“We all have secrets,” Kaylin replied. “We all have a past.”
Marrin nodded. Kaylin was certain she would have kept cutting if there had been anything left to cut. Instead, she reached into a cupboard, took out two plates, and began to arrange the food on them. As arrangements went, it was pure Leontine—it was food, not art, and as it was going to be destroyed instantly by people who were meant to eat it, there wasn’t much point in prettiness. But it still took a while.
And while she worked, she talked.
“My husband’s mother was angry,” she said. “My mother was afraid. The Elders took my daughter.” She examined plates as if they needed something she couldn’t give them. “I was so tired, Kaylin. I was in some pain. I wasn’t thinking clearly—and they understood that.
“But I left the birthing den, and I headed straight for the Elders. I think I injured two of them. I remember the blood.” She carried the plates to the small table at which she habitually ate with guests, if she cared enough to feed them. And “ate with” in this case was entirely wrong; mostly, she hovered and made sure they ate, but didn’t touch the food herself.
“They were not angry with me. They understood my panic, my fury, my fear—she was my daughter, and they had taken her from me. I would not have been held accountable for what occurred there. And had I desired it, when I regained my strength, I might have stayed.”
Severn was a ghost in this conversation; she looked through him, as if he didn’t exist at all as she set the plate in front of his chair.
“But my husband stood by. He did nothing. And when I had recovered, I was…angry. I knew the stories,” she said, her voice so level she might have been telling the story of a stranger in front of a classroom of bored students. “I understood why the Elders had my child killed. But…I was not strong enough to accept it, in the end.
“And in the end, I left my husband. I released him from our marriage. I told him who I thought would make good wives from among our tribe. He tried to tell me that he was willing to try again, to have other children. He wanted my children,” she said, “and he understood the pain that I felt, and the pain that he had caused.
“But I could not bring myself to trust him. And I couldn’t bring myself to try again. I had failed my child, and she had died. I had no guarantee that any child born of my body would not likewise be marked.”
Kaylin was definitely not hungry. But as Marrin had gone through the motions of feeding them, Kaylin now went through the motions of eating.
“I came to Elantra.”
Kaylin nodded.
“It was hard to live in this strange city. It was hard to wake up in the morning, in a small, cramped room, with none of my kin in running distance. There was no tall grass, there were no hunters. There were these small, cramped streets. I lived for some time in the Leontine Quarter, because I was homesick. That is the right word?”
“Yes.”
“I made friends here, among the women. I avoided the men. But in the end, it was difficult. I had no family here. When my new friends married, when they began to bear children—it was more than I could bear. I left the Quarter.”
“Did you know Sarabe and Marai?”
“I knew their mother,” Marrin replied. “She was younger than I. I think they all were. But Sarabe’s father protected his daughters. And in the end, Sarabe married.” The word was spoken with such heat, it was almost impossible to hear it as anything but angry.
But Kaylin knew Marrin; she said nothing.
“And I wondered if things would have gone differently if my husband had been like Sarabe’s father. I can’t say. Sarabe’s parents were consumed by fear for their daughters, and it devoured them. I do not know if they had much joy, parents or children.
“But two weeks after I left the Quarter, I was walking through the streets of this crowded city, and I saw a young child. He was begging. He was also stealing.” Her voice took on its familiar growl. “But I couldn’t be angry with him. He was so scrawny, Kaylin. I asked him where his parents were, and he shrugged and said ‘wherever the dead go.’
“I fed him. And in the end, I took him in. He had a place to stay, but I did not feel it was suitable for a child. The Foundling Halls came, in the end, out of that meeting. I couldn’t believe that these children were left to fend for themselves when they were clearly still cubs—and I wanted to help them.
“I wanted children,” she said softly. “And I gathered them. This is my home, this is my den. I knew they were not my daughter,” she added, as if it needed saying.
“Sarabe had daughters.”
“Yes. And none of them were marked.”
“No. Marrin—”
“I understand why the Elders made the choice they made. I try not to hate them for it. But…this talk, today, this Dragon, the story of our beginning—it makes me feel young again. Young and helpless.”
“If…there were…some proof that it is as big a danger as the Elders fear, would that help at all?”
“What do you think? She was my child. Even knowing that she might be a danger, even knowing that she would be, that the Elders were somehow right—could you have killed her?”
It was not the question that Kaylin had thought to hear. Not here, not in this place of safety, where the unwanted were loved and fed and taught. Her throat closed over any words she might have said—which was fine, because words had completely deserted her.
She realized in that moment that no matter how much she thought she had accepted the past, her dead would always come back to haunt her, biting and cutting at totally unexpected times. The children she had rescued from the streets—the children who had trusted her. Her hands became fists on the table to either side of her plate. Jade. Steffi.
It was Severn who answered the question, and as he did, he covered one of those fists with a hand that was larger in all ways—but just as unsteady, when it came to that.
“No,” he told Marrin. “If the world demanded their deaths in return for safety, she would have watched it burn.”
