Any day that starts with dragon arguments is going to be bad

Kaylin returned from the West March in one piece. Now that piece is fraying. She’s not at home in the Imperial Palace—and she never intends to be. All she wants is normal garden-variety criminals and a place of her own. Of course, normal in her new life involves a dragon as a roommate, but she can handle that.

She can’t as easily handle the new residents to the city she polices, because one of them is Nightshade’s younger brother. On a night when she should be talking to landlords in perfectly normal buildings, she’s called to the fief—by Teela. A small family disagreement has become a large, complicated problem: Castle Nightshade’s latent magic is waking.

And it’s not the only thing.

Praise for New York Times bestselling author MICHELLE SAGARA and The Chronicles of Elantra series

“No one provides an emotional payoff like Michelle Sagara.”

—Bestselling author Tanya Huff on The Chronicles of Elantra series

“Intense, fast-paced, intriguing, compelling and hard to put down…unforgettable.”

—In the Library Reviews on Cast in Shadow

“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 (4 ½ 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 (4 ½ stars) on Cast in Silence

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

—Publishers Weekly on Cast in Chaos

“If you are searching for a rich and rewarding fantasy read different from the usual fantasy fare, then you can’t go wrong with Cast in Ruin and The Chonicles of Elantra series. Heartily recommended.”

—SciFiGuy.ca on Cast in Ruin

“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 (4 ½ 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 (4 ½ stars) on Cast in Sorrow

The Chronicles of Elantra

by

New York Times bestselling author

Michelle Sagara

CAST IN SHADOW

CAST IN COURTLIGHT

CAST IN SECRET

CAST IN FURY

CAST IN SILENCE

CAST IN CHAOS

CAST IN RUIN

CAST IN PERIL

CAST IN SORROW

And

“Cast in Moonlight”

found in

HARVEST MOON,

an anthology with Mercedes Lackey and Cameron Haley

Cast in Flame

Michelle Sagara

www.mirabooks.co.uk

This year, Worldbuilders (www.worldbuilders.org), Patrick Rothfuss’s charity drive for Heifer International (www.heifer.org), gave me an opportunity to contribute something to their series of auctions. I wanted to do this, in part because I like the charity, and in part because the money is used to make the world a better place.

But my contribution was…a manuscript for a book. This one. And in order for that contribution to have any value to the charity, someone was required to step up and bid on and win the auction. I was prepared to thank that person in the dedication to the book—or to thank anyone the bidder chose. I still want to thank Chad for his enormous generosity.

Chad, however, bid on and bought the book as a gift for someone else, and he has a few words he wants to say:

To that special someone in my life who shall remain anonymous. Mainly because I would not likely be among the living if her true name was mentioned.

There are so many things about you that I love, like your stunning smile and laugh, which I never get tired of finding ways of bringing out. The unconditional honesty you are willing to give or how you sneeze when the sunlight kisses your face. And the phrase “Oh Dear” will be forever special to me.

Life offers many challenges, but I have never stopped loving you, always have, always will.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Booklist

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Acknowledgments

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

On the second day after her return to Elantra, the city she policed as a groundhawk, Private Kaylin Neya fell out of bed, daggers in hands, knees bent. After one confused moment, she sheathed her daggers, took a brief look around the otherwise empty royal guest chambers that served as her temporary home, and let loose a volley of Leontine curses.

The small, translucent winged lizard that habitually slept above her head squawked in protest; she’d swept him out of the way without a second thought. He hovered in front of her face as she cursed; she didn’t, at the moment, have anything left over for groveling apologies.

Leontine wasn’t the usual language heard in the halls of the Imperial Palace. Nor was it generally heard in the function rooms, and when it was, it wasn’t the particular phrasing she now indulged in. On the other hand, the thunderous sounds that had driven her from sleep pretty much guaranteed that no one who’d care could possibly hear her words. Kaylin could scream until she was blue in the face, with the same results. Anyone in the palace halls could, at the moment.

Dragons were having a discussion.

When she’d first heard Dragons converse in their native tongue, she’d thought of earthquakes or tidal waves. Distinguishing individual voices had been less important than covering both her ears in the vague hope she’d preserve some of her hearing. A couple of weeks in the palace with Bellusdeo for a companion had changed that. She could pick out three loud—painfully loud—voices in the crash of distant thunder: Diarmat’s, Bellusdeo’s and...the Emperor’s. While she generally enjoyed the arguments between Bellusdeo and Diarmat, she had zero desire to ever interrupt—or witness—any argument which also contained the Emperor. Even mention of the Emperor was probably career-limiting.

It was dark, but the storm of sound in progress didn’t seem like it would die down any time soon, and sleep was pretty much impossible—at least for Kaylin. The rest of the Dragon Court was probably in hiding, but Immortals didn’t need anything as petty as sleep.

The minute—the second—she had the time to find a new place, she was so out of here.

The small dragon landed on her shoulders. She’d named him Hope, but felt self-conscious actually calling him that, and she hadn’t had time to come up with a name that suited him better. He yawned, folded himself across her shoulders like a badly formed shawl, and closed his eyes. Clearly, Dragon shouting didn’t bother him in the slightest.

Then again, he probably understood what they were saying.

* * *

The palace was never dark. Individual rooms had lighting that responded to the needs of the guests who occupied them, but the halls—the grand, wide, towering halls—were always fully lit. The Imperial Palace Guard also adorned those halls, standing like statues in a stiff, grim silence that suited their pretension.

They didn’t stop Kaylin as she walked past them, heading to one of the only places that she was certain was somewhat soundproof. They knew her on sight, and if they’d had no issues treating her as one step up from a convicted felon in the past, she was now roommate to the Empire’s only female Dragon. The Emperor didn’t want anyone to piss Bellusdeo off.

Anyone, Kaylin thought glumly, but the Emperor himself. Dragons had never been famously good at sharing.

* * *

When she reached the tall and forbidding doors of the Imperial Library, she had second thoughts. It wasn’t that the Imperial Library was home in all but name to the Arkon, the oldest member of the Dragon Court. It wasn’t that the doors were closed; they were almost always closed. It wasn’t even his extreme dislike of being interrupted.

It was the door ward that straddled them.

She’d woken to the sounds of angry Dragon, which pretty much defined Bad Day. Having to place her palm against this particular ward took Bad Day and made it worse. At the best of times, Kaylin’s allergy to magic made door wards uncomfortable—but this ward could raise so much noise it might just interrupt the Dragons. One of whom was the Emperor.

There was no other way to open them. Kaylin briefly considered knocking. With her head. Before she could—and it was late enough, or early enough, that she might have—the doors surprised her by gliding open. No one stood between them.

At this hour, the library desk—the publicly accessible library desk—was unmanned. The display cases and the rows upon rows of standing files were shadowed. The robed clerks who kept the library spotless were conspicuous by their absence—but that was no surprise. No one sane visited the library at this hour.

As the doors rolled closed at her back, the sound of Dragon anger diminished.

The Arkon made his way toward her from the back of the large room, which surprised Kaylin; she’d expected to find him holed up in one of the many, many rooms that comprised his personal collection—none of which the public was invited to peruse.

“Thank you for opening the doors,” she told him.

“I felt it best to avoid interrupting the ongoing discussion. No one involved in it is likely to be amused by the sudden need to attend to intruders.”

“I live here, at the moment.”

“Indeed. I imagine the only person present who might find a disaster of your making remotely convenient is Lord Diarmat.”

“Who doesn’t deserve it.”

“You give him too little credit.”

“Do I?”

The Arkon’s smile was lined. It was also sharp. “Perhaps I will beg the Emperor’s indulgence.”

In theory, this sounded good. Given the way the day had started, it couldn’t be. “How?”

“I might ask permission to teach you the rudiments of our language.” His smile deepened as her eyes rounded and her brows rose.

“I’ll go deaf!”

“Yes. Follow me, please. You interrupted me,” he added.

“I don’t know how you can work with that ruckus going on in the background.”

“It is difficult. I do not have the concentration I once possessed in my youth.”

“So, what are they arguing about exactly?”

“Bellusdeo’s status at court, at the moment; the argument has touched on many subjects.” The Arkon’s eyes were a steady shade of orange, which wasn’t a good sign, in a Dragon.

“What about her status? She’s a Dragon, so she’s technically a Lord of the Court.”

“That is true only in mortal terms. She is not—as Diarmat has been at pains to point out—a Lord of this Court. She has not offered the Emperor an oath of fealty; nor has she agreed—in a binding fashion—to abide by the laws he hands down.”

“She spends most of her free time with me,” Kaylin replied. “I’m a groundhawk. She probably knows the law better than anyone who isn’t.”

“You misunderstand. Humans are not, of course, required to take such a binding oath—I believe they would not survive it. Bellusdeo has not been required to do so. Lord Diarmat correctly points out that she therefore poses a risk to the Court.” He stopped at a smooth, flat wall. It was unadorned; Kaylin suspected it was actually a door.

The Arkon barked a sharp, harsh word and proved her suspicion correct; a part of the wall simply faded from sight. What lay on the other side of it was a disaster. It made Kaylin’s desk at its worst look pristine and tidy. Hells, it made Marcus’s desk look well-organized, which Kaylin would have bet was impossible.

The Arkon noted her hesitation. “Is there a difficulty?”

“Just how important is all the paper—that is paper, isn’t it?”

“Parchment. Some paper. There is also stone and a few shards of smooth glass. I trust that you will disturb nothing while you are here.”

“How?”

He raised a brow; his eyes didn’t get any more orange, which was a small mercy.

“There’s stuff all over the floor. There’s stuff all over the chairs. I probably can’t put a foot down without stepping on something.”

“Then do not, as you put it, put a foot down.” He gestured.

The hair on Kaylin’s arms and the back of her neck rose in instant protest.

“Do not,” he said, in a more severe tone of voice, “make me regret my foolish and sentimental decision to take pity on you and provide you some form of refuge.”

Folding her arms across her chest, she walked into the room; her feet touched nothing. Neither did the Arkon’s.

“Not to be suspicious or anything,” she began.

“You do not think me capable of either sentiment or pity?”

“Not much, no. Not for me.”

His smile deepened. “As you point out, Private, Bellusdeo did spend most of her free time in your presence. You have not, however, been in the city for the past month and a half. She has therefore had no anchor. No friends, if you prefer. In the last two weeks of your absence, she has spent a greater portion of her time in the fief of Tiamaris, speaking with the refugees there. When she chooses to enter the fief, she is met by one of the Norannir.”

“That would be Maggaron.”

“The Emperor does not consider Maggaron to be a suitable guard in the fiefs; Lord Tiamaris, however, is. She has accepted—with poor grace—the Emperor’s wishes in this regard.”

“What happened?”

“She has taken to flying in the restricted air-space above the fief of Tiamaris.”

“It’s not Imperial land.”

“No. She has pointed this out—at length. You might have recognized one or two of the words she used, if you were paying attention. She has, however, come close to the borders of the fief once too often for the Emperor’s comfort.”

“The Norannir live on the borders.”

“Indeed. She has taken pains to point this out, as well.”

“He’s going to isolate her! The Norannir are the only other friends she has in this city!”

The Arkon’s smile was softer, and infinitely more pained. “They are not her friends, Kaylin. They were once her subjects. She is not merely a Dragon to them; she is akin to a living god. Bellusdeo has her vanity. She has her pride. But she, like any Dragon, understands her role in their lives. She does not go to them for their sake, but her own. They remind her of who she once was.

“There is altogether too much in the Palace that reminds her of what she now is.”

Kaylin’s arms tightened. “And what, exactly, is that?”

“A displaced person. She is very much the equivalent of the Norannir. You think of her as a Lord of the Court, and you have some rudimentary understanding of the political power that title might give her. She lives in the Palace, and not in the mean streets of the fiefs that border Ravellon. She has food, should she desire it, and clothing; she has money. But the Norannir have more freedom than Bellusdeo now does.”

“Why are you telling me this? Why not say this to the Emperor?”

“Do you think I have not?” His eyes shaded to a color that was more copper than orange. Kaylin couldn’t remember what it meant, she’d seen it so rarely. In fact, she’d seen it only once: in Bellusdeo’s eyes. “I have told the Emperor that Bellusdeo cannot live in a cage. He does not intend to cage her—but regardless, he does. She is too valuable to risk. We have already seen how close to disaster we came.”

“Arkon—” Kaylin froze, and only in part because the muted draconic voices had risen in volume. “Please tell me this argument has nothing to do with my moving out.”

“You are not, that I recall, fond of unnecessary dishonesty.” He took a seat. It was the only seat in the room that seemed to have enough exposed surface to sit on. “If Bellusdeo can be said to have one friend in the Empire, it is you. She found your absence far more difficult than either she—or you—had imagined she would.”

“She said this?”

“Of course not.” He winced; it took Kaylin a couple of seconds to realize it wasn’t because of anything she’d said. Unlike her, he could understand every word that was being said. Or shouted. “You have made it clear to Bellusdeo that life in the Imperial Palace does not suit you.”

“Not in those exact words, no.”

“Refrain from repeating the exact phrasing.”

Because Kaylin loved her job on most days, she did.

“You intend to find another domicile?”

“Yes. As soon as I can.” When he lifted a brow, she thought of the job she loved—none of which included pandering to annoyed Dragons. On the other hand, survival often did. “Look, there are people who would kill to live in the Palace. I’m certain of it. But they’re the people the Hawklord goes out of his way to prevent me from meeting. Everything in my Palace rooms—everything—costs more than the clothing on my back. I feel like I should bathe before I step foot through the door.

“I can’t leave or enter without an inquisition. I have to deal with Imperial Guards on a daily basis for no other reason than that I live here.”

“They are there for the protection and security of our guests.”

“Fine. But I don’t want to be a guest in my own home. I want to be able to live there. Bellusdeo is a Dragon. When she dons Court dresses, they fit her and look good. She understands the powerful. She has power. I’m a groundhawk. I can barely make ends meet on my cruddy pay. I’m not in her class—and I know it.

“I came from the fiefs. I work on the streets. I don’t belong here, and I can’t be happy where I don’t belong.”

“You are a Lord of the High Court.”

“The Barrani High Court, and you know damn well I don’t have to live in the High Halls.”

“You have visited them before.”

“I visited them with Teela.”

“And the difference?”

She grimaced. There was a difference. She wasn’t certain what it was. “Teela’s a Hawk.”

“And Bellusdeo is not.”

“Bellusdeo would never swear the oath the Halls of Law require.”

“No. Lord Teela did?”

“Lord Teela doesn’t give a damn about nonbinding oaths. They’re just words, as far as the Barrani are concerned. There is no way Marcus would ever allow Bellusdeo to join the Hawks.”

“Ah, yes. Your Sergeant’s famous mistrust of my kind.” His eyes, however, shaded toward gold. He clearly found Marcus amusing. “Your Teela understands the High Court, and she avoids it where possible. But if you enter that world, she enters it beside you—and she warns others, by presence alone, that there are consequences to any actions they might take against you. Bellusdeo cannot do that, here. And she is aware that she lacks that ability; the Palace is not her home. It is not an environment with which she is familiar, or over which she has ultimate control.

