emperor who created the laws of exemption, yes. There are strict limits to those laws, and for reasons that are obvious, they don’t apply to the use of, or the contamination of, Shadow.”

Bellusdeo said a single word—in native Dragon. It was only one, but Kaylin’s ears were ringing, and the rest of her body was shaking. Dragon was simply not useful for communicating with people who didn’t have ears of stone or steel.

The familiar squawked at the Dragon in mild annoyance. Kaylin lifted a hand—quickly—to cover the familiar’s mouth. “No more native Dragon,” she told Bellusdeo. “I actually need my ears.” To Moran, she said, “The Emperor is coming to dinner tomorrow.”

The blue of sorrow gave way to the purple of surprise, which then gave way to a bluish gray that was probably as calm as her eyes were going to get this morning.

“If you take a leave of absence, will you stay with Helen?”

Silence.

“Because if you think you’re going back to the Southern Reach, you can forget it.”

“Kaylin,” Bellusdeo said in warning.

Kaylin folded her arms. “If there’s Shadow in the Aerie, and the people using it are trying to kill you, the Aerie isn’t safe for you. And that would be fine—it’s your life.”

“Thank you,” was Moran’s somewhat sarcastic reply.

“But Shadow doesn’t generally pick and choose. These Aerians—the ones in the holding cells—are involved. Do you honestly think that other Aerians won’t be? If you’re with Helen, nothing can hurt you—but all the attempts will be concentrated on Helen. No one within her walls is going to fall to Shadow. No one is going to become collateral damage. If you’re in the Aerie—”

Moran lifted a hand. “Those Aerians are already collateral damage.”

“I think they had some choice in the matter.”

“Do you?”

Kaylin started to speak. Stopped.

“Did you have a choice when you were thirteen?” Moran continued.

Silence. Kaylin hated the reminder of the life she’d left behind. She hated the reminder of the harm she’d done in both desperation and fear. The only thing she’d seen was the need to survive, and survival had been brutal and ugly. Only when she’d given up entirely on survival—when life itself had become so crushingly ugly she believed she was better off dead—had she changed.

It hadn’t been an act of courage.

It had been the ultimate act of despair. And even then she hadn’t had the determination to end her own life. She had come here, to the Halls of Law, with every expectation that her life would be ended for her.

“...No,” Kaylin finally said. “Not if I wanted to survive.” She wanted to turn and leave—it’s what she would have done a handful of years ago. She was awash in that particular form of self-loathing that was guilt. But she shouldered the weight; she’d started this, even asked for it in some fashion. “I expected better of the Aeries than the fiefs.”

At that, Moran sucked in air, and Kaylin winced; she’d spoken the truth, but not with any particular care. “Frightened people,” the older Aerian eventually said, “are the same everywhere. It looks different, but it’s not.” She turned away. Turned back. “But your point is taken. If my leave of absence is granted, I’ll remain with Helen.” She then looked past Kaylin to Severn. “Are my services going to be required?”

“The assailants don’t appear to be injured. According to Private Neya, there were three; only two are currently in captivity.”

“The third?”

“He must have escaped. I don’t know what happened—small and squawky flew up, and two of them fell down. The third, he might have missed.”

“What did he do?”

“...I don’t know.”

“The Hawklord’s going to demand an answer. How does ‘I don’t know’ generally work out for you?”

Not particularly well. “It’s the truth. It’s going to have to do. I don’t know. I didn’t see what happened. If I had to guess, I’d say that two of the Aerians are naturally close to flightless. Magical alterations were made—somehow—that allowed them to fly. The familiar did something to dispel that magic.”

Squawk. The familiar was bouncing on her shoulder, having abandoned the lazy sprawl.

“If that’s the case, it implies that Aerian number three didn’t require alteration in order to fly. He or she merely required it to be invisible.”

Squawk squawk squawk.

“Your familiar agrees,” Bellusdeo said quietly. “You’re making your thinking face.”

“It’s just...”

“Yes?”

“If I’m looking at them through his wing, the wings look whole. They look healthy. They don’t look like little extensions of Shadow or whatever it is. The net they were holding? That screamed Shadow. But the wings don’t. I think that the physical container for the power of flight was created, but it doesn’t depend on Shadow to work.”

“Meaning?”

“I think they could fly again. But I don’t understand how. The lack of relevant parts in their natural, normal wings is real, it’s physical. This is like—it’s like someone found the phantom arm that people who’ve lost an arm feel, and they figured out how to make it temporarily solid.”

Moran said a lot of nothing.

Kaylin wasn’t certain what she would have said if given enough time, because the mirror went off. The infirmary had a rather large one. It was not quiet.