CHAPTER 14
Marrin fell silent, watching them both. At length, she said, “What has happened in the Quarter?”
“The son of one of the marked,” Kaylin replied quietly. “He—he’s been living in the Quarter.”
“Undetected.” It was not a question.
Kaylin nodded. “He wasn’t born here. He came, it was thought, from the plains.”
“Then I know why your Dragon spoke.”
“He’s not my Dragon.”
The older Leontine lifted a brow. “As you say.” She shook her head. “You and I—we are not from the same race. No one knows where your race began,” she added, “or why. But we are not so very different under the skin. Come, Kaylin. Tell me instead why you brought Rennick to my Halls.”
“Rennick?” For a moment, she had forgotten he existed. She had the grace to flush. “It’s work,” she told Marrin. “What he told you—it’s all true. We’re assigned to stop him from botching his attempt at a play. He’s got the tougher job—he has to write something that will somehow make the Tha’alani seem more like us. There are near-riots in the streets right now. It’s ugly. We want them to stop.”
“And you can’t arrest the people in question.”
“I’d like to,” Kaylin replied. “But the Swords don’t think that’ll help, and they’re the ones on riot duty. People are just stupid when they’re afraid.”
“People of any race,” Marrin replied. “Are you going to eat, kitling?”
“I’m not really hungry,” she said. It was true, for a change.
Marrin accepted the truth. She came and joined them at the table. “What is being done in the Leontine Quarter?”
“I don’t know,” was the miserable reply. “Marcus—he’s in what passes for a Leontine jail, accused of murdering one of his oldest friends. I want to get him out of there. I know Marcus. There’s no way—” She shook her head. “He’s not very happy with me right now.”
<
br /> “You have the means of proving his innocence.”
Kaylin nodded. “The Dragon does. It was my fault the Dragon was in the Quarter at all. I needed a mage I didn’t have to go through the department’s budget to get. With Marcus gone, someone else is in charge, and that someone else would be extremely happy to see me without the Hawk.”
Marrin growled.
“I’m fine, Marrin. I can take care of myself,” Kaylin said quickly, raising one hand to stem the flow of harsh Leontine. “But the Caste Court—the Leontine Caste Court—claimed jurisdiction over Marcus. I was given a direct order not to interfere.”
“And they expected you to obey?”
“Everyone else will.”
“The Dragon is not under this stranger’s jurisdiction.” It wasn’t a question.
“No. He answers to the Emperor. I think he’ll prove that the man Marcus killed in self-defense was enspelled.”
“By a Leontine.”
Kaylin nodded. “By a Leontine.”
“And your Sergeant Kassan is concerned that this will affect his wife.”
Kaylin nodded again. “He thinks they’ll kill her. And that he’ll die trying to stop them.”
Marrin’s gaze was gold now, but it wasn’t exactly peaceful. “There is more.”
“Yes—there always is. But I can’t talk about it, Marrin. I shouldn’t even be telling you this much. The Dragon will reduce me to ash if he finds out.”
“Kitling, do you understand what they fear?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what you think you understand.”
“I think the Outcaste Leontine is a mage, but the power he uses is wild and dark.”
“That could be said of all magic.”
Kaylin, never the biggest fan of magic, nodded. Not much there to argue with, really.
“They’re afraid,” Marrin said quietly, “that he is the power. He is less than an agent, now. Whatever he was before he accepted the change is gone. They are afraid that he is like the Ferals of your childhood, in the heart of the fiefs beyond the Ablayne—but more cunning, more capable of hiding the truth of his nature. You saw him. What do you fear?”
I’m afraid that they’ll kill the baby. But she couldn’t say it. Instead, she said, “He’s dangerous.”
“So am I.”
“Yes, but I understand why and when you could kill.” There was no question at all in either of their minds that Marrin could, if provoked. No question that Kaylin could. “I know there are things that you would never do.”
“Ah. And this man?”
She shook her head. “I don’t have that certainty. He would have killed Marai and—” She bit back the rest of the sentence. “I don’t think he cares a lot about any life that isn’t his own.”
“And that is the gift of the darkness?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it much because it doesn’t matter. He has to be found, and he has to be stopped.”
“Think about it,” Marrin said, pushing herself up from the chair she had only just taken. “And while you think—and eat, if you can find your appetite—I will rescue Mr. Rennick.”
“It doesn’t sound like—oh. That’s Dock.”
“Yes. And Cassie. I believe they’re about to embarrass me by starting a fight.”
Rennick did not appear to be in need of rescue to Kaylin’s admittedly jaundiced eye. He was, of course, the center of attention, and if the children kept trying to grab some of that attention for themselves, he obviously considered it natural.
But he rose when Marrin approached, and he offered her a tired but genuinely friendly smile. “I don’t know where you get the energy,” he said. “I should come here more often.”
“Oh?”
“It’ll remind me of what real work is like.”
