Kaylin’s heart echoed Kattea’s obvious pain. “Mine, too,” she said. “I was five years old and living in the fiefs.”
Kattea’s eyes almost fell out of her head. She turned, excited again, to Gilbert. “Gilbert! Gilbert! She’s just like us! Which fief?”
“Nightshade.”
“Gilbert! Gilbert!”
Gilbert closed his eyes; in the darkened room, he looked less pale. “Kattea was born in the fief of Nightshade,” he said quietly.
“Gilbert found me. Gilbert saved me from—” She stopped, paling at the memory. “Gilbert saved me. And then we came here. Well—not right here, but after.”
“So your parents didn’t live in the city.”
Kattea shook her head.
“And you made it across the bridge.”
She nodded.
“When did this happen?”
“Months ago,” the young girl said.
“Three weeks ago,” Gilbert clarified.
Three weeks. Every Hawk present exchanged a glance. “Three weeks,” Kaylin said slowly. “This was on the night that the Dragons were flying above the city?”
Kattea nodded.
“Kattea’s confidence in the city across the bridge was...high.”
Kaylin’s had been, too. In some ways, it still was; if the ideal city she’d imagined was tarnished, it was still a far better place to live than the fiefs had been. “Why did you bring her here?”
“Because the fiefs were not suitable. I do not think she would have survived them long. Had I not found her, she would not have survived at all.”
“Where were you born?” Bellusdeo asked.
“In Ravellon,” Gilbert replied.
Bellusdeo rose then. Kattea stepped, instantly, in front of Gilbert, her arms wide-open; Kaylin reached out and placed a hand—gently—on the Dragon’s shoulder. “Forgive us,” she said, the words aimed more at Kattea than at Gilbert, “but only Shadow dwells within Ravellon now.”
“That is true,” he replied. “But it was not always so.”
“If you come from Ravellon now, it’s true,” the Dragon said. Her eyes, which had lightened slightly while Kattea spoke, now shifted back into true red.
“It is not” was the quiet reply. “Perhaps you cannot discern the difference, but there is one. Understand that while we share mutual goals, we are not one creature, and those of us who maintain a shred of sanity retain some element of choice.”
The Dragon stared at him, unmoved.
Kaylin said quietly, “Bellusdeo walked the path between worlds to arrive in Elantra. Her world was lost to the Shadows.”
“I did not say that there was no danger; there is always an element of danger when dealing with the powerful. You,” he said, nodding to Bellusdeo, “are a danger to everyone in this room. I intend you—and your citizens—no harm.”
“And the child?” Bellusdeo asked.
“It is as she said. When I stumbled into the fief—and it seems an odd demarcation—I met Kattea. Minor creatures are given free rein in the streets of the fief; she would not have survived them. She called out to me; she asked me to come to her aid. I chose, for reasons of my own, to do so.”
“And those reasons are?”
“I say, again, that I have no harmful intent.”
“And we are to trust you? Your kind has done irreparable harm here, as well as elsewhere.”
“I am aware that it will be difficult to convince you. You have long held my kind in contempt. I am to be judged, always, by the actions of others—actions I would not have chosen to take.” To Kaylin, he said, “How is it that you chose to come first to my home? What error did I make?”
Kaylin shook her head to clear it. What Gilbert appeared to be claiming—that Shadows had free will and that they functioned as individuals—was a new thought, at least to Kaylin. It went against everything she had been told about Shadows; it went against anything she had ever personally experienced.
Yes, Shadows were not uniform in shape or size, although there were Ferals. There were one-offs, as her old friend Morse called them: creatures with too many limbs or no limbs or too many heads or too many mouths in one head—the list was endless. Shadows could be freaking weather. But every Shadow of any stripe Kaylin had encountered thus far had been attempting to kill. Or worse. The Shadows in Kaylin’s day-to-day life existed solely to torment, corrupt and ultimately destroy. Oh, and rule everything.
The Towers had been created by the Ancients to guard against the Shadow incursions that could otherwise destroy not only a city, but a world. Helen had defenses against Shadows, and she wasn’t even built in the fiefs.
Kaylin’s first thought—and second, and third—was that Gilbert was lying. That he had to be lying. But Kattea seemed neither injured nor cowed. She seemed, if anything, apprehensive and indignant—on Gilbert’s behalf, as he certainly wasn’t either on his own.
“Bellusdeo,” Teela said, “is this possible? You have the greater experience.”
Bellusdeo opened her mouth seconds after the small dragon opened his. This time, the translucent creature breathed.
Kaylin had seen this a few times now. The first time, she had understood the pearlescent cloud to be dangerous by the quality of blue in Barrani eyes. The second had confirmed the earlier Barrani opinion. A group of giant Ferals—for want of a better word—had attacked them on their recent journey to the West March and swallowed those clouds.
The clouds had destroyed them.
This seemed fair to Kaylin, because the Ferals’ blood had attempted to destroy the Barrani, and in what she assumed was a similar fashion: it spread, transmuting Barrani flesh into—well, into something that was no longer Barrani. Kaylin’s ability to heal couldn’t stop that transformation: she’d had to cut out the bad bits and start from there. The changes made by the combination of flesh and Shadow blood had instantly become the “healthy” or “default” state of the body. What the finished product of that default state would look like, she didn’t know; she’d worked desperately to make sure that it never happened.