“Sergeant!” An Aerian appeared in the mirror, in a poorly lit room. Light was incoming, and behind him, Kaylin could see the dark red of blood.

Moran’s eyes shifted to blue. Not purple. She wasn’t surprised at all. But she was bitterly, bitterly unhappy. Kaylin, who had just felt the uncomfortable, ugly rush of guilt, recognized it when she saw it on another face.

All the things that she could tell herself but couldn’t quite believe rushed up, because if she said them to Moran, they would be true. Nothing in Moran’s expression allowed for any attempt at comfort. Kaylin’s jaw snapped shut.

Moran’s assistant entered the infirmary in his on-duty clothing. Kaylin wondered briefly where he’d been. She didn’t like any answer she could come up with, and didn’t ask. Moran waited for the assistant—a lowly private, just as Kaylin herself was—to pick up a large, heavy bag.

She looked far more like Red going out on a premorgue assignment than she did a doctor. Red, on the other hand, carried his own bag; he considered privates in general too careless.

* * *

The holding cells were crowded. The Hawklord had either not returned to his Tower, or had descended from it again. Barrani Hawks—Teela and Tain among them—were on guard duty. The only Aerians present were the Hawklord and Moran.

And the bleeding Aerians who had been deposited here.

Moran’s Leontine was impressive, but she didn’t slow down for it; she sped up. Her private, understanding instantly, sped up as well; Kaylin and Severn stepped out of the way to let them pass.

Kaylin almost couldn’t understand what she was seeing. Almost.

But when she’d been fourteen—or fifteen, the years blurred a bit—and a mascot, not an actual full-fledged private, the Hawks and the Swords had, between them, managed to capture a Barrani criminal. He was wanted for a number of petty crimes, mostly involving drugs and prostitution. He had been taken to the holding cells, and he had been restrained; Barrani had been sent to guard him because mortal guards wouldn’t cut it.

He had died.

Restrained as he was, he could have put up a struggle against mortal guards, excepting only Leontines, and since there was only one of those and he was a sergeant, he was definitively not on guard duty. He’d had no chance at all against Barrani.

It had caused the ugliest rift in the Hawks Kaylin had, until that point, seen. She’d seen impressive rivalries for things ranging from chairs, desks and pencil acquisition—but those rivalries had been, at base, friendly. The death of the Barrani prisoner—the helpless Barrani prisoner—had changed that. It had driven a wedge of fury, contempt, and not a little fear, between the Barrani Hawks and their mortal counterparts; it had made race an issue even if, in theory, they were all equal when serving the Imperial Law.

Not everyone was upset about the death—but enough were. Enough had been.

Petty Barrani criminals weren’t Aerians. Kaylin held her breath, reaching for her wrist. She’d already removed the bracer. She didn’t look to the Hawklord for orders. She didn’t look to Moran. She particularly avoided looking at Teela and Tain. She was certain they hadn’t killed the Aerians. And she was certain the Hawklord already knew who had. After the death of the Barrani, Records captures became mandatory for each of the holding cells that were in use.

“Private,” the Hawklord said.

Kaylin ignored him. She knelt across from Moran and her infirmary assistant. One Aerian was dead. Just...dead. His throat had been cut, and he’d been stabbed in the chest, close to, if not through, his Aerian heart.

She placed her hands on the forehead of the second Aerian. He was—barely—alive. Everything was on Records. Everything. And that didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if the Hawks didn’t know she could heal. It wasn’t as if the Hawklord didn’t. The Emperor was aware of her abilities. Were they legal? No. But she could figure that out later.

She sent the healing power of the marks on her skin out, into the wound. Someone had slashed his throat as well, but not deeply enough. They hadn’t taken the time to stab him through the heart, possibly because they didn’t have that time. It was the only thing she was grateful for. She heard Moran barking orders and felt a twinge of sympathy for the private on the receiving end. Belatedly, she hoped that private wasn’t actually her.

The familiar was crooning, a wordless sound that almost managed to be musical, if music was slightly flat and occasionally squawky. She listened as she felt the wound begin to close.

“Enough, Kaylin,” Moran said quietly.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” she answered, without opening her eyes.

“We’re aware of that. He’ll survive on his own now.”

“I can—”

“You’ll be flat on your back for at least three days, according to Teela. You’ve done enough.”

“But—”

“Hawklord’s orders,” Moran added.

* * *

Kaylin was grateful that she was only a private by the end of that grueling day. The office was in an uproar—but Hawks in uproar generally gave very strong meaning to the words deafening silence. There were always exceptions, but for the most part, Marcus was in low-growl mode all day. It wasn’t considered wise to interrupt that or, more precisely, to draw his attention when he was in that mood.