“Still, she tries. She targets Diarmat with the full brunt of her outraged disdain. Her outrage,” he added, “is genuine. She feels your marks are not accorded the respect they are due. She does not fully consider the advantage in being underestimated— and I will say, now, that there is a distinct advantage to you, in my opinion. She feels a debt of gratitude to you.”

“I didn’t do anything for her gratitude. I did it because...because....”

“Oh, do continue. I’m certain it will be fascinating. You did it because that’s what anyone would do?”

Kaylin shrugged. It was a fief shrug. Fief shrugs, on the other hand, were not a language with which the Arkon chose to be familiar.

“You grew up in the fiefs. You are aware that you are lying. Even if you aren’t, there are very few—I can think of almost no one—who could do for Bellusdeo what you did. She would have died there.” His gaze slid off hers. “I am not certain, at this moment, that fate would not be preferable in her mind. Yes, the discussion in progress—and to my mind it will be some hours before it is done—involves both your residence and hers.” He closed his eyes. “She is in pain, Kaylin. She is grieving. For us, the grief is long past; it exists only in echoes, when we turn our thoughts to the past.

“For Bellusdeo it is new. It makes her reckless. More reckless,” he added, as if this were necessary. “You see her as a Dragon, which is fair. You will age, you will die; she will live forever. She is favored by an Emperor we still consider it wise that you never meet; she is given leeway that would be granted no one else. All of this is true. It is not, however, the only truth.

“I understand that the loss of your home was due to her presence. Believe, Kaylin, that she understands this, as well. If you do not resent her for the loss—if you do not speak against her companionship—she will go where you go.”

“You...want me to move out with her.”

“No. I feel it prudent to advise you that her presence will make your life far more difficult than it might otherwise be. I want her to move out with you. I am of the opinion—at the moment—that the benefits that accrue will go in one direction; I am aware—as you are—of the risks that move entails. If Bellusdeo does accompany you, the Imperial Treasury will cover a large portion of your rental costs.”

Kaylin’s arms tightened, but she said nothing. She’d been able to afford her one-room apartment, even with Bellusdeo as a roommate. She wasn’t so flush with money that money itself was irrelevant. But...she really didn’t like the idea. At all. “She hasn’t even asked me, you know.”

“I know. She will not ask if she cannot argue the Emperor around; it would be too humiliating.”

And having a screaming fight that an entire palace had no choice but to hear wasn’t? “I don’t want my home surrounded by bloody Imperial Guards.”

The Arkon raised a white brow.

“I mean it. I don’t want home to be a jail.”

“Bellusdeo will have a security detail.”

“I apparently have a security detail, if by that you mean Imperial spies. I can’t stop them from watching my every move. I just want to pretend that they don’t.”

“Why?”

Dragons. Ugh.

“And your other demands?”

Kaylin had none. She felt guilty, because one of the things she’d been so looking forward to was having a place of her own again. She’d had nothing when she’d come from the fiefs. But she’d had hope for the future—with the Hawks, within Elantra. What hope did Bellusdeo now have that was similar?

“Yes,” she heard herself say.

“You will consider it?”

She nodded. The small dragon, silent as cloth for most of the interview, raised his head and batted the side of Kaylin’s cheek with it.

“Good. I now have work to do.”

* * *

“Midwives’ guild?” Clint asked, as Kaylin trudged up the stairs of the Halls of Law.

“Dragons,” was her curt reply. If the midwives had kept her awake through the small hours of the night, she’d’ve had something useful to show for the lack of sleep.

“If you don’t want to see Dragons,” Tanner told her, “I suggest you avoid the office for the next couple of hours.”

“Why?”

“Bellusdeo is there.”

She hadn’t been in the apartments they shared at the palace when Kaylin had dragged her butt out of her rooms in the morning.

“Alone?”

“No. Lord Sanabalis is with her. So are six of the Imperial Guard. The color of Barrani eyes in the office is almost midnight blue.”

Could this day get any worse? “Thanks for the heads-up.” Kaylin considered turning tail and finding breakfast, but she didn’t have much money on hand.

“You’re going in?”

“Trouble’ll find me when I leave the office if I don’t; I might as well get paid for enduring it.”

* * *

The Imperial Guard always set the office, as a whole, on edge. Caitlin didn’t mind them, but they were so stiff, so officious, and so smugly superior, Caitlin was an island in the Halls. Bellusdeo was standing to one side of Marcus’s desk as Kaylin entered the office. Kaylin glanced, once, at the duty roster, saw her name—beside Severn’s—on the Elani beat, and allowed herself to relax. She wasn’t late. Yet.

She didn’t, however, see Severn.

Sanabalis was standing to one side of Bellusdeo; his eyes were a very clear orange, and if Dragons didn’t physically require sleep, he looked like he could personally use a week of it. The Imperial Guard were like breathing statues.

“Private,” Marcus growled. His sense of smell had probably alerted him to Kaylin’s presence, as there were too many tall people between them for her to even see him, seated as he was at his desk, and behind the perpetual stacks of paper that girded it. She couldn’t see the color of his eyes, but the tone of her rank pretty much gave it away. The Imperial Guard moved to allow her through.

She stood at attention in front of his desk and—as expected—his very orange eyes. She saw that he had reflexively gouged a few new runnels in the surface of that desk. Clearly, it hadn’t been a pleasant interview, whatever its subject.

“Your services are apparently being seconded by the Dragon Court.”

Standing at attention didn’t allow for the usual facial tics or gestures that indicated dismay. It was the only good thing she could say about it.

“You are apparently not content living at the Palace.”

It also didn’t allow for nuanced commentary, which was fine; surrounded by Imperial Guards, she didn’t feel particularly nuanced.

“Well?”

“No, sir.”

“And you intend to find other accommodations.”

“Yes, sir.”

“With a Lord of the Dragon Court.”

She didn’t hesitate; not with Marcus in his current mood. “Yes, sir.”

“The Dragon Court feels that such a search should not be an after-hours affair. Cognizant of the difficulties Lord Bellusdeo encountered the last time she chose to live outside of the Palace, they’ve taken it upon themselves to assure that your search for a new domicile is secure. You are therefore relieved of your regular duties until that search is completed. To Imperial satisfaction.”

“That is not,” Bellusdeo said, speaking for the first time since Kaylin had entered an otherwise raptly silent office, “what was said.” She stepped forward, until she was standing shoulder to shoulder with Kaylin, who, at attention, couldn’t otherwise turn to look at her. “Private Neya’s sense of responsibility to the Halls is quite strong; she understands the city far better than I, a recent refugee.” She used the Elantran word for refugee. Kaylin almost cringed to hear it. “If, in Private Neya’s considered opinion, such a search can be effectively conducted outside of her working hours, that is acceptable to all concerned.” The swish sound her hair made clearly indicated that Bellusdeo was pinning someone—or several someones—with a glare.

Sanabalis cleared his throat. In the silence of the office, it sounded like a distant earthquake. “Bellusdeo wishes to accompany Private Neya on her rounds, as she did before the private was sent out of the city to the West March.”

Great.

“Private,” Marcus barked. “At ease.”

As if. She did, however, relax her posture slightly. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

Her Sergeant snorted. In general, there was nothing but free speech in the office.

“I’m not going on my rounds with a half dozen Imperial Guards as escort. Members of the Hawks don’t require babysitters, and we don’t want to imply they do; it’ll hurt the force. If the guards come with Bellusdeo and can’t be separated, I’ll take the time to find a new apartment. If they can be detached, I can find us a place to live on my own time.”

For some reason, this answer didn’t appear to please Marcus, although he clearly agreed with it.

“Is Lord Bellusdeo a Hawk?” a familiar voice asked. Kaylin couldn’t see the speaker, but cringed anyway. It was a Barrani voice. Mandoran’s. She hadn’t even seen him in the office, which answered her question about the day getting worse; clearly it could. A Barrani from the West March, frozen in time in the Barrani version of puberty, was now in the Halls of Law. She hoped Teela was standing on his feet.

“I am not,” was the frosty, Draconian reply.

“I was under the impression,” Mandoran continued, moving around the back side of Marcus’s desk with care to avoid the now-bristling Leontine that occupied it, “that tourists were not allowed to accompany on-duty Hawks.”

Marcus was either breathing heavily or trying to stifle a growl. Kaylin put money on the latter, and would have refused to bet on his chances of continued success.

“Lord Bellusdeo,” Sanabalis said, “is a member of the Dragon Court—the governing body that advises the Eternal Emperor. It is well within her purview to ask for—and receive—permission to inspect the forces assembled within the Halls in light of those duties.”

“Whereas I am merely a Barrani Lord visiting your fair city, and therefore have no responsibilities and no duties?”

Kaylin risked a glance at Sanabalis’s eyes. He was annoyed, but not yet angry.

Mandoran, having navigated the desk, came to stand beside Kaylin. He was grinning, and his eyes were almost green. Certainly greener than Barrani eyes generally were in this office. He winked at her. This did not make the Leontine Sergeant any less bristly.

“I see Teela hasn’t strangled you, yet,” she said, in as quiet a voice as she could.

“Why would she want to do that? At the moment, she’s not bored.”

“She is,” Teela said, “considering the concept of boredom with more deliberate care.”

Mandoran’s grin didn’t falter.

“Where is Corporal Handred?” Kaylin asked, hoping to stem the tide of this particular conversation.

She’d’ve had better luck with a tidal wave. “He’s closeted with the Wolflord,” Teela replied. “The duty roster hasn’t been updated, but apparently you and I are now covering Elani street.” She turned and offered a correct bow to Sanabalis. Unfortunately, Kaylin now recognized it as a correct bow for the Barrani High Court. “I ask that you overlook any impertinence from my guest. He is in a situation very similar to Lord Bellusdeo’s; the Empire—and the Eternal Emperor—did not exist when last he walked these lands.”

Bellusdeo frowned. “I was not aware that the Barrani could voluntarily enter the long sleep.”

“I’m certain there are many things that would surprise you about the Barrani,” Mandoran replied. His voice, however, had taken on both edge and chill, and his eyes had darkened to blue.

This predictably caused unrest among the Imperial Guard, subtle though it was; it caused Sanabalis’s eyes to shade toward a brighter orange, and it caused Teela’s eyes—Teela, who had made her way to the other side of Mandoran—to narrow. They were, on the other hand, already as blue as they could safely get.

Bellusdeo, however, lifted a brow; her eyes were no longer slightly orange. They were gold. She was amused.

Mandoran wasn’t.

Bellusdeo then turned to Teela. “If you have now had cause to reconsider your attitude toward boredom, I have not been so fortunate. Even for the Immortal, time can pass incredibly slowly. I believe I will find the patrol of great interest on this particular day.” She turned to Mandoran and added, “as a visitor to the city that is my current home, I bid you welcome. I am certain you will do nothing to disgrace yourself or your Court should you be forced to accept the company of a Dragon for an afternoon, and I am certain the Sergeant will relax his rules enough that you may join us.”

CHAPTER TWO

Although Bellusdeo had the last word, there were several hundred other words—thankfully none of them in native Dragon—before it. Kaylin thought it unfair when Sanabalis asked for a private word with her before she could leave the office.

The lack of justice didn’t notably ease when he marched her to the West Room in which her magic lessons were taught, and practically shut the door on her shoulder blades—without bothering to touch it. He did, on the other hand, activate the door ward with his own hand.

“What,” he asked, in Elantran, “do you think you’re doing?”

“I thought I was going on patrol in the Elani district.”

His eyes darkened a shade. “If there is ever a time to play games with a Dragon, Private, it is not now. The Emperor is not pleased by the current state of events.”

“Not even I could have missed that.”

He grimaced, and his eyes lightened a shade. “He has granted Bellusdeo his very reluctant permission to leave the Palace. He is placing the fate of the race in your hands.” And clearly, while Sanabalis held Kaylin in some affection, he didn’t consider her the appropriate receptacle for that responsibility.

She stared at him. She remembered to close her mouth after the first few seconds. “The same Emperor who initially thought I should be destroyed because I presented too great a risk?”

“We have not notably changed rulers in the interim.” His eyes gained more gold as he studied her face. “Tell me about this new Barrani. He is a recruit?”

She started to say no, stopped, and shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s a friend of Teela’s. An old friend.”

“He is to my eye one of the Barrani young.”

“She’s known him practically all her life,” she replied, trying to dodge the question he hadn’t yet asked.

“And you trust him?”

Did she? “I don’t know him well enough to trust him.” That was true. “But I trust Teela.”

“Teela is a Barrani High Lord. She owes her loyalty to—”

“She’s a Hawk, Sanabalis.”

Sanabalis was silent for a moment. “Kaylin, you have been the most difficult student I have ever accepted. The rewards are few; the frustration is legion. But you are not—as I’m certain Bellusdeo will tell you—boring. In my fashion, I have grown accustomed to your eccentricities. My opinion carries some weight at court. It will carry exactly none if Bellusdeo comes to harm.” He lifted a hand as Kaylin opened her mouth. “Yes, I am aware that she is not a child. So, too, is the Emperor.

“But you have told anyone who will listen that you are no longer a child, either. The Emperor therefore wishes you to understand what is at risk for you. Bellusdeo has a home in the Palace. She will be as safe there as she would be—”

“In a grave.”

Silence.

Kaylin watched the color of Dragon eyes closely; she’d folded her arms and widened her stance without conscious intent. But if Sanabalis felt insulted, it didn’t anger him; the color remained a constant, pale orange.

“You do not understand the politics of the Dragon Court.”

“Then I recommend better information be taught in racial-integration classes.” She exhaled through clenched teeth and forced herself to relax. “Look, Sanabalis, I don’t understand the problem. The Arkon had no objections. He doesn’t think Bellusdeo can be happy in the Palace. Not right now.”

“The Arkon is being astonishingly sentimental for one of our kind.”

“No, he’s just being perceptive. I don’t know what went down at the end of all the wars. I don’t know what choices the surviving Dragons were given—but I’m guessing that many of the Dragons didn’t survive to make that choice. I don’t know what choice Bellusdeo has been offered—but I’m guessing almost none. She’s the only female Dragon. She’s not being asked to choose between death and eternal servitude.” He started to speak, and she held up one hand. “She understands what’s at stake. She has a sense of responsibility. But she’s not a piece of property. The Emperor already has a hoard.”

“No choice has been demanded of Bellusdeo.”

“That’s not the way Diarmat sees it.”

One pale brow rose into an equally pale hairline.

“...Lord Diarmat.”

“Lord Diarmat is concerned for the rule of law. The Emperor’s law. He is younger than the Arkon, and he is aware that female Dragons are not an entirely different species.”

“They’re not technically a different species at all.”

“Exactly. Lord Diarmat is the only member of the Dragon Court who will risk open hostility to make that point. Bellusdeo is a Dragon, but she is not accorded the responsibilities that exist, for Dragons, in the Empire.”