The low, throaty growl of a chuckle escaped Marrin. For that, if nothing else, Rennick rose a notch in Kaylin’s estimation.
“Speaking of which, Dock—and I want the story about that name one of these days—and Cassie have expressed a very serious interest in my current work. I’ve half a mind to let them help.”
“You’ll lose the other half by the end of it,” Marrin replied, but she was genuinely pleased.
“Oh, believe that your children are a positive joy compared with what’s in my future.” He offered her a hand, and she took it firmly. She was used to humans. “If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to visit again in a day or two.”
“So you are capable of being charming,” Kaylin said, as they settled into the carriage that had, like a miracle, appeared down the block.
“I won’t deny it. Generally, it’s too much work.”
“And Marrin is worth the work?”
“I may complain about my work, but in general, I’m attached to my life.”
She laughed. “And you got something useful out of your discussion?”
He nodded. “They weren’t afraid at all,” he said, dangling an arm out the window, as if to catch a breeze. “They wandered around the Tha’alani Quarter watched by every Tha’alani adult in range, and they didn’t really care.”
“The Tha’alani are used to curiosity in children.”
“It’s not the Tha’alani reaction, it’s the children’s reaction. As far as I can tell, Ari practically mashed foreheads with any adult fool enough not to get out of her way.”
“Which would have been all of them. She’s only five.”
“My point.” He lifted the dangling arm and traced the upper edge of the carriage window. “Whatever stories exist about the Tha’alani, they don’t seem to touch Marrin’s kids.”
“Her kids are used to Marrin. They don’t see the world in quite the same way.”
“You’re used to Marrin. You hated the Tha’alani.”
“I had some experience with what they actually do for the Emperor.”
“Ah. I don’t suppose—”
“No. I don’t want to talk about it.”
He shrugged. “But before you met the Tha’alani?”
“There were stories.”
“Yes, but from whom?”
“What?”
“Who told you those stories?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
“You can’t answer.”
“Not off the top of my head, no. Severn?”
“Street stories,” he supplied. “But vague ones—most of our stories concerned Ferals and the fieflord, either of which were more likely to kill us than the Tha’alani.”
“Do Tha’alani live in the fiefs?”
“What do you think?”
“That would be a no.” Rennick turned to look at Kaylin.
“Pull that arm in or you’ll lose it,” she told him.
“My arm, my risk.”
“That’s the one you write with. You lose that arm on our watch, it won’t be your head they’ll remove.”
He laughed at that, and dragged his sleeve back across the window edge. “You heard stories. The people with crossbows and clubs that look like table legs heard stories. But Marrin’s kids didn’t.”
“Marrin’s not big on stories that encourage fear of anything but her.”
“Good point.”
“She doesn’t encourage gossip. The kids do it anyway, but they’re hampered by the fact that she hates to let them out of her sight for a minute. And they know that fur, fangs and claws don’t make her an animal. They’ve probably asked at one point or another why they weren’t born Leontine, and she’s probably told them that they were meant to be human. But being human, for Marrin, isn’t the same as being human for children whose parents haven’t died and abandoned them.
“I think she wants them to fit in here. To understand that this city isn’t just human—or Leontine, or Tha’alani or Aerian or Dragon.”
“You forgot the Barrani.”
“Sue me. She’s afraid that if they’re too caught up in the ex
ternal differences, they’ll—I don’t know. Be afraid. They’ve got enough to be afraid of.”
“You admire her.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“Fair enough. I admit a sneaking admiration for her myself, and not just because she can keep a few dozen children in line. I’d pay a lot to know why she bothers.”
“Is there anyone’s life story you don’t want to know?”
“Not really.” His expression was unexpectedly serious. “Because people make a story of their lives. Gains, losses, tragedy and triumph—you can tell a lot about someone simply by what they put into each category. You can learn a lot about what you put into each category by your reaction to them. They teach you about yourself without ever intending to do it—and they teach you a lot about life. Put ten people in the streets at a crime scene, and ask them what they saw after. If they can’t talk to each other at all during the interrogation, you’ll probably have ten different versions of events. They edit what they remember. They try to make sense of it as they go.
“And I’ll stop with the lecture now. I don’t like people much—they irritate and annoy me. But I’m fascinated by them anyway.”
She looked at him for a minute and then snorted. “You just like being the center of their attention.”
“That, too.”
When they returned Rennick to his quarters in the Imperial Palace, he opened the door, took one look at the mess he had made over the course of his work, and snorted. That said, he began to move piles of paper onto other piles of paper, in what seemed a completely random bustle. Kaylin, having had years to observe both Caitlin and Marcus, did the smart thing; she stood as close to the wall as possible and touched nothing.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, as it became clear he was trying to make some space on the table to do actual work, “but I’m thinking of using your foundlings.”
“I mind.” Pause. “For what?”
“Do you always say no before your brain catches up with your mouth?”
“Pretty much. It’s safer that way—usually people who are asking me to do something aren’t volunteering to shower me with gold, land or favors.”