Because she was only a private, she had no idea who had murdered one of the two prisoners and almost killed the other. The Records of cell captures weren’t considered of relevance to privates. Or corporals. Or possibly even sergeants. They were above Kaylin’s pay grade, and for the long, long hours of that day, she wanted them to stay that way enough that she could ignore the insistent who would do this that rattled around her head. Someone had just thrown away his career, and quite possibly his freedom, in order to ensure that the assassins never had the opportunity to talk.

Bellusdeo remained in the infirmary—on the inside, near Moran. Teela and Tain took up positions on the outside of the infirmary door, by command of their very growly sergeant. The surviving prisoner had not regained consciousness by the end of the day.

Kaylin and Severn weren’t in the office for most of that day, though. They were out patrolling Elani Street. It was the first time in a long time that Kaylin appreciated petty fraud. She didn’t even grimace when she caught sight of Margot on the way to Evanton’s storefront.

* * *

“I don’t mean to be offensive,” Grethan said a moment after he opened the door, “but you look awful.”

“It’s been that kind of day. Is Evanton in?”

“He is. I don’t think he was expecting you, if that’s any comfort.”

“Some,” Kaylin admitted. She frowned. “I look awful, or we look awful?”

“Severn kind of looks the same as he always does. You look—”

“Awful. Just me.”

Severn shrugged, fief shrug. “I didn’t say it,” he pointed out when she glared at him. “I haven’t been a Hawk for nearly as long as you have. Before I joined the Hawks, I was a Wolf. We don’t have an office the way the Hawks or the Swords do. We don’t serve the same function. A death in the holding cells might be one of our assignments.”

“It would never be a Wolf assignment.”

“No?”

“They don’t call in the Wolves if they can actually put the criminal in question in holding cells.” She exhaled. “Sorry. You’re right. But—it brings up all the old stuff. It reminds people of the last time. It’s just—” She shook her head. “I don’t want it to be an Aerian. I don’t want it to be anyone in the Halls.”

He was kind enough not to point out that the Hawklord probably already knew who the killer had been. Her ignorance at this point was irrelevant; it was pointless to cling to it. She knew it, and hated the whine that underlay her thoughts. But the hells with it. She’d let her ignorance go when she was good and ready. Or, more likely, when the Hawklord was.

She headed toward the kitchen, in serious need of cookies. Severn followed. Evanton was seated at the table, his apron a bit grimy, his expression a match for Kaylin’s. They eyed each other warily. Since it was Evanton’s shop, his bad moods took precedence over hers when all things were equal. Other than that, they shared.

“I have had two visitors today,” Evanton said, going first. “Both Aerian, oddly enough.”

“We had three, but they came together in a single group,” she countered.

Evanton pushed the cookie tin in her general direction. “Both of the Aerians were from the Upper Reaches; they were representatives of castelords, or the Aerian equivalent. They felt it necessary to actually threaten me.”

Kaylin winced. “So...not very bright representatives.”

Evanton’s smile was humorless and thin. “No. They were dissuaded from that avenue of communication quite quickly.”

“Our visitors didn’t bother with the threats or the negotiations. They were invisible, they had a net that appeared—from the ground—to be made of Shadow, and we think they were there to assassinate Sergeant dar Carafel.”

Evanton winced.

“We managed to bring two of them down. One of them died in the holding cells, and not by his own hand.”

“I’m not certain you’re allowed to say that,” Evanton said. “It’s probably a breach of some sort of security or other.”

“Probably.”

“Do you think these two incidents are related?”

“The assassination and the deaths in the cell?” Kaylin asked in a very Why are you asking if water is wet? tone.

“No. The visit to my humble shop and the assassination attempt.”

“Oh.” She took a cookie. Or two. “Maybe. I was coming to ask you about that.”

“Ah.”

“This blessing thing that you were asked to craft—does it actually give the flightless flight?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because two of the Aerians—the ones we caught—couldn’t, in theory, fly on their own. Their wings aren’t properly formed.”

“You think they were deliberately crippled?”

“No. It’s not like being outcaste. They have wings—but the wings wouldn’t support their full weight. They could manage to hit the literal street without going splat. But they couldn’t manage to lift off that same street.”

“You’re certain.”

“Yes. Evanton?”

“Yes, Kaylin. That is exactly what the blessing of air does.” He rose. “Do you think that the client you met is involved?”