“Meaning she’s not forced to swear the same oath the rest of you swore.”

“Yes.” Sanabalis fell silent. He did not, however, give Kaylin permission to depart, and she was very much aware, given the turn of the day’s events—or at least the evening’s prior—that permission was required. “She is not happy,” he surprised her by saying.

Kaylin waited.

“It may come as a surprise to you, but her happiness is of some concern to the Emperor; he balances it with a desire for her safety that is second only to his desire for the safety of his hoard. If you will not take the detachment of guards, I will have them dismissed. Go on your patrol. I will arrange a suitable escort for your...apartment hunting.”

“Who would that be?”

He ran his hand over his eyes. “In all likelihood, Private Neya, me. I may attempt to saddle Lord Emmerian with that duty; he has not, to my knowledge, offended Bellusdeo in the last several weeks. Largely,” he added, with a more toothy grin, “because he has avoided her entirely.”

* * *

“Why,” Teela said, in the clipped, cool voice that implied annoyance, “are you sulking?”

“I’m not sulking.” Kaylin did not kick a stone, which took effort.

Mandoran grinned. “You don’t look like you’re sulking to me—but I’m not as conversant with mortal expressions. Why exactly do your eyes stay that fixed color?”

“Human.”

“Doesn’t it make the other mortals wonder if you’re not just animals that talk?”

“Frequently.” She reached out and caught Bellusdeo’s elbow as the Dragon drew breath; it was the kind of slow, heavy breath which sometimes preceded fire. “Either that or it makes them suspicious, because clearly we’re hiding something. Or we’re insane.”

“Well, I won’t argue that,” he replied. He was looking at the buildings that lined the streets, the people that walked them, the stray cats and dogs, and the clouds that scudded overhead, as if everything was both new and fascinating. It probably was. He had spent the past many centuries trapped inside the green, which had a tenuous understanding of physical form. At best. His eyes were a shade of blue-green, and he kept to the side of Teela that happened to be farthest from the Dragon. Kaylin had inserted herself between Teela and Bellusdeo, which meant Mandoran and Bellusdeo were as far apart as they could be while still heading in the same general direction.

They both turned heads, though.

Mandoran wasn’t encumbered by the regulation tabard that Teela wore, and Bellusdeo looked far more like a Lord of the Dragon Court—by dress, at least—than the average pedestrian. Most women who could afford to dress the way she did didn’t walk anywhere—they took carriages, and usually stayed behind their guards and footmen.

Kaylin grimaced. She almost wished Bellusdeo were in one of those carriages, because Elani street was the home of wheedling, enterprising frauds, most of whom could happily accost anyone that appeared to have money.

They were usually better behaved when their victims had Hawks as escorts. Mandoran, on the other hand, didn’t appear to understand that he was a victim. He responded to the offers—in this case, fortune-telling—with unfeigned curiosity and quick delight.

Teela raised a brow. Mandoran stiffened. Neither spoke out loud. They didn’t have to, if they wanted their conversation to be private; they knew each other’s true names. It had been centuries since either had had call to use them, if one ignored the past few weeks.

“Teela,” Mandoran said, “doesn’t want me to have fun here.”

“She’s working. You’ll add to the paperwork if you do.”

“Yes, that seems to be one of her fears. The other is attempting to throw me into...jail if I misbehave?”

“I imagine that would be a lot of fun,” Kaylin replied.

“I’ve offered to visit the High Halls instead of the city streets,” was his cheerful counter. “There, it won’t matter if foolish or stupid people die; it’s considered a form of suicide, and it isn’t Teela’s job to prevent that.”

“Why did we think this was a good idea?” Kaylin asked her fellow Hawk.

“I never thought it was a good idea, if I recall. I merely pointed out that compared to your induction into the Hawks, Mandoran was far less likely to be in danger. Or to indirectly cause it. I was perhaps optimistic about the latter.”

Mandoran snorted. So did Bellusdeo.

“I thought you were here to keep an eye on Annarion.”

At that, Mandoran’s smile dimmed. The color of his eyes shifted, but not into the midnight blue that generally meant upcoming injury or death. He glanced at Teela; Teela was studying the occupants of Elani street as if they were fascinating, dangerous, or both.

“You will have to tell me,” Bellusdeo said to Kaylin, “exactly what did happen on your pilgrimage. It seems you’ve acquired companions.”

“They’re Teela’s companions, not mine. And there are—at the moment—two of them in the city. You’ve met Mandoran. He’s the outgoing, friendly one with the questionable sense of humor.”

“It seems a fairly standard Barrani sense of humor, if less subtle than rumored.”

“He’s young for his age.”

“Not so young,” Mandoran cut in, “that he enjoys being talked about in the third person.”

“And not so mature,” the Dragon countered, “that he doesn’t enjoy talking about other people present in the same way.”

He grinned. His eyes were still a wary blue. “Fair enough.” He spoke Elantran. Kaylin doubted a similar phrase existed in Barrani.

“Where is Annarion anyway?”

“Kitling.”

Mandoran raised a black brow. “He’s visiting his brother.”

Nightshade.

“And no, before you ask, it’s not going well.”

“Why didn’t you go with him?”

“I wasn’t invited. Or rather, I was specifically not invited. Lord Calarnenne was willing to entertain Teela, but for some reason, Teela didn’t choose to accept his invitation.”

“I am uninterested in playing games of power with Nightshade.”

“But Annarion—”

“Is not in danger. Whatever else Nightshade intends in future, the death of his youngest brother is no part of his plan. It is safe for Annarion to rage only in the absence of witnesses. Nightshade didn’t invite me because he was concerned for Annarion’s safety; he wished to confine Annarion’s wrath. I,” she added, with a slender, sharp smile, “did not.” She glanced pointedly at the mark Nightshade had left on Kaylin’s cheek. It was just so much skin to the younger Hawk, but it never failed to annoy Teela.

“Heads up. Margot on the prowl,” Teela added.

Margot was possibly the person on Elani street Kaylin disliked the most, not that there was any shortage of rivals for that position. She was a tall, gorgeous redhead, and she made the color look natural. She was statuesque, her skin was fair, her eyes striking, and she could milk money out of stone by oozing wisdom and charm.

Neither of which Kaylin privately believed she had.

“She won’t come here,” Kaylin replied. “She’s seen me.”

If Kaylin played the least-favorite game, so did Margot. Kaylin was on the top of the Hawk’s list, and possibly near the top three across the board. She still blamed Kaylin for the loss of one of her most lucrative clients, which cost Kaylin no sleep at night, ever.

“Pretty,” Mandoran said, which didn’t help. Margot was not an idiot, whatever else one could call her; she cast an equally appreciative look at Mandoran, but kept her distance. Barrani affairs were seldom safe for mortals, and attempting to bilk a Barrani out of money was a mug’s game; it required stupidity and overbearing ego, and Margot only had one of the two. She pretty much failed to see Kaylin as Kaylin sauntered past.

“She is attractive,” Teela said—which was obviously meant to irritate Kaylin, because there wasn’t any other reason to say it out loud.

Bellusdeo shook her head. “By mortal standards, perhaps, but there’s a brittle edge to the line of her mouth I find unappealing.”

“Guys,” Kaylin snapped. “A little less ogling and a little more patrolling.”

“I’m not patrolling,” Mandoran chuckled.

“Technically, you’re not here.”

He laughed. “You know,” he said, “I think, when you have a place of your own, I’m going to be visiting a lot. You really are much less stodgy than Teela’s become.”

“Teela is no one’s definition of ‘stodgy.’”

“Kaylin will not be living on her own, and I don’t do drop-ins,” Bellusdeo pointed out. Her eyes remained golden. Mandoran’s had edged toward green, but a stubborn streak of blue persisted. If he eventually chose to be comfortable around a Dragon, it wasn’t going to be today.

He shrugged. “From the sound of it, you’re not going to find much of a place of your own anyway.”

“I can find a place,” Kaylin said. “And Bellusdeo, despite appearances, doesn’t require something palatial or even regal, given where we were living before.”

“Oh, it’s not your friend that’s going to be the problem.” He glanced at Teela’s expressionless face, and added, “on the other hand, it could be worse for you. You could be living with Tain.” His grimace looked nothing like a Barrani expression.

Teela cleared her throat. Loudly.

“You’re living with Tain?”

“If you can call it living, yes. For some reason, he doesn’t seem to want me to see much of your fair city. I want,” he added, “to visit the Leontines I hear you have living here. I didn’t even know they could function in cities. But your Sergeant seems fine wearing clothes.”

Bellusdeo glanced at Kaylin. Kaylin turned a tight-lipped stare on Teela, who shrugged. “Surely you expected this?” the Barrani Hawk asked. “You know he hasn’t lived in a mortal city before; he certainly hasn’t lived in this one.”

“The Leontines,” Kaylin told Mandoran, in chilly Barrani, “are not animals. Nor are the humans. The Aerians are not birds. This is a city, not a zoo—and none of its inhabitants are here to be stared at through cage bars.”

“Kitling.”

Mandoran chuckled. “My apologies, Lord Kaylin. I seem to have touched a sensitive spot.”

“You’ve reminded me of all the things I hate about Immortals. I don’t know if you’d consider that a sensitive point or not.” She didn’t much care, either. The small dragon lifted a head and squawked. When Kaylin, still tight-lipped, ignored him, he nipped her ear.

“What?” She turned to glare at him, and he avoided her by leaping off her shoulders to hover in the air. When she still failed to understand whatever it was he was trying to tell her, he added sounds to the flap of wings, and when she failed to get that, he flew, head first, toward a window. A storefront window.

Kaylin ran after him, arms outstretched, while people in the street stopped to stare. She hadn’t been patrolling on Elani for almost two months; the small dragon was still a novelty. Some of the gawkers were no doubt assigning a monetary value to him; she pitied anyone foolish enough to actually try to grab him and carry him off. Actually, scratch that. At the moment, she’d probably enjoy it.

It was only as she reached up for small and squawky that she recognized which window he’d threatened: it was Evanton’s.

The door, habitually shut, now swung open; a wizened, bent old man was standing on the other side of the frame, his frown bracketed by a decade’s worth of lines. “Don’t stand there gawking,” he said, matching tone of voice to expression. “Come in. I put tea on ten minutes ago.”

* * *

Evanton didn’t actually drink tea. He made it for guests. Given his current mood, those guests might as well have been tax collectors. Bellusdeo entered his store, her eyes rounding. If she’d been mortal, Kaylin would have assumed she was surprised at the clutter and the occasional moving cobweb. She wasn’t. She turned to Evanton, in his apron, his jeweler’s glass hanging on the edge of a tarnished silver chain, his white hair in wisps above the crown of his head.

And she bowed.

This seemed to mollify the old man. “You must be Bellusdeo,” he said. “Rise, Lady. While I have a home here, you will always be a welcome, and valued, guest.” His voice was deeper than usual, and to Kaylin’s ear, stronger; it rumbled as if he were almost a Dragon. “I do not know who named you, or from whence they took the name, but it is yours in its entirety. I am honored.”

Kaylin remembered, belatedly, to close her mouth. She stared at Bellusdeo. Bellusdeo’s eyes were a luminous gold, and her lips were turned up in a gentle, almost reverent smile. “You have the advantage of me in many ways,” she said.

“Ah, forgive me.” He turned a far less reverent gaze on Kaylin. “Private, introduce us.”

“Sorry. Bellusdeo, this is a friend of mine. He’s called Evanton, around these parts; if he has a family name, he’s never shared. The young man hiding in the kitchen is Grethan, his apprentice.”

Bellusdeo frowned.

“Kaylin is, like the rest of the inhabitants of Elantra, very informal,” Evanton said. He was, however, smiling in his slightly pained way.

“And you allow this?”

“Lady, she has twice saved my garden. In ignorance, she’s borne the responsibility that has been the entirety of my adult life. She has never demanded reward greater than tea and snacks—and if I am to be honest, she doesn’t so much demand as help herself if I am slow. I am willing to accept informality from her; formality would be so unnatural the awkwardness would likely kill one of us.”

“Kaylin, do you understand who Evanton is?” Bellusdeo demanded.

“Yes. He’s the Keeper.”

“And do you understand what that means?”

“He—he stops the elements from destroying each other. And incidentally the rest of us, although I don’t think they’d notice that as much.” She hesitated and then said, “How did you know what he is if you didn’t recognize who he is?”

Bellusdeo now turned to Teela. “Have you never explained?”

“Teela brought me here, the first time. When I wanted practical enchantments.”

Evanton winced.

“Practical?”

“My daggers don’t make a sound when I draw them.”

The Dragon looked scandalized.

Evanton looked even more pained. “We all, as Kaylin likes to say, need to eat.”

“I should have expected no better from an Empire that so denigrates the Chosen.” Bellusdeo’s eyes were now a deeper than comfortable orange.

“I am content, Lady,” Evanton said, voice grave. “If the current Empire does not treat me with the regard or respect you now offer, it is a far less lonely place than it once was. Grethan,” he added, his voice developing the gruffness and irritability of age. “You are being rude to a guest.”

Grethan’s stalks appeared from the left side of the door frame; they were followed, slowly, by the rest of his face. He didn’t look comfortable. He was Tha’alani by birth, but although he had the characteristic racial stalks protruding from his forehead, they were decorative. He couldn’t join the Tha’alaan. He couldn’t speak to his own people the way they spoke among each other unless one of them touched him and entered his thoughts. The deafness had, in the parlance of the Tha’alani, resulted in insanity. In normal human terms, he’d been angry and isolated, and that anger and isolation had almost caused the death of a Tha’alani child.

A child whose life Grethan had, in the end, saved.

Evanton had taken him in; Kaylin often wondered if what had seemed an act of forgiveness and mercy wasn’t just one long, extended punishment. But the only thing Grethan seemed to fear now was Evanton. He certainly wasn’t afraid of Kaylin, Teela or Bellusdeo.

“Grethan,” Kaylin said. “It’s good to see you’re still alive. Evanton seems to be in a bit of a mood today.”

Bellusdeo’s eyes almost popped out of her head. Kaylin made a mental note not to visit Evanton with Bellusdeo in tow.

The small dragon squawked and landed on Grethan’s shoulder. Grethan looked at least as surprised as Kaylin felt. She recovered first. Grethan seemed entranced.

“So why is Evanton so cranky today?”

“Unfair, Private,” Evanton replied. “Your tea is getting cold. And you’ve failed to introduce me to your other companion—although I suppose you could rightly attribute that lack of manners to Lord Teela.”

“If she were unwise,” Teela replied, her eyes an easy green. “Evanton, this is Mandoran. He has just returned to our lands after a long absence, and everything in them is new, except perhaps rudiments of our language. Mandoran, this is Evanton, the current Keeper.”

“Mandoran?” Evanton frowned. It was a very peculiar frown; his eyes narrowed. In the dim light of the storefront, they seemed momentarily blue, although Evanton’s didn’t, as a general rule, change color. He extended a hand. Mandoran hesitated before extending one of his own. “Come, join us. Grethan, if you can detach yourself from Kaylin’s companion, I would ask that you move refreshments to the Garden.”