This cloud hovered above the food in the still air of the room.
Since Teela and Tain were already on high alert, its existence didn’t noticeably change their expressions or their eye colors—in fact, Teela’s eyes might have actually lightened.
Gilbert stared intently at the cloud. Kattea sensibly asked, “Is it dangerous?” She spoke to Gilbert.
“Indeterminate,” he replied. At Kattea’s frown, he added, “I’m not certain yet. Is it?” he asked the small dragon.
The small dragon squawked.
Gilbert frowned. When he answered, he spoke in a language that Kaylin couldn’t understand. It was not a language that felt familiar, either; its vowels seemed sharp enough to cut the tongue on.
The small dragon squawked.
Oddly enough, this interchange seemed to set everyone else at ease—or as much at ease as they were likely to get—except Kattea, who frowned. “Why can’t you speak a language I can understand?” she demanded.
“I do not believe he is capable of it,” Gilbert replied. “And even if he is, there are some concepts I cannot easily discuss in your tongue. It is not always comfortable to exist in this fashion. My kin are often less confined in the shapes they choose to take.”
“He won’t teach me,” Kattea said to Kaylin. It was the first time she’d sounded less than perky.
“I don’t think he can,” Kaylin replied.
“Why not?”
“Because he’s not human.”
Kattea rolled her eyes. “So?”
“We’re mostly stuck being what we are,” Kaylin replied. “We can learn to do more—or less—with what we are. We can live on either side of the bridge. We can learn to hunt Ferals—” Kattea shrunk i
nto Gilbert’s side, at this “—even if we start out hiding in abandoned buildings and praying they can’t get in. But Teela is Barrani. She’s immortal. She’s going to live forever. She doesn’t really get cold and she doesn’t need to sleep. There are a lot of things we can do together, but I’m never going to be immortal, and when I get no sleep, it’s really bad.
“Gilbert isn’t like us.”
“I have explained this to Kattea before,” Gilbert added. “But apparently the word of a Hawk carries more weight.”
“The word of a mortal,” Kaylin countered. “The immortal don’t generally know much about us, except that we’re weak and not much of a threat.”
“That’s harsh,” Teela said.
“I notice you’re not denying it.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t true.” She turned to Gilbert. “Why are you in Elantra?”
“It was safer for Kattea.”
“Are you responsible for the deaths of your neighbors?”
“Did they die?”
“Yes. Their deaths are the reason you have Hawks in your parlor.”
Small and squawky came back to Kaylin’s shoulder and settled there. He didn’t seem to dislike or distrust Gilbert—and that, more than anything else, was the deciding factor for Kaylin. If Marcus ever learned of it, he’d bite her head off. While immortals tended to take the small creature seriously—possibly because he didn’t sound like an irate chicken to them—mortals didn’t.
“Private Neya,” Gilbert said, “may I ask one question?”
Kaylin nodded.
“The mark on your face—where did you come by it?”
* * *
Teela reacted first. In a voice that implied that frost was her natural element, she said, “Why do you ask?”
“It is unusual. I have not spent the majority of my existence in your streets, but I have spent some time observing—and I have not encountered its like anywhere else.”
“I should hope not,” Tain said.
“Does it break your laws?”
“Our laws, yes. The laws of the Emperor, no. In general, Imperial Laws are designed to deal with difficulties that are well understood and even common.”
“Is it painful?” Gilbert continued.
Kaylin ignored the question. “Can I offer you some advice for blending in?” she asked him.
He looked surprised at the question. “Yes, of course.”
“Blink occasionally. And stare less.”
This confused him. Which, given his origins, was probably to be expected. “The mark on my face was put there by the fieflord of Nightshade.”
Gilbert rose and bowed. “Then it is to you I must speak. You are Lord Kaylin?”
“I am Private Neya,” she replied, uncomfortable—as she always was—with the Barrani title. It had a weight she didn’t understand how to shoulder, and even if she could, wasn’t certain she wanted. “I’m a Hawk, and I serve the Emperor’s law.”
“Yes. I do not see that these are mutually exclusive.”
“What, exactly, do you need to speak with me about?”
“Lord Nightshade,” he replied. “I carry a message for you.”
Nightshade’s name—his True Name—reverberated in the hush that followed.
Calarnenne.
There was no answer. There had been no answer for weeks now, and the silence was slowly driving his younger brother insane.
It was Kaylin who attempted to repair the break in the conversation. “You’ve met him?”
“Yes, and no. If you enter Ravellon now, you will not find him.”
Kaylin nodded.
“But he is to be found there—or so he hopes—in the future.”
* * *
“She is not traveling to Ravellon,” Bellusdeo said flatly.
“It’s illegal,” Kaylin added, although the clarification probably wasn’t necessary, given the color of Bellusdeo’s eyes.
“It is not safe,” Gilbert agreed, as if that was the entire subtext of Bellusdeo’s statement. “But I was tasked with delivering a message.”
