The order not to speak flew out the window, and out of Kaylin’s mind, as the child turned her face up to Kaylin’s and pulled on her knee—a universal request for the larger person to get down to the child’s level. Kaylin knelt at once. The child reached out and touched the mark on her face—the nightshade, pale blue against decidedly less pale skin.
And then she said, “You’re a book.”
Kaylin nodded, as if this made sense.
“There is writing all over you,” the girl added in a soft, matter-of-fact tone. And it was true, although none of that writing was actually exposed. It lay beneath shirt and pants and collar and hair, hidden. But not to the child.
The child could see.
So…
“What does it say?” Kaylin asked quietly, breaking one of the rules she had been told to follow at risk of permanent ejection.
“Well,” the girl replied, “I’m not sure. I don’t want you to leave yet, though. I want to read the whole story.”
“I don’t think it’s finished yet.”
“Oh?”
“It’s just a guess.”
Serious-eyed, serious-voiced, the child said, “But it’s yours, so you should know. The words are fighting, though,” she added. “Maybe when they finish, there’ll be an ending.”
Before she could stop her mouth—a habit that had never taken hold except in formal interrogations—Kaylin said to the girl, “Will I survive it, do you think?” And the steel-eyed doll of a child looked at her for a long time as she considered not her face, but her arms, her legs, as if looking at clothing. But then she moved around Kaylin’s back, and Kaylin sat utterly still, as if such inspection were natural. Kaylin knew what she was looking at. The writing that had appeared last.
The silence went on for a moment, and then the child said, in a voice that was high and fluting, a girl’s precocious voice, “We all die.”
“Marai,” Sigrenne said quietly, “you will alarm our guest.” She had bent slightly in her gleaming metal, and the child looked not the least intimidated.
“Oh, she’s seen lots and lots of death,” Marai replied confidently. “And I don’t scare her at all. I can make a scary face,” she added, with less confidence. “But that only works on Mika.”
“Have you eaten lunch?”
“Lunch?” Marai replied, as if Sigrenne had just asked her if she knew what the moons were made of. “Is it lunchtime?”
“It is past lunchtime.”
“Well then, I must have eaten.”
“And what did you eat?”
“Noodles and cheese and the funny salty rolled meat.”
“No dear, that’s in two days.”
“Or last week.”
Sigrenne smiled. “Go and find something to eat, Marai. Remember what Master Seltzen said. You must remember to live in the now sometime.”
Marai nodded somberly, and with a regretful glance at Kaylin, she backed away.
Kaylin rose and was met by the stony glare of slightly orange Dragon eyes. The eyes were lidded. “Sigrenne,” he began, but Sigrenne had turned to Kaylin with a thin-lipped frown already forming across her weathered face.
“I believe I made the rules clear,” she said coolly.
Kaylin nodded, sparing the child a backward glance, as fascinated by her as the child had been by the writing that she could not have seen by any normal means. “But she’s a child,” she said, with a bit of a guilty inflection. “And she was speaking to me.”
“Yes. And because she is a child, she will not be in too much trouble for also breaking the rules.”
“They have rules?”
“Yes. They are not to speak to strangers.”
“Oh. The usual rules.”
“The usual rules, yes. And,” Sigrenne added, relenting, “they follow rules as well as most children that age do.”
“I’m sorry—I’m not used to ignoring children.”
“Oh?”
“Private Neya,” Sanabalis said, stepping in and speaking in a smooth, almost officious tone, “does much of her volunteer work with two worthy organizations. The guild of midwives, and the Foundling Hall. She has spent many of her adult years around children who feel isolated, and I ask, as a favor, that you overlook her gross infraction.” “The Foundling Hall?” Sigrenne said, raising a brow and looking at Kaylin for the first time as if she were another woman, and not a possible criminal. “You know Marrin, then?”
Kaylin’s brows rose higher. “You know Marrin?”
“Aye, I’ve spoken with her a time or ten,” Sigrenne said with a wry smile.
“I know her, yes. Her fangs are still sharp and her claws still draw blood.”
Sigrenne frowned, and Kaylin reddened slightly. “It’s a translation of a Leontine saying, but it basically means she’s not in her dotage yet.”
“That old lion will never be in her dotage. She can be an infuriatingly territorial—”
“She is Leontine.”
“Aye, she is that.”
“And the children she takes in are in some ways her pridelea, the kin she has chosen. I don’t know why she doesn’t have a pridelea of her own, and I’ve never asked.”
“I have,” Sigrenne said, wincing. “Don’t.”
“But—but how do you know her?”
Sigrenne’s face grew serious again. “You met Marai?”
Kaylin nodded.
“And you didn’t recognize her?”
“No.”
“Ah. She wasn’t at the Foundling Hall for more than a day or two. Marrin has a sixth sense, I swear. I mean, an almost Oracular sense. The child was dumped on the grounds, and brought to Marrin by the groundskeeper—what is his name again?”
“Albert.”
“Ah, yes. Albert. She’d been left there. Many, many of the Oracles are abandoned by their parents. Some are killed,” she added, and here a flash of fury colored her cheeks for a moment.
“But—but why?”