Grethan’s eyes widened.

“The kitchen, while suitable for a private of the Hawks, is nowhere near suitable for Lady Bellusdeo.” The official title was Lord, but Kaylin didn’t bother to correct him. “We will therefore repair to the Garden.”

* * *

“What is he up to?” Teela whispered. She was at the back of the line, because Evanton’s rickety halls were at best one person wide. She had maneuvered into the position in front of Kaylin, who had pulled up the back, and had merely stopped walking until everyone else was far enough ahead.

Kaylin shook her head. “I don’t know.” She accepted Teela’s suspicion because she felt some of it herself. “How did Bellusdeo recognize him as the Keeper? Did you, when you first met him?”

Teela exhaled. “Yes.”

“How?”

“Mortals don’t have true names, unless they’ve done something technically questionable.”

“Meaning me.”

“Meaning you, yes. No one is certain what having a name means for a mortal, and given you are—theoretically— mortal, you aren’t considered enough of a threat that an answer must be found. The answer itself would take longer than the rest of your life to obtain.”

“And that’s relevant how?”

“Evanton doesn’t have a name, per se. Not the way Immortals do. But if we meet his eyes for any length of time, we can see four words in their depths. They are names, they are linked to him, and they cannot be used to control him. It is the way the Keepers make themselves known to those who might otherwise intend them harm. If you look, you might be able to make out two of those names—but you might not. I’m not certain Evanton would stand still for long enough.”

“He’s not exactly fast on his feet.”

“No, but in his fashion he knows how to intimidate. I’ve never noticed you engaging in staring contests with him.”

“I’m not the one who does that, Teela.”

Teela chuckled, but her eyes remained an alert blue. “I hate the Garden,” she murmured, squaring her shoulders.

“It can’t be any worse than paperwork.”

* * *

Stepping through the narrow, rickety door at the end of an equally narrow, rickety hall was always a bit of a shock. Evanton’s storefront couldn’t, by any stretch of the truth, be called well lit, and the contrast between his work spaces and the Garden’s brilliant, full-on sunlight made Kaylin’s eyes water.

There was a roof, a domed high ceiling that would have fit right in in the Imperial Palace. There were no obvious glass ceilings or windows, and the roof, unlike the Hawklord’s tower, didn’t appear to open to the sky, so sunlight was in theory impossible. But nothing about this room conformed to what she knew of reality, and Kaylin had long since given up attempting to make sense of it.

She made her way across the flat-stone path laid into grass that would have made pretentious merchants weep with envy, pausing by the still, deep pool that sat, untouched by the breeze that moved almost everything else, in the Garden’s center.

It was the heart of the elemental water, made small and peaceful. Beyond it, burning in a brazier that might have been used for incense, fire. Only in Evanton’s Garden could the elements exist so close to each other in peace.

Beyond them was the small stone hut in which Evanton entertained the few guests he was willing to allow into this space.

“I don’t think it’s because of Bellusdeo that he moved tea,” Kaylin said to Teela, as she made her way to the hut.

“No.”

“I really hope Mandoran doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“He’s not Terrano,” Teela replied. “Terrano was the only one of us likely to throw his life away on a whim.”

He was the only one of the twelve who had not chosen to come home. Somewhere in the spaces that mortals couldn’t occupy, he was racing around the incomprehensible landscape discovering worlds and having fun. Kaylin fervently hoped he stayed there.

“Do you notice anything different about Mandoran? I mean, from before?”

Teela didn’t answer.

* * *

When they reached the hut, the door swung open. Like any building of note in magical space, the interior didn’t fit with the exterior; it was far larger than it had any right to be, for one. The floors were no longer rough stone; they were a gleaming marble, more suitable to a grand foyer than a parlor.

There were chairs of a style Kaylin had never seen in the Garden, and a low flat table that was the rough stone one expected to find outdoors. Tea, in Evanton’s ancient, chipped tea set, was on the table, and steam rose from the spout of the pot. There were four cups, straight, tall cylinders absent handles. Kaylin didn’t understand why cups made for hot liquid were ever without handles, but on the other hand, Bellusdeo was unlikely to burn her hand when picking them up.

The Dragon looked up as Kaylin entered the room; her eyes were golden. Clearly, the Keeper’s abode suited her.

It suited her far more than the Palace.

“The Keeper was just regaling us with details of your first meeting,” she said.

Mandoran, whose back was to the door, swiveled in his chair.

“It wasn’t the first meeting,” Evanton said, gently correcting her. “That was far less remarkable, although I remember thinking her unconscionably young to be keeping company with the Barrani Hawks.”

“No talking about me as if I weren’t in the room,” Kaylin replied, taking the chair closest to Bellusdeo.

“You weren’t in the room at the time.”

“Here, now. Did small and squawky stay with Grethan?” The apprentice was nowhere in sight. Neither was Kaylin’s most constant—and annoying—companion.

“No. He’s in the fireplace.” Bellusdeo nodded toward the fire in question. It was set into the wall, but reminded Kaylin—once again—of the Palace. Even the pokers looked like they were made of brass. And shiny.

“There’s a fire in the fireplace,” Kaylin quite reasonably pointed out.

“He doesn’t take up a lot of room, and it’s not like fire burns him. You can go and poke the fire if you want—he’s there.” Bellusdeo’s expression made clear that if Dragons of any size didn’t burn, mortals of any size did.

“I hope he puts himself out before he lands on my shoulders again.” Kaylin turned back to her tea.

Squawk.

Mandoran grinned. “I have to say, I’ve never met a mortal a tenth as interesting as you are. I can almost understand why Teela is so attached to you.”

“Teela,” Teela said, “dislikes being spoken of in the third person even more than Private Neya. She is also far more effective at discouragement.”

Mandoran laughed. “So she is. I don’t know where you found the private, but I’d hold on to her, if I were you. Honestly, I wish everyone had descended on this strange, smelly, crowded place. Sedarias is beside herself with envy at where I am. In the Keeper’s Garden!”

“It’s not that exciting,” Evanton said, his usual crankiness asserting itself.

“It is—she’s the only one of us who’d met the Keeper. Not you,” Mandoran added, as if that were necessary. “And Teela doesn’t count. Can I talk to the elements?”

“Perhaps another day,” Teela said, before Evanton could reply.

“But I hear the water,” Mandoran said, his eyes green, his expression both familiar and strange. It took Kaylin a few minutes to understand why: it was very similar to the hesitant joy that the foundlings sometimes showed. She’d never seen anything remotely similar on a Barrani face before.

Evanton rose. “With your permission, Lord Teela, I believe the water wishes to converse with Mandoran. I will lead him there, and return.”

Mandoran was out of his chair before Evanton had finished speaking.

CHAPTER THREE

“I’ve never seen a Barrani so young at heart,” Bellusdeo said softly, when they’d left.

“No. You wouldn’t have,” Teela replied. They were both speaking in Elantran. “We weren’t considered of age to be meeting Dragons. I doubt very much that the rest of my friends would be considered so, now, were it not for the fact that they were born centuries ago.”

“It can’t be easy for them.”

Teela’s eyes paled; a ring of gold shifted the color of her irises. Bellusdeo had surprised her. Perhaps because she had, Teela answered honestly. “No. It won’t be any easier for them than I imagine it is for you. We want home, in our youth. And when we’ve traveled far and suffered much, we want it more fiercely.

“But home is a myth. A tale. A children’s fable. What will you do, Bellusdeo?”

Bellusdeo looked into her tea, as if she were scrying. “I don’t know. What will your friends do?”

“At least one of them will take the Test of Name within the next few weeks. If I can’t talk him out of it, Mandoran will also take the test. I think he intends to accompany Annarion.”

Kaylin found the tea too hot to drink, which was good, because she didn’t choke on it. “He can’t!”

“He can, kitling. There are no rules that govern the test—as you should well know. If you can enter the tower and read the word that will define you, you can traverse it. If you survive, you are Lord of the High Court. Annarion cannot be moved. His brother is furious. Mandoran might be more amenable to common sense.”

“We’re relying on his common sense?” Kaylin’s eyebrows disappeared up her forehead.

“No. There is no ‘we’ in this equation. Mandoran is not—repeat not—your problem. Your problem at the moment is finding a place to live in the city. Focus on that, and keep your nose out of trouble while you do it. We’ll take care of Mandoran.” She broke off and looked to Bellusdeo, who was sitting completely still. “Kaylin knows most of the city reasonably well. She doesn’t have our memory, but she doesn’t need it.”

“It’s not her knowledge that worries me.”

“No. But if you’ve listened to Evanton’s horror story, you understand that she is capable of surviving much, much worse than a simple apartment hunt. Even with a Dragon or two in tow. She survived the loss of her home,” Teela added, coming to the point in a way that she seldom did with anyone but Tain or Kaylin. “And between us, had she not been there, I don’t think you would have survived.” Eyes narrowing, Teela paused. “You don’t think you would have survived, either.” It wasn’t a question.

“No. I had time to speak with the Imperial mages in your absence. I had time to assess their reports. But Teela, it’s absolutely certain that the bomb would not have been thrown had I not been resident there.”

Teela shrugged. “I didn’t say Kaylin was wise. She’s not. But in this case, accept her lack of wisdom as the gift it is. She means well—mostly—and sometimes you have to encourage that.”

“Meaning well was not highly prized in the home of my childhood.”

Teela chuckled. “It was actively discouraged, in mine. But mortal lives are so short; they believe, and they die before that belief is entirely lost. It makes them curiously compelling.”

“Is that why you’re a Hawk?”

“No.” Teela hesitated, which was unusual. “And possibly yes. I didn’t come to the Hawks looking for Kaylin Neya; I was surprised when I found her.”

“Hello,” Kaylin said, raising a hand. “I’m actually sitting here.”

They both looked at her. Teela opened her mouth, no doubt to say something cutting, when the small dragon flew out of the fire, squawking at the top of his little lungs. Just in case volume wasn’t attention-grabbing enough, he made a beeline for Kaylin’s shoulders, landed with fully extended claws, and whacked her face with a wing.

“I don’t know why you never had cats,” Teela said, rising. “They couldn’t possibly be any worse.” Her eyes, however, had settled into Barrani danger blue.

Bellusdeo’s were now orange.

“Can you understand him?” Kaylin asked, vacating her own chair before the small dragon bit a hole through her ear lobe.

“In this case, I don’t think it’s necessary.” Teela rose and headed toward the door. It was awkward to have three grown women converge on said door at the same time, but Kaylin had the sinking feeling that awkward wasn’t even on the list of their problems.

* * *

The door opened into torrential rain. The ceiling, such as it was—and the Garden was so elastic in shape and size, Kaylin didn’t put much faith in Evanton’s roof—was completely invisible; the skies were the gray-green of heavy cloud, and lightning illuminated the landscape in brief, bright flashes.

She couldn’t see raging plumes of fire, and the ground just outside of the hut wasn’t shaking in a way that implied it was about to break beneath their feet. But the wind was howling.

Literally.

Kaylin turned to the small dragon. “Where,” she shouted, “is Evanton?”

He lifted a wing and plastered it against her upper face. He’d done this before, in the outlands, where vision was so subjective it was the only way to see what was actually in front of her. The Garden, in theory, didn’t have that problem.

But when the wing covered her eyes, she could see past the driving rain; she could see past the flying leaves and the debris that might once have been offerings to each of the elemental shrines. She could see the clouds, and froze for a moment.

“Kitling!”

The clouds wore the shape and form of a woman. She was not familiar to Kaylin; she was too large—far too large—and too angry; her eyes were the size of the moons, even narrowed as they were. More disturbing were her wings. Kaylin had always loved Aerians because of their wings; she knew that those wings were weapons; that they could break a man’s arm. But the wings of the storm—of the water—were like tidal waves; there was nothing beautiful about them, and the only freedom they implied was death.

“Can you see the Keeper?” Bellusdeo shouted. Her voice felt like rumbling earth.

“No—but the water is here, and it’s enraged!”

“Only the water? Kaylin—can you see any of the other elementals?”

She started to say air, and stopped. The storm was entirely a thing of the water. “No.”

The ground shook beneath Kaylin’s feet. Leontine left her open mouth. But it wasn’t the elemental earth joining the rumble; it was Bellusdeo. Bellusdeo, in her golden, draconian form. “Don’t just stand their gawking—get on. That applies to you as well, Lord Teela.”

“I am never,” Teela said, complying immediately, “going to live this down.”

* * *

Bellusdeo flew into the eye of the storm. Sadly, the eye was just above the jaws. The small dragon had wrapped his tail tightly around Kaylin’s neck, and was digging new runnels into her right collar bone; he’d fallen silent, which was the only blessing. His wing was plastered against her face, above her nose and lips, which made breathing possible, although she was willing to bet more water than air was actually entering her mouth.

“Kitling—your arms!”

She’d noticed. The runic marks that covered over half of her skin were glowing brightly enough they could be seen through her sleeves; they were the color of Bellusdeo’s eyes—and scales—as if only that part of her was now transparent. “Next time,” she shouted, “we are leaving Mandoran at home!” She had no doubt that something Mandoran had done was responsible for the storm, and no certainty at all that she could stop it.

Which wasn’t technically her job; it was Evanton’s. Where in the hells was he?

* * *

Bellusdeo’s flight was not smooth; it inspired no confidence at all. Since Dragons, unlike carriages, didn’t come with built-in handholds, Kaylin’s legs were rigid with an attempt to somehow hold on. She’d never gotten the hang of horses, either. But the Dragon was looking at something Kaylin couldn’t see, and when she dove—through sheets of rain—for ground, Kaylin saw what: Grethan.

Bellusdeo caught him in her claws and lifted him. “Where,” she demanded, “is out?”

“We don’t get out without Evanton!” Kaylin shouted.

“Grethan can’t stay here; he’s half-drowned!”

“Can you land? Can he crawl up on your back?” She was already doing exactly that—but the ground here did not look promising; much of it was mud, and Dragons weighed enough she’d sink. Bellusdeo did, but she’d landed on her hind-legs and let them bear her weight while she set Grethan down.

Teela reached out and yanked Grethan out of the mud he’d barely had time to settle into. He was a bedraggled mess, but then again, so was Kaylin; Dragons and Barrani were exempt. Teela seated the apprentice in front of her.

“Grethan—where is Evanton? Can you reach him?”

Grethan swallowed air; his eyes were wide enough the whites seemed to have taken over half the space. “He’s not answering!”

“Fine—but can you tell Bellusdeo where he is?” Teela had that calm-down-or-I’ll-slap-you tone.

“He’s—he’s by the pond.” Pause. “He’s...in the pond.”

“What pond?” Bellusdeo roared.

“Turn right!” Kaylin shouted. “Turn right and head toward the ground. Avoid the fire.”