“From whom?”
Gilbert frowned. Kaylin considered the question a bit pointless, all things considered. “From—” and here he spoke a word that was thunder. With lightning for emphasis.
All of the hair on Kaylin’s body stood on end; her skin instantly broke out in the worst of the rashes that magic caused. In case there was any doubt, her arms—beneath the shroud of long sleeves—began to glow. It was not a glow that could be easily missed. Kaylin couldn’t fit syllables into the word—or words—that Gilbert had just uttered. She could not repeat the sounds.
The small dragon, however, lifted his head, squawking, and the pearly gray cloud that had hovered in place since he’d exhaled it began to move. It descended, and when it was a foot away from the top of the table on which Kattea had settled both food and drink, Kaylin leaped forward to rescue them.
The small dragon bit her ear without drawing blood; his eye rolling would have been at home on a Barrani face, if Barrani faces had contained eyes that looked like black opals.
“I don’t care,” she snapped. “You can do whatever you’re doing without destroying food.”
“Perhaps he means to imply that the furniture is more valuable than the food.”
Maybe it was. “You can’t eat furniture,” Kaylin replied. “Believe me. I’ve been hungry enough to try.” Not that she had any memory of that herself—but she dimly remembered the humorous stories that had sprung from the attempt. She set the tray on the ground nearest the girl who’d carried it so precariously into the room.
The cloud descended until it touched the surface of the table. From there, it rose. No, Kaylin thought, it unfolded, springing up in all directions from the wooden surface as if it had absorbed the base property and structure of the wood and was transforming it. What emerged, growing as if by layer, was something that might, in a nightmare, be a...dollhouse. It had what appeared to be doors. It had walls. It had a roof—or multiple roofs, as the various stories of the building, misaligned and not by any means entirely straight, expanded. It had towers, and one of these reached the height of ceilings that were much more generous than Kaylin’s previous home had once had.
Kaylin might have found it as magical an experience as Kattea clearly did, had her skin not ached so badly. Even her forehead throbbed; the only mark on her skin that didn’t hurt was the mark Nightshade had left there.
“What is this?” she asked.
Shaking his head, Gilbert said, “You must ask your companion; it is not a structure of my choosing.”
“But it grew in response to your answer.”
“Yes.” Gilbert knelt by the side of what could no longer be called a table, studying the structure that had replaced it.
“Records?” Kaylin asked Teela.
Teela blinked and then nodded. “The Sergeant is not going to be happy.”
“Not very, no—especially since we haven’t even started on the crime scene yet.”
* * *
The crack in the road was still there when they left the house Gilbert and Kattea occupied. The small dragon had more to say—and volubly—before they were allowed to depart. In all, it was almost embarrassing. But Bellusdeo allowed it. Her eyes were a deep, unfortunate orange, but at least they were orange. Kaylin avoided thinking about how she would have explained bloodred to any other Dragon.
In theory, the only one that counted—and was indirectly responsible for her pay—was the Emperor. Kaylin missed a step. Since the ground was flat, she didn’t end up falling—but she did stumble, righting herself only because of long years of drill-yard training. Sadly, she wasn’t exactly graceful about it.
“I feel exactly the same way” was Teela’s curt response. “
I hope this doesn’t generate another fifty reports. Or a demotion. Don’t make that face—you don’t have anywhere to go. You’re already a private.”
“If there’s no down, there’s always out” was Kaylin’s gloomy reply.
“What are you worried about this time? I know that expression. You’re not actually worried about a living Shadow in the heart of the city; you aren’t even thinking about the murders.”
“I am,” she said morosely. She glanced at Bellusdeo. “I have an appointment at the Palace tomorrow night.”
“In Imperial defense, the etiquette lessons do seem to be having some effect.”
“Besides the headaches?”
“Besides those, yes. I admit a grudging respect for Lord Diarmat’s pigheadedness. He’s lasted far longer than anyone else who suffers under the same pretensions—at least when dealing with you.”
* * *
The shift of Hawks left on the murder premises was scant—and annoyed. Kaylin recognized both. “Sorry, Gavin,” she said to the older man. “We ran into a small problem on the Winding Path and had to take a detour.”
Gavin was not quite of the same school as Mallory, Kaylin’s avowed enemy—but he wasn’t part of Marcus’s office the way Teela and Tain were, either. He was as crisp as Diarmat on a bad day, his face etched into lines that implied his frown—and he was frowning—was a permanent fixture.
His partner, Lianne, was both younger and more friendly. She offered Kaylin a sympathetic smile from behind Gavin’s left shoulder. “Was the problem dangerous?”
“We thought it might have something to do with the murders,” Kaylin offered.
That dimmed Lianne’s smile, or rather shifted it into something more brisk.
Both Gavin and Lianne were mortal and human. Gavin could remember a time when Marcus had not been sergeant, and Barrani were new to the force. He was probably still grumpy about their induction, but at least he had grown accustomed to their presence.
He did, however, raise an iron brow when he caught sight of Bellusdeo.
“She’s with me,” Kaylin said. “By Imperial dictate.”