“The less affected the Oracles are by their gift—and in early childhood, they are not quite as lost as they can later become—the more often they ask inappropriate questions about things like their parents’ infidelities. In public places. They know things they shouldn’t know and see things they shouldn’t see, and very often they are viewed as witch children and a great evil.
“They are feared,” Sigrenne added, “without understanding.”
“Some of those that survive are found by Marrin, and she will call us. She’s not terribly good about releasing the children, and believe that she’s paid us a visit or ten just to make sure that her children aren’t suffering.”
Kaylin laughed at that, and the unnamed woman also chuckled. It made her seem younger than her armor or her bearing. “So some of Marrin’s kittens are here.”
“Not so many, but yes, some of them are here. Some are much older than Marai, but Marrin found them and kept them safe. One boy was badly burned,” Sigrenne added, “when Marrin found him. Apparently his uncle came back to try to finish the job. There wasn’t a lot left of the uncle, from what I heard.”
“From who?”
“I have friends in the Halls of Law,” she replied coolly.
“So do I,” Kaylin said with the hint of a grin. “And at the moment, suicide isn’t illegal.”
“It wasn’t exactly suicide—” And then Sigrenne also laughed. “I see you do know Marrin.”
“She has my mirror,” Kaylin replied. “And she’s not afraid to use it.”
“Very well, if you’ve worked for the old beast, we’ll overlook this. Marrin is quite protective and ignoring one of her kits in that particular way would probably cost you a hand.”
“Well, finger.”
“Infection happens.”
Kaylin found herself liking this older woman. “And these,” she said softly, “are your kitlings.”
“Yes.”
The Hawk found herself completely relaxing. Because this was now a place she understood. “I won’t harm them,”
she said. “Or I’ll do my best not to alarm them.”
“Aye, you will. But try a bit harder, girl. They sometimes want company, and some of them don’t know how to ask for it very well.”
Kaylin nodded.
“And if they scream and run at the sight of you, don’t take it personally, and try not to jump or scream in response.”
“Got it. Personally, several of my coworkers already have that reaction to me, and I’ve found it’s best not to encourage them.”
They managed to get out of the long, open space without further incident, and Sanabalis’s eyes had already returned to the calm gold of Dragon ease. He even gave Kaylin a slight nod of approval at her handling of the affair, which she accepted even though she knew it was undeserved.
They were led to rooms that seemed both sumptuous and plain; they were obviously designed in a way to impress visitors of rank and leisure, but they were not so ornate or gaudy that they made Kaylin uncomfortable.
“Wait here,” Sigrenne told them both. “And make yourself comfortable. It is not always easy to disturb the Oracles, but the Master of the Hall is expecting you, and he is much less wayward.”
“He deals with visitors?”
“We call them supplicants—or he does. And yes, every single person who wishes to pose a question to the Oracles must first speak to the Master. He usually throws out about a hundred requests a month as trivial and foolish wastes of both time and money.”
Kaylin’s brows rose.
And fell as she noted the subtle shift in the folds of the Dragon lord’s robes, which indicated that he might be prepared to step on her foot again, and finish the job by breaking it. But the expression on her face had nothing to do with her normal contempt.
“He—he lets nobles talk to the—the children?” For as she said it, it came to her that they were in their way like lost children, even the oldest among then, in their brilliant, scattered and mismatched regalia.
Sigrenne’s face cracked a genuine smile, then. “You are Marrin’s,” she said, voice gruff with approval. “And you understand why we’re protective. Not all of the Oracles are…as lost…as the ones you just saw. You’ve met Oracles before, in your line of work, surely?”
Kaylin nodded.
“You’re here to see some of them,” Sigrenne added. “But the Master first.”
“I’ll be good.” She looked at Lord Sanabalis and added, “I’ll try to be good.”
CHAPTER 9
The words The Master always had a certain tinge of authority to them that set Kaylin’s teeth on edge in any institution. Respect, she could grant—but some stubborn part of her felt it had to be earned. It wasn’t something she could just toss around lightly, like dirty laundry at the end of a long, messy day.
And the man who eventually entered the room, followed by servants who carried simple, but obviously silver, trays, suited the words. The contrast between his attire and the attire of the inmates of this strange interior world could not have been more pronounced; had he been in a throng of pretentious nobility it would have been impossible to pick him out. He was impeccable. His hair was salt-and-pepper black, and he sported a pointed, well-groomed beard; his eyes were a dark brown, and nested under a thick welt of brow that broke only slightly when it crossed the bridge of his nose.
He was a tall man, and his subtle stance made it clear to Kaylin that he was accustomed to taking advantage of his height when it suited him. At the moment, it didn’t suit him, and he stood almost at ease, examining her. He spared Sanabalis the shortest of glances, a certain sign that he was familiar with the Dragon lord. And yet…she had been told that he was an Oracle.
And that those with the weakest power were often the ones who could most easily interact with the outside world by its own rules. She could well believe it now.
“Lord Sanabalis,” he said at last.
“Master Sabrai,” the Dragon replied, inclining his head, “this is Private Kaylin Neya, of the Imperial Hawks.”
“The investigative branch?”
“Indeed.”