* * *

Right was a sheet of falling rain. Down was a sheet of falling rain. Kaylin was fairly certain there was no space in the Keeper’s Garden that wasn’t at the moment. “Teela—is Mandoran with Evanton? Teela?”

“Yes. And no.”

“Which one is it?”

“...No.”

Leontine and water didn’t mix well. Kaylin tried anyway. She gave up and gave Bellusdeo directions, because she could see the pond. She could see it as the heart of the monstrous form water now wore: it was deep, dark, clear; it was no longer still.

The small dragon warbled; as his head was beside her ear, she heard him anyway. “Just one normal day. Is that too much to bloody ask? One day?”

Squawk.

The pond was the heart of the water. It didn’t matter what shape it took, although Kaylin had very strong preferences at this point. It was anchored to one spot in the Garden. Storm aside, that anchor was still true. Kaylin had seen what happened when those moorings were broken, but by some miracle, they held.

Her arms were now aching, but she was used to that. When the marks began to glow, they often grew warm; warmth became uncomfortable heat.

“Grethan, can you be more specific?” Teela shouted.

But Kaylin said, “Never mind—I see him.”

It was true. Evanton was standing in the water that rose like a pillar. His eyes were closed, his arms folded across his chest; for a moment, Kaylin stopped breathing. But his eyes snapped open before she could panic. Or, to be honest, panic more.

“Remind me,” Teela shouted, “not to strangle Mandoran myself.”

“Get Bellusdeo to remind you,” Kaylin shouted back. “I’m thinking strangling sounds pretty damn good about now! I don’t see Mandoran,” she added. “Just Evanton.”

“Worry about Evanton. Mandoran isn’t dead. Yet.”

* * *

Worrying about Evanton was easy. Doing anything about the worry, not so much. Bellusdeo had more or less found the pillar of water at the heart of the storm, but the storm was busy trying to swat her out of the air. As it was hard to maneuver around a constant stream of water, the flight was rocky. Kaylin tried to speak to the water, but the water wasn’t listening.

And she knew that if she could call it by its name, she’d have its attention. Given what it was doing at the moment, that seemed like courting suicide. Given her very spotty record in Magical Studies, she wasn’t certain of success. But...Evanton clearly had the water’s name, and he was stuck in the middle of it, and the storm was still raging.

In spite of Teela’s advice, Kaylin looked for Mandoran. Evanton was in the Keeper’s Garden. Even if it looked like he was encased in water here, it wasn’t likely to kill him—and if it did, they’d have far more pressing problems, none of which they were likely to survive.

“I swear,” Teela said, “I’ll kill him myself if he—” She broke off.

Bellusdeo had come to rest—if struggling to remain in flight and in position could be called rest—in front of Evanton. Evanton’s eyes narrowed; he opened his mouth; no air escaped it. No words either. Frustrated, he spoke again. Slowly. Kaylin cursed as the movement of his lips resolved into three silent syllables.

“Teela—he wants us to find Mandoran!”

But Teela shook her head. “Speak to the water, Kaylin. Now!”

“Tried that. She’s not listening.”

“Idiot—make her listen!”

* * *

The name of fire always avoided Kaylin’s grasp. She could stare at candles for three hours and fail to find the damned thing, although she’d used it before. The name of water was something she’d never consciously tried to call. The water spoke to her when it found her, and Kaylin responded in kind. She’d never come calling on her own.

Evanton knew the water’s name. Evanton should have been able to calm the water down, if that was even possible. Offloading his responsibility onto the shoulders of a Hawk was low.

On the other hand it was just as possible that he was keeping the other three elementals in their peaceful, dozing state. The thought of dealing with angry earth, air and fire, on top of clearly pissed off water, killed all sense of grievance.

Bellusdeo, struggling in the storm, wasn’t steady enough that Kaylin could reach out and touch the water’s heart center. But Kaylin wasn’t certain it mattered—water was everywhere, at the moment. Breathing was distinctly wet.

She tried, in her mind’s eye, to see water’s story, to find its elements, the way she could find fire’s. Her arms ached with the heat of the marks that adorned her skin—and she wondered, briefly, if water’s name was writ there, among all the other words she had no hope of reading.

While she could enumerate all of the things water personally meant to her, they didn’t coalesce into a single name that defined those meanings. They were subjective words, not true ones—but mortals weren’t gifted with true words; it was why it was so damned hard to remember true names: they weren’t words.

They were the feelings and reactions you had to struggle to wedge into the words you did speak. They were subjective because they came from your life, not the life of the person you were trying to communicate with. You had to hope there was enough overlap in your lives that the words meant more or less what you thought they meant when you said them.

Only the Tha’alani seemed exempt from this constant stumble toward misunderstanding. The Tha’alani....

Kaylin closed her eyes. It changed almost nothing, but it allowed her to envision the water as she so often appeared: a young woman with an expression beyond her apparent years, who had clear, translucent hands. One of those perfect hands was extended toward Kaylin, as it so often was; Kaylin carefully reached out to grab it.

Her grip, as always, was that little bit too tight; she was grasping something she wanted—and had wanted—for her entire life. It wasn’t, and couldn’t be, hers. She was—at most—a welcome guest. But if the hand was water, it didn’t slide through her fingers at the strength of that grip.

Even if she couldn’t live here, she wanted to visit.

Kaylin.

She opened her eyes. The storm raged around the golden Dragon on which she sat so precariously; she felt, for a moment, that the whole of the water’s attention was focused on her; water flowed down her flat hair; the stick that kept it off her neck had been lost. The small dragon was not impressed.

Tha’alaan, Kaylin said. She didn’t need to shout, now; when she was connected with the water this way, she was certain to be heard.

“Whatever you’re doing,” Bellusdeo roared, “Keep doing it!”

She didn’t need to be told. Even here, in the folds of storm, she felt the peculiar, particular warmth of the Tha’alaan. She heard the distant thrum of Tha’alani voices, and if she kept as silent as possible, it didn’t matter; they didn’t need words to hear or sense her.

The water became rain, and the rain ceased its fall.

Kaylin.

What happened?

I...was not aware of where I was. I heard a voice that I have heard in only one other place.

And you tried to destroy it?

It is not a voice that belongs in the Keeper’s Garden, the water replied. It is not a voice that belongs among your kind.

It does, now.

No, Kaylin.

She thought of Mandoran. Of Barrani children, and Barrani childhood—artifacts, all, of ancient wars. He’s alive. He’s here. He’s—he’s like Teela. He’s Barrani. He—he wasn’t, for a while.

He is not, now. Silence again, and then a measured curiosity. Kaylin couldn’t understand the question it contained—and that had never happened in the Tha’alaan before. I understand how you see this...Mandoran. I understand that you see the name to which he wakened.

But it is not, now, all that he is, and he brings danger with him. I sense his kin in the heart of the green; they are safest there. Send him back.

I’ll talk to him.

Speak with care, Kaylin. You do not understand what he is.

Does he?

Silence. Then, I...do not know. I think—I think he attempted to speak with me as he might once have spoken. I offer my apologies to the Keeper, she added. But it is best that Mandoran refrain from entering the Garden until either you understand what Mandoran has become, or until Mandoran does.

Where is he?

Ah. He is with the Keeper.

Kaylin didn’t ask where he’d been until now. Instead, she opened her eyes. The air was once again clear; she was on the back of a golden Dragon whose scales gleamed in the aftermath of an impromptu shower. Grethan was rigid in Teela’s arms, and Teela was the color of alabaster, except for her eyes, which were the expected very dark blue.

The water itself was once again confined in the deep, still pond; the brazier in the fire looked no worse for the deluge. The breeze was warm, but gentle.

Evanton, however, was soggy. He resembled an elderly, bedraggled rat, but with less hair. “Do not give me that look, Private; I assure you I am drier than you are.”

Bellusdeo, relieved of passengers, snorted smoke. “It occurs to me,” she said, “that the Imperial Court is unlikely to be impressed.”

“You didn’t go dragon in the city streets,” Kaylin pointed out.

“No. They’d be instantly aware of that transgression. I’m more concerned about the clothing.”

“...Clothing.”

“Don’t make that face. I’m not about to parade naked through Elani street. I am, however, about to be reduced to wearing armor—a military look that I fear the Emperor doesn’t favor.” She cleared her throat, loudly.

“I think she’s telling you to turn around,” Teela said.

“Right.”

* * *

Everyone was bedraggled except for the Dragon; Bellusdeo looked as if she were about to stride to war as an army of one. An impressive army, admittedly; she looked like the idealization of a warrior queen, more sculpture or painting than life. Teela was busy ringing water out of the perfect length of her hair, having done the same for her tabard. Mandoran was sitting on the ground, his knees folded into his chest, his chin resting on top of them. His eyes were ringed with shadow, but they weren’t any darker than Teela’s. Then again, black wouldn’t have been much darker than Teela’s at the moment.

Evanton placed a hand on Mandoran’s shoulder; the Barrani youth looked up.

“It can’t be helped,” the Keeper said, in an incredibly gentle voice. Kaylin felt her jaw slide open; she’d expected fury and death threats, as well as forcible ejection. Evanton’s frown reasserted itself as he looked at her. “I would, of course, be extremely angry if you did something this foolish in my garden.” His tone implied that he expected Kaylin, at least, to know better.

Mandoran, however, slumped.

“Lord Teela,” Evanton said.

“Keeper.”

“Take Mandoran home. He will require both food and rest.”

“What happened?” Kaylin asked. From Teela’s expression, it was clear she already knew. “Evanton? Did you expect this?”

“Hardly.”

“You don’t look surprised.”

“At my age, I seldom do. I can manage outrage, if you insist.”

Since she had an idea of who that would be aimed at, she changed the subject. “I don’t suppose you have a dress a Dragon could wear?”

“No.”

“Access to one?”

“No.”

“Are the Imperial spies still sitting across the damn street taking notes?”

“Yes. I imagine they were impressed that you brought Bellusdeo to visit.”

Kaylin wanted to start the day over. The small dragon squawked.

“They’ll be more impressed,” Teela said, “when they see the results. You look like a warrior queen.”

Bellusdeo was not immune to honest flattery, and smiled, inclining her chin. She clearly didn’t have to deal with quartermasters.

* * *

“What did bring you here today?” Evanton asked Kaylin. She’d removed and wrung out her tabard, but that hadn’t helped much. She was sloshing as she walked.

“You were waiting for us,” Kaylin replied. “You don’t know?”

“I am not an Oracle. You’ve been absent from your beat for almost two months.” His eyes narrowed. “I had, of course, heard of Bellusdeo; I doubt there’s a thinking being in the city who hasn’t. I also heard—although in this the grapevine is less reliable—that you are now out of a home.”

“An Arcane bomb,” Kaylin replied. “It was intended for Bellusdeo; I was collateral damage.”

“You both appear to be healthy, if a tad on the bedraggled side.”

She nodded and glanced at the small dragon, who was flopped across her shoulders. He lifted his head—only his head—to stare at Evanton. He then squawked. Several times. “The Arcane bomb destroyed a quarter of the building I lived in. We were at ground zero—but he put up some kind of magical shield, which saved our lives.”

“Yes, I noticed your companion.” He bowed—to the small dragon. “My apologies for my lack of greeting. All Kaylin’s companions this afternoon are worthy of note; I am too old to deal gracefully with a crowd.”

The small dragon nodded.

“You are her familiar?”

Squawk.

“Ah. An interesting choice. I hope you don’t expect a peaceful, tranquil life.”

Snort.

“Evanton—can you understand him?”

Evanton’s white brows lofted upward. “You can’t?”

“I can figure out what he means—it’s pretty obvious. But...none of his squawks sound like language, to me.”

The Keeper’s frown was a complicated network of lines. The small dragon squawked some more, and ended on a hiss that sounded very much like laughter. It didn’t help when Evanton chuckled in response.

“Where did you find him?” Evanton asked.

“Long story.”

“You are not notably shy about an excess of words on most days.”

“I’m not usually in the company of a Dragon and a Barrani who can piss off the heart of the elemental water just by speaking to her.” She grimaced. “I’m not usually a guest in the Imperial Palace, on a desperate hunt for a new home that won’t have the Emperor turning me into a small heap of ash.”

“Ah. I take it this means Bellusdeo intends to accompany you?”

“She’s hoping to live with me, yes. We did okay before the bomb.”

“I don’t envy you.”

“Evanton—you never envy me.”

“Astute. I am, however, making the onerous attempt not to pity you.”

“Thanks. I think.” She glanced over her shoulder at the sound of a foot tapping. It was Teela’s.

“Come back and have tea when you have more time to tell me about the past few months.”

* * *

Teela didn’t take Evanton’s advice. She switched patrolling positions and let Kaylin—and the armored Dragon—take the lead. If Kaylin had privately envied the attention that Bellusdeo drew when they were together—and she pretty much drew it all—she repented; people were practically dropping their jaws at the sight of her now. On the other hand, very few of those people—some who were very familiar to the Hawks—dared to approach her, something the court dress hadn’t seemed to discourage.

Bellusdeo looked like a Dragon now. Many mortals had no reason to ever cross a Dragon’s path, and because they hadn’t, it was easy to mistake them for human. From a distance, that’s what they more or less resembled. Their eye color—and the inner eye membrane—were a giveaway only when you were close enough to examine the Dragon’s face. Most people had no reason to get that close.

No one could mistake a Dragon in dragon form for a mortal—but when you were looking at giant scales, wings, claws and tail, that was understandable.

Dragon armor, even wrapped around a human-size body—albeit a tall one—was distinctive. And at least one of the gargantuan statues of the Eternal Emperor that littered the more respectable parts of Elantra sported it—with metallic leafing. The first time Kaylin had seen that statue, she’d thought the artist a pretentious nit. The first time she’d seen the armor in actual use—on Tiamaris—she’d silently apologized to that unknown artist, which she felt was fair, since it was the same way she’d dismissed him.

Bellusdeo therefore looked like a Dragon as she strode down Elani street by Kaylin’s side. It made the day’s work a lot easier, and as long as Kaylin ignored the probable consequences of the need for Dragon armor, she could be grateful.

CHAPTER FOUR

Mandoran was silent upon leaving Evanton’s shop. He was silent throughout the rest of their patrol. Anything that had caught his attention when they’d first reached Elani street failed to grab it now; he was almost grim. No, Kaylin thought, Teela was grim. Mandoran looked as if he was walking to—or from—the funeral of a very close friend.

Kaylin wanted to speak with him, but given Teela’s expression and the casual way in which she now hovered, it wasn’t safe. But if it had been, what then? Words—especially words of comfort—weren’t exactly Kaylin’s strong suit. Sadly, inactivity wasn’t, either. She wanted to do something to help, while being privately certain that any attempt would only make things worse.

“Kaylin?” Bellusdeo said.

“Sorry, just thinking.”

“About?”

“If I had a suit of armor like yours, Elani street would be a lot easier to manage.”

“Fear has that effect.” The Dragon grinned. “The only thing your citizens seem to fear is the Emperor.”

“Not true.”

“No?”

“They fear starvation, disease, and homelessness. Among other things.”