“I wish I could say that hadn’t occurred to me,” was her stony reply. “But, in fairness, she wanted the bletsian for Moran. Who can’t fly. I didn’t press her for more information; I trusted you not to create something that would harm Moran. Now I have to ask—as a Hawk—how many other clients you’ve created these bletsian things for. And when.”

“I am not the only person who can craft them,” he replied, which wasn’t much of an answer. “Grethan, tea.”

* * *

Tea came twenty minutes later. Evanton frowned as Kaylin, in his words, entirely spoiled any appetite for lunch by eating her way through half of the cookie tin. She did, in her own defense, offer cookies to Severn, who took one.

“Aerian mages do not join the Imperial Order. I believe, in the history of the Southern Reach, there was exactly one. It is not,” he added, “recent history. The Tha’alani have an affinity for the element of water. It will not surprise you to know that the Aerians have a similar affinity.”

“Air?”

He nodded. “Air and fire. The abilities of the Aerians are similar to those of the Imperial mages.”

“Have any Aerians ever been Arcanists?”

“Funny that you should ask that question now.”

There were whole days when Kaylin regretted getting out of bed. She was torn, though. It was natural to hate and despise Arcanists; you practically lost your badge if you didn’t. She wanted to hate and despise something that wasn’t...her own people.

And that was one step too far. She struggled with it, and won, but only barely. On the other hand, barely still passed muster. “Sorry,” she told the older man. “I’m right out of humor for funny at the moment.”

“I can see that. There have historically been more Aerian Arcanists than there have been Imperial mages.”

“Why?”

“Because the Imperium, such as it is, is a largely human endeavor. The Aerians are not at home in halls that were not designed with wings in mind. They can—and do—work within them, but being a mage is not just, or even, office work. They dislike the cramped confines of both space and attitude.

“Arcanists are more racially diverse.”

“Most of them are Barrani!”

“Yes. Barrani have a general contempt for anyone who happens to be mortal. They are not Aerians; they are mortals, as far as the Barrani are concerned. But as is the case with the Barrani in other avenues of interaction, power—and money—speak. It is easier to feel at home in the Arcanum than in the Imperium. The Arcanum does not revere Imperial Law.”

“No kidding.” She exhaled. “Is there an Aerian Arcanist now?”

“What do you think?”

Kaylin’s Leontine, mixed liberally with borrowed words from two other languages, filled the small kitchen space.

* * *

“You are certain you saw whole wings?” Evanton asked when Kaylin at last stopped swearing and told him, in less colorful language, about the events of the day.

“Yes.”

“But only with the aid of your familiar?”

She nodded again. The familiar had taken off, landing, as he often did, on Grethan’s shoulders. Grethan had gone in search of food more suited to the small lizard than Kaylin’s cookies, or rather, what she thought of as her cookies. “I wonder why he likes Grethan so much?”

“Given your current mood, it emphasizes his intelligence,” Evanton replied.

“I thought maybe the wings were Shadow wings, somehow—but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The net, though—I’d bet all of last year’s pay that it was Shadow.”

Evanton was thinking. Loudly. “Might I ask you to do one thing the next time you’re with Sergeant Carafel?”

“You want me to look at her wings with the help of the familiar.”

“Yes. I think it might be instructive.”

Kaylin nodded glumly.

“If the wings somehow represent potential flight, it’s possible that Shadow is responsible for the actual flight.”

“But—how?”

“It is power, Kaylin.”

“It’s Shadow. Look, fire is powerful, but you can’t pour fire into wings and expect to take flight. You can probably expect to be cooked if you’re not careful, but that’s about it.”

“Shadow has always been the most flexible of the potential powers,” the Keeper replied, unruffled. “There is a reason that it has been studied; a reason that it has appeal. Shadow is, at base, transformative.”

“Yes—but I’m not sure you can control the transformation, and for the most part the transformation, all differences aside, is from alive to dead.”

“For mortals, yes.”

Evanton was mortal. In theory. Or he’d been born mortal. But he’d lived a long damn time, and if he looked ancient to Kaylin, he hadn’t aged at all in the years—admittedly few—she’d known him. “How do you know what Shadow does?”

His brows gathered in the what a stupid question look he usually threw at poor Grethan. “I’ve been through several iterations of men—and women—who seek power. Any power. Most of those attempts don’t directly affect me, as Keeper. But some—as recent history has proven—have come close to destroying everything. I will allow that if the weapons the Aerians were utilizing were of Shadow, it is highly likely that Shadow was the ostensible bletsian granted those who could not naturally fly.” He rose. “It so happens I have something for you.”

“Lillias’s bletsian?”

Evanton nodded. “I ask you to wait here while I retrieve it from the garden.”

Kaylin nodded. And had another cookie.

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