“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 e
ven 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.