A golden brow rose in a distinct arch at Kaylin’s snappish reply. “I touched a nerve.”

She had. Kaylin’s response was a fief shrug. “It’s not easy being a mortal.” Before Bellusdeo could speak, she added, “It’s not easy being immortal, either. I’m coming to understand that. But our fears aren’t your fears. I think there’s overlap. Anyone, of any race, gets lonely. Anyone, of any race, can feel both grief and loss.

“But most of our lives aren’t taken up with war and larger-than-life magical conspiracies. We die anyway, no matter what we do. And you won’t. But the lives we live aren’t insignificant to us; if we only have a handful of years, we want them more.”

“I will not even argue that. Perhaps life is like friendship.”

Kaylin glanced at her.

“If you have many, many friends, friendship is a given, a matter of fact. If you have—at most—one or two, it is rare, it is precious. The loss of a friend in that case is shattering because one cannot assume that there will necessarily be others. I did not mean to diminish either your fears or your experience.”

“...No.” Kaylin exhaled. “I used to think that people like you had it easy.”

Bellusdeo didn’t seem surprised by this.

“You’re beautiful. You’re charismatic. You never get old, or fat, you’ve never been plain—or ugly. You don’t get diseases. The cold won’t kill you. You don’t need to sleep. You’re never going to starve. If worse comes to worst, you can hunt. I used to think—when I was a child—that if I were Barrani, I would never, ever have to be afraid.”

“The Barrani are not without fear.”

“No, I know that now. Neither are the Dragons—they just fear different things. All the things that terrified me as a child in the fiefs would never have been able to hurt me had I been you or Teela. It didn’t really occur to me that other things could. My life was a desperate, mortal life. Until the marks appeared on half my body.”

“And yet you do not seem to be comfortable with them.”

Kaylin grimaced. Honestly, if she didn’t stop doing that, her face would get stuck that way. “A dozen children were killed because these marks existed. Two of them were my family. I’d trade the marks, even now, if I could have them back.

“But I love my life. I mean, I hate parts of it—don’t get me started on Sergeant Mallory or the idiots who demand nothing but paperwork—but I was helpless when I was that child. I couldn’t have imagined living the life I have now; even escaping the fiefs was a daydream, something that other people did.”

“What you love about your life now is that you can make a difference?”

Kaylin’s nod was so instant and emphatic, she should have gotten whiplash.

“Even if that difference involves total strangers?”

“It’s why I’m a Hawk.”

“I will say that the only thing that makes me reconsider my opinion of the Emperor is the Halls of Law. It’s the Hawks, in particular. There are many, many ways he could have approached ruling a city of this size. Or the Empire outside of it. To most of my kin, these laws of yours would be incomprehensible. They were made for mortals, designed for them, and are enforced by them.”

Teela coughed. Loudly.

Bellusdeo chuckled. “Mostly enforced by them. In the Aeries of my youth, the suggestion would have been a joke—at best. Only the sentimental, the naive, or the foolish would have dared to suggest it.”

“So...you think better of the Emperor because he’s sentimental, naive or foolish?”

Teela coughed again. It was louder. “Do remember, kitling, that you’re likely to be observed, hmm?”

“It’s a joke.”

“Yes. And Immortals are famous for their well-developed sense of humor.”

Mandoran said, in all the wrong tone of voice, “I’m amazed that my kin have consented to be ruled by a Dragon.”

“And I’m amazed,” Bellusdeo replied, as Kaylin cringed, “that a Dragon has consented to rule Barrani, given the damage they’ve done to our people.”

Kaylin turned to look over her shoulder; Teela had fixed her with a glare so pointed she should have spontaneously started to bleed. “Good job,” she mouthed, in Elantran.

Arrogant, annoyed Mandoran was probably better than grieving, morose Mandoran. Probably. On the other hand, arrogant, resentful Bellusdeo?

* * *

By the time they returned to the office, Mandoran and Bellusdeo were figuratively bristling; had they been Leontine, it would have been literal. Color had returned to Mandoran’s face, but it wasn’t what Kaylin would consider particularly healthy. Color had mostly left Bellusdeo’s lips, they were compressed so tightly. They had descended—ascended?—to raised voices half a dozen times; Bellusdeo apparently considered the loss of Kaylin’s home and the possible loss of Kaylin’s life almost unforgiveable. Kaylin’s attempt to point out that Mandoran had not in any way been responsible for the Arcane bomb, given he wasn’t even resident in the Empire, fell on selectively deaf ears.

It would have worked had Mandoran not called the bomb’s lack of success regrettable. The fact that he apologized for the sentiment—to Kaylin—didn’t appear to help much.

“I take it back.” Teela’s teeth were clenched so tightly it was a miracle she could wedge words between them. “You were definitely less of a concern than Mandoran, even when you were thirteen.”

This wasn’t much of a surprise to Kaylin. Mandoran was Barrani, after all. “Let’s just never, ever take him drinking, okay?”

* * *

The guards—Clint and Tanner—that manned the outer doors of the Hall were on alert. Anyone would be, given that Bellusdeo’s eyes were a shade of orange that could almost be mistaken for red, and Mandoran’s eyes, a blue that could almost be mistaken for black. They didn’t shift much in color as the small party made its way to the office, either.

Given that three of the four were still damp—which was a charitable description—silence descended on the office, rippling outward as people stared. It was broken by the usual whispers that implied gossip, but even that took longer than usual to start; no one wanted to piss off a Dragon or a Barrani. Well, except other Dragons or Barrani, apparently.

Marcus’s facial fur—and ears—rose a good two inches as the Hawks made their way toward his desk. “Report,” he demanded, growling on both r’s.

Kaylin glanced at Teela. Teela was staring at a spot about six inches above the Sergeant’s eyes.

“We had a bit of a mishap at Evanton’s,” Kaylin said. She tried to keep her voice as quiet as possible.

“Wonderful. You’re aware that Lord Emmerian is waiting for you in the West Room?”

She didn’t cringe. It took effort.

“If this requires more paperwork on my part, I will take it out of your hide. Don’t just stand their gaping—go.”

* * *

Lord Emmerian was not wearing Dragon armor. The fact that Bellusdeo was couldn’t be hidden, and his eyes—which appeared, from first glance, to be a cautious brass, shifted instantly into an orange that was in the same dark range as Bellusdeo’s. Teela had all but grabbed Mandoran by the ears and dragged him as far away from Bellusdeo as office space permitted.

Since eye color was the first thing Kaylin noticed about Immortals, and his was bad, it took her a moment to look at the rest of him. She had briefly met Emmerian what felt like years ago; he had been silent, then. It was a better silence than the current one. She had seen him in the air above Elani street, with most of the rest of the Dragon Court—as a dragon. She thought his draconic form blue, although color did shift with mood.

At the moment, he was not in dragon form. He wore the usual expensive cloth of Court dress, but it was far less ostentatious than anything Bellusdeo wore. He had no beard, unlike Sanabalis or the Arkon. It made him look younger, not that the appearance of age meant much where Dragons were concerned. Aside from relative age, he looked nothing like the other Dragons Kaylin had met.

Oh, he had the eyes. But he was missing some of the arrogant bearing that she associated with Immortals. If it weren’t for the telltale inner eye membranes, which were raised at the moment, she could have mistaken him for a regular person. A regular, rich person.

“Lord Emmerian,” Bellusdeo said. To Kaylin’s surprise, she bowed.

“Bellusdeo.”

Bellusdeo smiled. Her eyes lost some of their murderous rage as she did. “I was informed by Lord Sanabalis that an escort would be provided for our apartment hunt—if that’s the correct usage of the word hunt.”

“It is,” he replied. “I was pleased to be offered the opportunity—but I confess that I did not expect such a search to be...martial in nature. I am not perhaps suitably attired?”

She laughed. It was a lovely, low shock of sound—unexpected given the day. “It is, of course, I who am unsuitably attired; I’m tempted to retain the armor for the search. Any landlord who can overlook it is less likely to be troubled by having us as tenants.”

Lord Emmerian said nothing, although he smiled.

The small dragon lifted his head; Kaylin could swear he opened only one eye as he surveyed the latest Dragon Lord. He then sighed in a whiffling sort of way and lowered both head and eyelid.

“If you will accompany us to the Palace, I will change there. With luck, the explanations likely to be demanded won’t detain us until midnight.”

Kaylin was willing to make bets on that. Sadly, most of them involved another sleepless night and a lot of Dragon shouting. “Let me talk to Caitlin before we leave? She had a few suggestions for places we might look.”

Lord Emmerian froze.

“We have to find someplace I can afford,” the private informed him, her voice a mix of defiance and apology.

* * *

Caitlin had a list, of course. She handed it to Kaylin, and Kaylin glanced briefly at the addresses while the office denmother dispensed advice. Since no one came to Caitlin’s desk expecting to avoid advice, Kaylin didn’t bristle. “Don’t mention the reason you’re looking for a new place, dear. I realize that might seem a tad unfair to the poor landlord—but I can’t think of many people who’d want to take that risk.”

Kaylin could—but only one: the Emperor. “I don’t think the Barrani are likely to make another attempt; the only people who’ll be more vigilant about possible attempts than the Emperor are in the High Halls. They were embarrassed,” she added.

“I don’t think that’s true of all the Barrani.”

“No,” Kaylin replied, thinking of Mandoran. “But the Barrani Lords know the High Lord is angry; they’ll walk carefully for the next little while. Which, in Barrani terms, is a few decades—possibly enough of them that I’ll be dead of old age and it won’t be my problem. Or my landlord’s. Thanks for this.”

Caitlin opened her mouth, shook her head, and closed it again. As a send-off, it was ominous.

* * *

Bellusdeo did make it to the Palace, and to suitable clothing. She didn’t make it out again without the need to tender a report, but given the reportee was Sanabalis, it was quiet and relatively brief. The small dragon was slumbering across Kaylin’s shoulders the entire time; clearly Sanabalis was not worth the effort of waking up. On the other hand, Sanabalis ignored the small dragon, as well.

Before they were cleared to leave, Sanabalis had insisted they either take a carriage or a small platoon of Imperial Palace Guards. Kaylin had had enough of the Palace Guard. In fact, she’d had enough of them the first time she’d met them years ago. She made this as clear as only Kaylin Neya on a tear could. Bellusdeo, however, didn’t care for the officious, silent guard, either, and didn’t demur.

During this discussion, Emmerian was present.

He remained silent. It wasn’t a rigid silence; he wasn’t—or didn’t appear to be, given eye color—afraid of either Sanabalis or Bellusdeo. He simply had nothing to add to the argument on either side.

Given Kaylin’s prior experience with Dragons and Dragon opinions—which were, of course, always smarter and wiser than hers, in the estimation of said Dragons—this was unusual. It wasn’t that Emmerian looked friendly. He didn’t. But he seemed content to be largely invisible, at least in comparison to the rest of the Dragons present.

This continued in the carriage as Kaylin sorted through addresses. Bellusdeo had, in the weeks Kaylin had been absent, studied Records-provided maps of Elantra; she probably knew the overall layout of the city as well as Kaylin did. The particulars were something she was willing to experience in person; she didn’t expect crime statistics to tell her much about living in the various jurisdictions.

She did, however, seem to find the laws and their minutiae fascinating. Kaylin could understand this if she didn’t think about it too hard; Kaylin sometimes found them fascinating. But Kaylin was pretty much paid to find them fascinating. Or to find reasonable ways to get around them in situations where the laws looked good on paper but were life-threatening in practice.

Bellusdeo now asked questions about the minutiae of said laws and their practical—or impractical—application. Kaylin, feeling self-conscious in the presence of a new Dragon Lord, answered as diplomatically as she could. Given that it was her job and the Halls of Law, this probably didn’t say much.

Emmerian, however, listened politely; Kaylin noted that he spent most of his time gazing out the windows at the passing street. There was just enough focus in the gaze that it implied attention rather than boredom, although his eyes did narrow as the Imperial carriage left the wider, grander avenues that surrounded the Palace, rolling past the streets that lead to the High Halls.

Bellusdeo was watching said streets at least as closely as Emmerian, but Kaylin wasn’t worried; the small dragon who served as a primary alarm system was practically snoring in her ear.

When the streets narrowed, Emmerian said nothing. More loudly. Kaylin was glad that they weren’t attempting to navigate by carriage during market day; carriage was probably the slowest way to get anywhere, although Imperial Crests reduced the waiting time by a fair margin. The streets were by no means dangerous by the time the carriage turned onto them, but Emmerian’s silence had developed a hint of distaste.

Kaylin, who should have expected this, forced herself to remain quiet. Emmerian was used to a palace. He didn’t have to live like a normal, working person. She exhaled. Bellusdeo didn’t have to live like a normal, working person either—but she wanted to. Hells, given Bellusdeo, Kaylin didn’t have to live like a normal working person. She was fairly certain most of the Hawks in the office would be appalled by her decision to move out.

But it was different, for Kaylin. Kaylin didn’t fit in there. She didn’t belong in rooms that made her feel dirty and clumsy and grungy just by existing. She didn’t have the right clothing to walk the halls without attracting the disdainful glances of the pages, people who probably made less a week than even she did.

It was free accommodation, yes. But in every way except money, it was costly. She would have jumped for joy at the chance to stand in the Palace’s shadow, as a child. She was a working, responsible adult, now.

Squawk.

Okay, a working, more-or-less responsible adult. Her job was the enforcement of the Emperor’s Law; she didn’t want home to essentially belong to that job. At the moment, it did.

“We’re almost at the first place,” Kaylin told the occupants of the carriage.

Bellusdeo had lived in Kaylin’s old place, and didn’t so much as raise a golden eyebrow. Emmerian hadn’t, and raised a blue-black one as the carriage clopped to a smooth stop.

“You don’t think the Emperor is going to like the place,” Kaylin said, as a footman opened the carriage door and deposited a fancy stool before it.

Bellusdeo snorted as Kaylin stepped down. Emmerian followed Kaylin, and scanned the street before he nodded to a visibly impatient Bellusdeo. She disembarked last, by unspoken mutual consent.

“I am certain,” the Dragon Lord finally said, “that he won’t.” He approached the doors to the four story building and frowned. “Is it possible that there’s no door ward here?”

“It’s not only possible,” Bellusdeo replied, before Kaylin could. “But extremely likely. Our Kaylin doesn’t care for door wards.”

“‘Our’ is it?” Emmerian examined the door without touching it. He did not, however, use magic to do so—or at least not magic that made Kaylin’s skin break out. “Private Neya, are the interior doors likewise without wards?”

“Which part of ‘Kaylin doesn’t care for door wards’ was unclear?”

Emmerian stiffened. Bellusdeo had drawn herself up to her full height, and her eyes were now tinted orange. Emmerian’s were likewise shading to bronze. The small dragon lifted his head and surveyed the situation—while yawning. His teeth were solid ivory, although the rest of his mouth suggested the same translucence as his body.