“And what do the Halls of Law require of the Oracles on this fine day?” He asked the question of Sanabalis, but he directed the brunt of his scrutiny toward Kaylin, the newcomer. There was, however, no disdain in his gaze. It contained a certain amount of weariness and, yes, hostility—but none of the contempt that she had come to expect of people who dressed the way he did.
She took a breath and turned it around. “It’s not exactly what the Halls require, but what the Oracle Hall needs.”
He was silent in his brittle regard.
“Sanabalis—” She paused as the dragon cleared his throat loudly, and started again. “Lord Sanabalis brought me a sketch—a color sketch that’s really quite good—indirectly attributed to one of the children here. For some reason, he thought I might recognize the girl in the picture.”
“And you did?”
She nodded. “I’ve seen the girl once before.”
Master Sabrai froze in place. Kaylin had heard the expression a hundred times, but only a handful were truly descriptive. “In life?”
“No.”
“In—not in dream?” His brows rose, changing the distant and well-kept expression of his face. The eyes that had looked so dark seemed paler as they rounded, like windows, like a glimpse of vulnerability and uncertainty. Nor did he struggle to contain it, as many a noble might have done, and she realized that he was an Oracle.
Wondered what it cost him to be so different from the others who lived here, and wondered what he did when he wasn’t forced into this role.
“No, not in dream, either.”
He relaxed slightly, and the weary look on his face became, for Kaylin, the look of a man who wasn’t anxious to sleep much, and needed to.
“How, then, did you see her?”
“On the surface reflection of a pool of very, very deep water.”
“W-water?”
She nodded, watching him carefully now; she had ceased to be a worry in one way, and had brought home all worry in another.
“Lord,” Master Sabrai said to Sanabalis.
“Yes, Master Sabrai.”
“The other drawings?”
“It was to get your permission to speak with the artist that we came. That and to see the rest of his impressive work.”
“She knows the rules?”
“She has been fully apprised of the rules, yes.”
“Good. You have my permission. I would like to attend, as well.”
“Of course.”
Kaylin could smell the room before she could see it. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell—but it was a dusty, strong smell, and an unfamiliar one. They had been escorted through a different set of doors than the one they had entered, which she hadn’t expected.
“Don’t we usually speak to the Oracles in your office?”
“Yes, that would be the usual method. But Everly is somewhat unusual, and he does not speak at all.” He hesitated for a moment, and then added, “He is not generally exposed to the public. On the few occasions that we have felt his presence germaine, it did not turn out…well. And the full effect of his expression of talent cannot be had in my office.”
As he wasn’t looking at her, Kaylin didn’t bother to nod.
“You will see, among his collection, some portraits you may or may not recognize. It’s not exactly his specialty, but—he tends to anchor things to people.”
“That’s unusual?” Kaylin asked. Mostly because she couldn’t see how a future that didn’t concern living people was much of a concern at all.
“Try chatting with a tidal wave,” Master Sabrai replied.
“Good point.” She paused for a moment as his back hurried off. “Was that just a random example?” And moved her foot just in time to avoid Sanabalis’s. For someone who affected age, he could move fast.
“Lord Sanabalis has been here before, obviously.” Master Sabrai stopped at a closed door that looked sort of like any other closed
door in the narrow hall. “Some of the Oracles…don’t like Lord Sanabalis.”
“It’s the Dragon thing, right?”
“Something like that,” Master Sabrai replied, and pushed the door open.
Into the fury that was the jaws of a dragon. Kaylin’s knees had bent and her hand had dropped to her dagger hilt before she realized that this Dragon was actually…a huge painting.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Master Sabrai said over her shoulder. “It’s the one that most fascinates Everly. He never quite finishes it. He adds to it here and there.”
Kaylin turned slowly to look, not at Sabrai, but Sanabalis.
“I think it a good likeness of the days of my youth,” he said, without so much as cracking a smile.
“If that’s what the Oracles all see when they see you, I’m surprised they let you in at all.”
“Not all of the Oracles will see Lord Sanabalis that way,” Master Sabrai said quietly, as he motioned toward the room itself. “But enough of them do.”
“And you?”
“I see him as he presents himself.”
“Ah.” Kaylin tilted her head to one side for a moment. “And me?”
“You bear an unusual mark,” he said.
Which, Kaylin decided, proved the point about sane and powerful—the more sane, the less powerful. She thought briefly that this might apply to everyone, thought of the marks on her arms, her legs, her back, and decided she distinctly disliked the direction her thoughts were taking her.
So instead of thinking, she chose observation. Kaylin looked around a much larger room than she’d expected, and realized that the painting of Sanabalis had to be huge.
“It’s life-size,” Master Sabrai said, because he could probably hear her jaw hit the floor. “It was rather difficult to get the canvas for it, and unfortunately, it was also rather necessary.” “Oh?”
“He’s an Oracle,” Master Sabrai added, as if it were an explanation. It wasn’t, really.
“Is that why it’s not framed?”
“Oh, most of his work isn’t. The work on display is otherwise framed, yes, but Everly doesn’t care about frames. They do, however, often impress the few dignitaries who request permission to view his gallery.”