Both Dragons immediately turned toward him. He squawked. Given Bellusdeo’s expression, Kaylin wasn’t surprised she didn’t squawk back. Contrary to Diarmat’s constant criticism, Bellusdeo did have some sense of personal dignity; squawking at a winged lizard in the city streets was beneath it.

Emmerian was likewise silent, although he now looked mildly surprised. Kaylin, aware that she was the pedestal on which the interesting person was standing, nonetheless ducked between them and opened the door. The hall, at least on this floor, was lit; steep stairs the width of one person climbed up on the left of the door. The landlord’s office—which was a fancy word, in Kaylin’s opinion, for apartment—was down the hall to the right.

She was surprised at how nervous she felt. She couldn’t remember feeling nervous when she’d gone apartment hunting with Caitlin the first time. Suspicious, yes. Bewildered. Not nervous. She mentally kicked herself.

What was the worst thing that could happen here? Besides Bellusdeo descending into full-bellow Dragon fury. The apartment could be terrible. The landlord might want too much for extras he hadn’t bothered to mention to Caitlin. Bellusdeo might actually hate the place. None of these things was deadly; some might be minor humiliations, but Kaylin expected that from life.

She straightened both shoulders and knocked on the closed, residential door marked as an office. The floors on the other side of the door creaked. So did the floors on this side, but more ominously; Dragons were dense, and two of them were occupying pretty much the same square yard of flooring. The building was in decent repair, given Kaylin’s admittedly slight experience; it was by no means new or modern.

The door opened on a man of middling age and similar height; he suited his building. “Can I help you?” he asked, in a tone of voice that implied he meant the answer to be no.

“Yes. I’m Private Kaylin Neya. I have an appointment to view 3B.”

The man relaxed slightly; he glanced at Bellusdeo and Emmerian, his eyes narrowing. Neither of the two looked like they lived in this part of town. Ever. “Marten Anders. These your friends?” he asked, stepping into the hall with a very obvious ring of keys in his left hand.

“Yes. This is Bellusdeo. She’ll be sharing the space with me for the time being.” Kaylin failed to introduce Emmerian. Mr. Anders noticed, of course.

“She’ll be marking the lease?”

“No.”

The man shrugged. “We don’t want trouble here,” he told them both. “I run a respectable, quiet place.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Kaylin replied—quickly. Bellusdeo looked as if she was about to speak.

The small dragon squawked instead. The man’s eyes rounded instantly as the transparent troublemaker sat up on Kaylin’s shoulders.

“He’s house-trained, and he doesn’t bite. He doesn’t make much noise.” She resisted the urge to clamp a hand around his mouth, because she was fairly certain ‘doesn’t bite’ would be instantly disproved.

“What is he?”

“A lizard.”

The small dragon squawked.

“You know how there are albinos? He’s like that, but with even less color.”

Mr. Anders nodded slowly. Since Bellusdeo and Emmerian kept glacially stiff expressions plastered to their faces, he accepted the off-the-cuff lie and headed up the stairs.

* * *

There were actually two rooms, although the bedroom was about the size of the smallest of Bellusdeo’s closets in the Palace. The floors were covered by a rug that had seen better decades, and the boards made a lot of noise. To Kaylin, this was familiar and almost comforting. There were windows; they were glassless, but shuttered—and barred.

“Are the bars necessary?” Bellusdeo asked.

“They’re decorative, ma’am,” the landlord replied.

“Good. You won’t mind if we remove them, then. I don’t particularly like the idea of living in a cage.”

Emmerian turned to the landlord before he could reply. “Would it be permissible to make alterations to these rooms and the hallways themselves?”

This was not a question to ask a landlord who was looking less eager by the passing second. If Emmerian had been anything other than a Dragon, Kaylin would have stepped, hard, on his foot.

“What kind of alterations?” was the entirely reasonable response.

“They would be both physical and magical in nature. You clearly have rudimentary mirror grids within the building, but we would require something with a little more power. The windows would have to be changed; we would install glass—at our expense, of course. Are the rooms above this one currently occupied?”

“Yes.”

“If we take this room, we would require it. For the sake of safety, we would also require the room directly below.” Emmerian held up a hand before the man—whose mouth had compressed into a line that sort of matched his narrowed eyes—could interrupt. “We would, of course, be willing to double your current rents. Or possibly triple.” It was the only thing the Dragon Lord had said that might possibly appeal to a landlord, but given the pinched expression on this one’s face, it didn’t appeal enough.

A thought struck Kaylin in the deepening gloom. “I’m not willing to pay triple the rent for these rooms—I can’t afford it, given what I’m paid.”

“No, of course not. We have agreed that we will not interfere materially with your living quarters.”

“And glass windows that practically scream out to enterprising thieves aren’t materially interfering?”

“No. They serve several functions, they increase security, and they add value to the building itself in the event that you choose to leave. The modifications will,” he added, turning once again to the landlord, “remain your property when Private Neya chooses to vacate these premises.”

When. Not if.

Kaylin could feel herself losing inches of height as Emmerian continued. This was possibly the most she’d heard him speak in one sitting, and she regretted the absence of his silence. The only thing worse was the shifting color of Bellusdeo’s eyes. They weren’t full-on red, but they were orange, and she’d dropped the inner membrane that muted their color.

And that, she thought, as she glanced at the pale man who was in theory a possible future landlord, was that. If he hadn’t recognized Bellusdeo for a Dragon upon introduction, he recognized her as something non-mortal, now. Kaylin exhaled. It was the sound of total defeat. “Could you two wait outside?”

When neither Dragon moved, she added, “Now?”

The landlord did not insist on seeing them out. He did fold his notably burly arms across his chest when they were quit of the empty rooms.

“Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry they were so insulting,” Kaylin told him.

“Dragons, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re a Hawk.” He shrugged. “It’s a job. They always like that?”

“Normally? No. Worse. They don’t intend to be insulting—”

“But they think all mortals are money-grubbing merchants at heart.”

She had the grace to look guilty. “In Bellusdeo’s defense, she’s spent a couple of weeks with us on patrol in the Elani district.”

“So...fraudulent, money-grubbing merchants?” His lips twitched up at the corners. It was slight, but it was better than the frown that had taken up residence while Emmerian was talking.

“Caitlin wouldn’t have recommended the apartment if you were—if you weren’t... Can we just pretend I didn’t start that sentence?”

His grin spread. “It’s a bit of a pity,” he said. “I think I could live with you. I think I could live with...new-fangled enhancements. They’d probably have to do something about the floors.”

“But you can’t throw people out of their homes, even for three times the money.”

“No. Money’s tempting, and I wouldn’t get legal hassle for it—but, no.”

“I like you better for it,” Kaylin replied; it was true.

“Aye, well. If you’re looking to make a home, it’s a good trait—for you—in a landlord. Tell you what—if you lose the roommate, and the apartment’s still here, come back and we’ll talk.”

* * *

Emmerian and Bellusdeo were waiting in the carriage. The doors were closed. The windows, however, were slightly open, and Kaylin could hear Bellusdeo’s voice the moment she opened the external door. She guessed that orange eyes were now deeply orange, and had Severn been with her, she’d’ve bet on it.

He wasn’t, so she didn’t make money. Then again, he might not have taken the bet, because he had ears in his head.

Since she wasn’t feeling particularly charitable, she took her time walking to the carriage. She hoped Bellusdeo was figuratively chewing Emmerian’s head off—but she didn’t want the conversation to slide into native Dragon—not in the city streets. It would cause a panic, and she’d be at the center of it. Given the way things generally worked, Marcus would blame her.

If Marcus didn’t, the Lord of Swords probably would— because when people panicked in any number, it increased the workload of the Swords. The footman jumped off the little shelf at the back of the carriage as she approached the doors. She let him open them, and climbed into a carriage that fell immediately silent.

The small dragon whiffled.

“He didn’t mind a Dragon roommate,” Kaylin said, first up. “It was the crap that came with the roommate that he found objectionable. What were you thinking?”

Emmerian looked momentarily disconcerted.

“You can’t just demand that a landlord kick out two apartments full of people because you think you want rooms for your own purposes.”

“I made no demands.”

“They weren’t exactly requests, Emmerian.”

“They were. If the landlord did not wish to accommodate them, he was free to refuse to let the apartment.”

“Which he did.”

The Dragon implied a shrug without going through the down-market motion. “The modifications are not required should Bellusdeo choose to remain within the safety of the Imperial Palace. The measures are a compromise.”

Kaylin turned to Bellusdeo. “You agreed to this compromise?”

“Hardly. I agreed to live with some surveillance. Given your current life, I expected that it would be subtle.”

“My current life?”

“You are, as you well know, under Imperial Surveillance. I assumed that the security I would be offered would be of a similar variety.” Her eyes were getting redder by the syllable.

“I think,” Kaylin said quietly, “we’re done for the evening. I’ll mirror from the Palace and make my groveling apologies to the other two landlords.”

CHAPTER FIVE

If Kaylin was done for the evening, Bellusdeo was not. Kaylin attempted to use the mirror in their Palace rooms—twice. She managed to more or less explain to Caitlin the outcome of the interview with Marten Anders, but the sound of Dragon fury meant Caitlin was reduced to lip-reading for half the call. Calling to grovel about missed appointments was out of the question. Caitlin offered to do it for her.

Apparently, sleep was out of the question, as well.

Staying in the Palace, however, had less than zero appeal; Kaylin didn’t want to hide in the library with a sarcastic, cranky Arkon, although she did consider asking him if he had a spare bed in one of his maze of treasure rooms. She paced for a bit while the small dragon warbled in the breaks between Dragon “conversation.” There weren’t that many of them.

When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she mirrored Teela. She almost cut the call when she saw the color of Teela’s eyes: very, very blue.

“Unless Bellusdeo has burned down a city block or two, this is not a good time,” the Barrani Hawk said.

“I think she’s trying to burn down the Emperor, if that counts.”

“It doesn’t, unless she manages to succeed.” Teela frowned as Kaylin lost sound. When it returned—or rather, when outrage receded between the long, long breaths Dragons could draw, Teela’s brows had risen. “You’re not half wrong,” she said, in Elantran. “How long have they been going at it?”

“An hour. Maybe more. I have no idea how long they’ll be at it either— Oh, I think that one’s Diarmat.”

Teela started to speak, rolled her eyes, and stopped. “Lord Diarmat. Honestly, kitling, when in the Palace, try to observe proper form.”

“I’m heading out of the Palace because at this point, I can’t. Try, I mean.” She frowned. “Teela, where exactly are you right now?”

The Barrani Hawk grinned. It was a cat’s grin. “You finally recognize the room?”

Kaylin was silent for a long moment. “Where’s Severn?”

Teela glanced to the side of the mirror and held out her right hand, still grinning. “I win,” she said.

Severn came into the mirror’s view. He looked about as pleased to lose a bet as Kaylin would have, which wasn’t her biggest concern. “Why is Teela at your place?”

“Teela,” Teela replied before Severn could, “was bored.”

“I mean it, Teela. I know what you do when you’re bored.”

“If you’re not going to play with him, I don’t see why you should be so proprietary; he’s a big boy.”

Severn raised a brow in Teela’s direction. “I’m the substitute Tain for the evening.”

“Why does she need a substitute?”

“The one she has is currently babysitting. I hear Mandoran caused a bit of excitement on Elani street.”

“Where he wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t been in session with the Wolves.” Kaylin’s frown deepened. She was certain Severn had heard maybe three words of the last sentence, but wasn’t willing to bet on it; the Dragons weren’t pausing for much. “What does she need Tain for?”

“She’s not an idiot.”

“Why, thank you,” Teela drawled.

Severn didn’t blink or otherwise indicate he’d heard her. “Tain’s about the best backup she has.”

“Why does she need backup? What’s going down?” The small dragon sat up and leaned forward, adding his version of inner membranes to the mirror’s surface.

Severn didn’t reply. But he did glance—pointedly—at the Barrani Hawk. It was no answer, but it was answer enough for Kaylin. “Don’t leave without me,” she said abruptly.

Teela’s eyes were already dark enough they didn’t change color. “You are not—”

Kaylin cut the communication. The mirror was already doing a lightning jig as she grabbed her boots and daggers, putting them both on. It wasn’t safe to ignore Teela when she was in this mood, but Kaylin was done, for the moment, with caution. Teela didn’t need backup to go to a bar. She didn’t need muscle. Nothing that could happen in a bar could threaten her life in any real way.

And there weren’t a lot of places she could go that made Severn the ideal replacement backup. In fact, Kaylin thought, as she laced up her boots, there was really only one.

Nightshade.

* * *

Kaylin decided to accept the Imperial carriage offered as a matter of course to guests of any note living within the Palace. For perhaps the first time, she was grateful for the screaming fury of Dragon debate; it meant Bellusdeo wouldn’t be able to follow her.

She wasn’t expecting to be stopped by anything other than stiff, formal, condescending guards. These could be safely ignored. The person who met her in the halls as she all but raced toward the stable yards, not so much: no one ignored the Arkon if he didn’t want to be ignored.

Teela wasn’t going to wait forever. Severn could only stall her for so long. Damn it. She skidded to a halt; the only other option was running into the ancient Dragon.

“I can’t talk,” she told him, before he’d opened his mouth.

“Demonstrably untrue.”

“I’m heading out for the evening.”

“I had guessed you might, given the tenor of the unfortunate conversation.”

“Is this something that can wait until I get back?”

He was looking, pointedly, at her daggers. “No. It might have escaped your notice, Private, but I am not currently in my library.”

Kaylin bit back sarcasm with extreme difficulty. “Apologies, Arkon.” A white brow rose as she slid into High Barrani.

“Accepted. There were apparently some difficulties this afternoon.”

“Yes—we explained them to Sanabalis. Er... Lord Sanabalis.”

“Indeed. I think the Emperor was not entirely sanguine about those difficulties; it is certain to come up in the conversation.”

“It hasn’t, yet?”

“No. Bellusdeo is extremely unamused.”

“Diarmat—Lord Diarmat—doesn’t sound all that happy either.” It was the tiny silver lining on the gigantic storm cloud.

“He is not, but he is not a man who generally radiates either happiness or contentment. He is also not enough incentive for an old man to leave his library.”

Kaylin took the hint and shut up, silently urging the Arkon to cough up his reasons as fast as humanly possible. Or dragonly.

“I am concerned about the difficulties, as well. The afternoon’s,” he added. “The current argument between the Dragon Court and Bellusdeo is nowhere near resolution and only an optimist or a fool would expect it to reach a satisfactory resolution in the near future.”

“Please tell me the near future is within the next few decades.”

He ignored this. “The Barrani, Mandoran. He was one of twelve Barrani children selected to undergo a significant rite of passage in the West March.”

Gods. If he started asking about that, she’d be in these halls longer than Bellusdeo would be in the throne room. “Yes.”

“Lord Teela was one of the same twelve.”

“Yes.”

“The only one of the twelve to return from the West March.”

“Until very recently, yes.”

“Your answers are evasive, Private Neya.”

“They’re direct answers to the questions you’re asking when I have almost no time, sir.” His brow rose, and she reddened. “Arkon.”

“Very well. You will make the time to explain what occurred in as much detail as I require in future.”

She’d age and die before she could live up to the level of detail he required. She kept the thought to herself. “I don’t understand most of what happened, and I was there. But—”

“But Mandoran accompanied you home.”

“Yes.”

“He was not the only one of the twelve—Lord Teela aside—to travel to Elantra.”

“...No. The other one didn’t travel with us, though.”

“Do your evening’s plans include the other one, as you call him?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you suspect they do.”

She hesitated before nodding.

“Very well. He is the reason I am here. Your Mandoran—”

“Teela’s Mandoran, please.”

“Lord Teela’s Mandoran, if you prefer, caused difficulty in the Keeper’s Garden. It was not a difficulty that the Keeper anticipated.”

Obviously. She felt compelled to add, even given the agonizing passage of time, “Evanton recognized something in Mandoran, though. He didn’t treat him the way he generally treats Teela. I think he wanted Mandoran to see the Garden.”

“That did not work out as well as he’d hoped.”

“No.”

“Very well. Teela’s other friend is, if our sources are correct, currently resident within the fiefs.”

Kaylin suddenly felt very, very cold. “Yes.”

“There are very few residences in which Barrani of any status might feel at home. I can think of only one—in each fief. I believe you are beginning to understand the possible difficulty.”

She was. “The Castle.”

“The Towers, yes. They are not, in architecture or constitution, like the buildings in which most of the citizens of the Empire live. They exist in a different space.”

“...Like the Keeper’s Garden.”

“Very unlike the Keeper’s Garden, but I see you have absorbed most of the point I wished to make. If your intent was to go to the fief in which Lord Teela’s companion is situated, you have my apologies for wasting your time here. But Kaylin—be careful. If Bellusdeo’s brief account was accurate, Mandoran did not intend to cause the difficulties he did cause.

“It is likely that his friend might cause similar difficulties, with just as little intent.”

“I don’t understand how.”

“No. You think of the lost as Barrani.”

“They are.”

“No, Kaylin. They were. They may even consider themselves to be Barrani now. Their interpretation of their own state is of little consequence. The Emperor does not yet feel threatened by their presence—or he did not, before the incident in the Keeper’s abode. He will, however, be concerned.”

* * *

Kaylin jumped out of the carriage before it had rolled to a full stop, which was well before the footman had time to jump down himself. Although it was now dark, the carriage attracted attention; she could see windows open as she headed straight for Severn’s place, but ignored them. In this part of town, crossbows were unlikely to be trained on her exposed back.

Severn opened the door before she could knock. Teela was out in the street before she could talk.

“I’m against this,” Teela told her. “For the record.”

“That’s fine, as long as you understand that I’m going anyway.” She glanced at Severn as he locked his door. “We’re going to Nightshade?”

He nodded and added, “I win,” to Teela.

Teela was less graceful about losing a bet than Severn had been, probably because she had less practice. “I never said she was stupid.”

That definition of never stretched the meaning of the word so far it was likely to snap. “I suppose it’s too much to hope that we’re not going to the Castle?”

“Far too much,” Teela replied.

“Did Nightshade communicate with you directly?”

“With me? No. Before you ask, he didn’t mirror Severn either.”

“So we’re heading there because Annarion was in contact with you directly.”

“Something like that.”

“Which means Nightshade isn’t expecting visitors.”

He is, now, the fieflord said, right on cue.

* * *

“There is a reason I didn’t want you tagging along,” Teela said. “In fact, there are several. Your mark is glowing.” She strode at a fast pace past the idling carriage. No one took a carriage into the fiefs.

Kaylin lifted her hand to her cheek. Unlike the marks that had come to define much of her life, this one had arrived later, and she knew its source: Lord Nightshade, of the fief that bore his name.

“I take it this means he knows we’re coming.”

“...Sorry, Teela.”

“Not good enough.”

“You weren’t exactly going to storm the damn Castle in secret.”

“There’s every chance we were going to do exactly that,” Teela snapped.

Kaylin looked to Severn. “Was she drinking?”

“Alcohol doesn’t affect me,” Teela said, before Severn could answer. This wasn’t strictly true, but close. Teela could, with effort, be affected by alcohol meant for mortal consumption—but almost anything could snap her out of it.

“Not an answer.”

“As much of an answer as you deserve. Look—things at Castle Nightshade are in flux at the moment.”

“Annarion is in the Castle.”

“Yes.”

“And he’s the reason things are in flux?”

“That’s our assumption.” Teela picked up a pace that was already on the wrong side of punishing.

“Teela.” The small dragon added accompaniment or the Barrani Hawk might have ignored Kaylin. She slowed, which, given her mood, was the equivalent of a dead stop.

“You can speak with Annarion. What’s happened at the Castle?”

Teela exhaled. She didn’t stop moving. “I can speak with Annarion,” she said, in what should have been agreement. It wasn’t. “At the moment, he can speak with me. But I can’t understand at least half of what he’s saying.”

Kaylin almost missed the ground with her next step. “He’s—he’s speaking the way Nightshade and I do?”

“Yes.”

“How can you not understand him?”

Severn caught Kaylin’s arm. “She doesn’t know. We’re heading to Nightshade in part to find answers.”

“And the other part?”

“To find Annarion.”

“There’s something else you’re not saying.”

She felt Nightshade’s amusement and chagrin. I believe what he wishes to conceal is the possible need to rescue...me.

Kaylin did stumble, then. Fine. You understand what’s happening, right? You tell me.

Annarion is having an argument, he replied, after a long pause.

With you?

It started that way, yes. Unfortunately it did not end that way, if it can be said to have ended at all. When he first arrived at my doors, I explained the nature of the Castle to him. The explanation was, of necessity, incomplete.

You couldn’t explain the parts you don’t understand.

No Barrani liked to own their ignorance; Nightshade was no exception. Indeed.

The argument that you were having was heated.

It was far less calm than most such discussions that occur within my domain.

How much less calm?

There was very little blood, but not none.

He tried to kill you?

I do not believe that was his intent. The Castle does not always judge intent correctly. There are rudimentary defenses under my control; there are subtle defenses which occur at the Castle’s volition. The subtle defenses engaged when he attempted to strike me.

Kaylin uttered a loud Leontine curse, which caused Teela to raise a brow. And speed up again. Where is he now?

That would be the question. I have not managed to ascertain his precise location. He is alive; I believe him to be materially unharmed. He is not, however, within the confines of the Castle with which I am familiar.

You’re familiar with all it! It’s your castle!

So I would have said, although I would quibble with your use of the word familiar. I have forced the Castle to conform to a shape and size—on the interior—that suits me. You are well aware that visitors who are unaccompanied frequently find that shape less fixed. Annarion is, at the moment, unaccompanied.

So...your brother is arguing with your castle. A thought struck her as she jogged to catch up to Teela’s back. Is it still your castle?

That would be the question.

* * *

The streets of the fief were empty. Kaylin could hear the occasional insect; that was it. The Ferals that hunted these streets were either absent or silent, which was almost a pity. In Teela’s current mood, Ferals on the hunt wouldn’t last two minutes—and ridding the fief of Ferals was never a bad thing.

“Teela, can any of the others understand what Annarion’s trying to say to you?”

Teela failed to hear the question. Since she had far better hearing than Kaylin, Kaylin assumed it was deliberate. She let it go.

Severn, however, answered. “Yes. Teela attempted to have them translate. It did not go well. Mandoran offered to enter the fiefs to find Annarion. She said no.” He was walking in lockstep with Teela, but had taken the lead; it was work to keep it.

Kaylin had spent over half of her life in these streets—but almost never at night, if she’d had any choice at all. Night changed the texture of the map. Fear could change its shape. She glanced at Severn, took a deep breath, and reminded herself that she no longer lived here. The streets of the fief didn’t own her. The fieflord didn’t, either.

She was here with two Hawks. She was here because she’d chosen to cross the bridge; she could cross it again the moment she’d finished what she came to do. The fact that she didn’t fully understand what she had to do here didn’t matter. She was older, stronger, and she had backup.

If Nightshade’s roving thugs attempted to stop her, she’d kill them. If they were Barrani thugs—and he had a few of those—she’d let Teela kill them. She’d help.

The only thing she should be worrying about—besides Annarion and Teela—was the damned entrance to the Castle: it was a portal. The only time portals didn’t make her nauseated to the point of actually throwing up was when Nightshade literally carried her through the magical vortex.

Being sick all over his polished marble floor was probably the smarter choice.

“If you’re worried about the portal,” Teela said, as she finally slowed to a reasonable walk, “don’t be.”

“Easy for you to say. Portals don’t bother you.”

“That’s probably not what she meant,” Severn said, in exactly the wrong tone of voice.

Kaylin had been paying too much attention to the rest of the streets; she’d been listening for Ferals. The streets were not well lit, and in most cases, the light was moonlight. It was a clear night, but even if it hadn’t been, Teela could practically see in the dark.

What Teela was looking at now didn’t require Barrani vision to see; it was a black shape that rose into the sky. New buildings did not just appear in the fief of Nightshade. Even if the fieflord had a sudden change of heart, a building such as this one didn’t appear over the course of a couple of months; it was constructed over a decade.

“Yes,” Kaylin said, although Teela didn’t ask. “It’s new. And it appears to be standing on the only piece of prime real estate in the fief.”

It looked very much like the silhouette of a Tower.

* * *

Within five fief blocks, they confirmed what they’d strongly suspected: the Tower occupied roughly the same amount of space as the Castle that had once stood there. The courtyard—small and decorative, if one counted the empty hanging cages as decoration—near the entrance to Castle Nightshade was also absent. So were the gates. The Barrani who usually oversaw those black gates—the armored guards more suited to Court than to fiefs—hadn’t disappeared with them.

They no longer guarded gates, or a fake portcullis. They stood to either side of doors that seemed, even in moonlight, to be made of polished obsidian.

“This does not look promising,” Teela murmured. “Kitling, are you still in communication with the fieflord?”

Since the mark on her cheek was warm enough it was probably glowing, the answer was obvious. Given Teela’s mood, Kaylin answered anyway. “He’s able to communicate with me.”

“Ask him if this is what he expected the outside of his castle to look like.”

The Tower was tall. It was taller than the Tower in Tiamaris, and looked infinitely less welcoming. The doors were its most striking feature, but the rest of the Tower wasn’t exactly nondescript. It suggested cliff faces on stormy nights; it looked sharp, angular, an almost natural protrusion.

“He’s remarkably silent.”

Tell Lord Teela that I am not certain it is wise to enter the Castle at the present time.

No, thanks.

I make no attempt to mark territory, or to assume command. The Castle is dangerously unstable. Tell her.

Kaylin shook her head emphatically. She’s going in unless you forbid it. Given her mood, I’d be willing to bet she’d try anyway.

A beat of silence followed. Will you caution Lord Severn?

Same problem, except for the mood. If I go, he’s going, and if Teela’s going, I’m going.

You will have to inform my men that I grant permission. At the moment, communications have been unreliable. Nightshade was at least partly amused. They will accept your words as if they were, in this case, my own.

The mark.

Yes. My brother dislikes it intensely; he wishes it removed. I have explained that its existence has saved lives, but he considers the practicalities incidental in this case.

Is he wrong?

You know he is not. When I consider the centuries in which I attempted to find solutions for his absence, I am reminded strongly of the mortal phrase: be careful what you wish for.

Can he take the Castle from you?

That is not my fear.

What are you afraid of?

He did not intend to do what I believe has begun. He is waking the Tower.

You mean he’s talking to—to the equivalent of Tara?

Not deliberately. But something hears him, and I think it is struggling to respond.

Where is Andellen?

Within the Castle.

* * *

Getting permission to enter the doors was perfunctory. The guards took one look at Kaylin’s face, and stood back from them. They weren’t thrilled about Teela’s presence, but said nothing; they were Barrani. These weren’t negotiations. There was no partial obedience.

Severn unwound his weapon chain. The run through the streets hadn’t merited full-on armaments. The unknown might.

In all, things worked about as smoothly as they ever did until it came time to enter the Castle. The doors didn’t budge. Turning to the Barrani on the right, Kaylin said, “Are these doors a portal, like the portcullis used to be?”

“They do not function in the same fashion,” the man replied, his eyes dark in the dim light. “Some can enter; some cannot.”

“Has anyone who entered returned?”

“Their purpose is to reach the side of our Lord; they have no reason to return.”

“That’s a lot of syllables for No.”

“Is there another entrance?” Teela asked.

It was Kaylin who answered. “Yes. But given the disaster of tea in the Keeper’s Garden that’s an absolute last resort. Safe arrival is dependent on a concentrated amount of elemental water, and I’m not taking chances on enraged water unless the alternative is something worse than enraged Dragon.” She walked up to the closed doors and lifted a hand; her palm hovered an inch from its surface. Nothing made her skin ache.

“You were right,” Teela said—in Leontine.

“About what?”

“They are far, far more trouble than you were when you wormed your way into the Hawks.”

“It’s not supposed to be a competition, Teela.”

“At the moment it isn’t—you’re so far behind you couldn’t catch up if you tried.”

“Can Annarion open the door?”

“Annarion doesn’t know the Castle,” Teela replied, grinding her teeth. “He can’t mesh the geography of what I see—and show him—with what he currently sees.”

Which is pretty much what anyone sane expected from a Tower, although Kaylin had had hopes. She exhaled. “All right, small and scrappy. Can you open this?”

The small dragon squawked and launched himself off her shoulders. The Barrani guards didn’t even blink as he hovered just above Kaylin’s head.

I am not certain that is a wise idea, Nightshade said, with vastly diminished amusement.

It can’t be any worse than whatever it is Annarion’s doing.

You are devoid of an active imagination, which is disappointing considering the experience you have now amassed.

The small dragon chirped. He landed on Kaylin’s shoulders in the alert position that involved more claw than usual, and extended his neck toward the door. Kaylin took the hint. She didn’t touch the door itself, but approached it as if it were a portal—with a certain amount of dread.

“Corporal?” Teela said.

Severn nodded. He shifted his grip on the business ends of the unbound chain, passing a loop of links around Kaylin’s waist. Teela grimaced but allowed him to do the same, while she murmured something about “foundlings” under her breath.

Only when Severn, attached to the chain by the blades, gave the sign did Kaylin suck in air and take a step forward.

* * *

“Charming,” Teela said, voice dry.

Kaylin had always assumed that the passage through the portal was a misery—for her—because of the sensitivity to magic that had come to her with the runic marks that covered so much of her skin. No one else seemed to be hit as hard by the transition between the outside world and the interior of the Castle.

She revised this opinion now, because crossing through the obsidian doors didn’t immediately slap her in the face with overwhelming nausea. To be fair to Nightshade, she’d never entered his castle with her small and squawky companion before. He was making quiet, snuffling noises. It sounded almost like he was snoring.

She glanced at him; he was alert and watchful, although his wings were folded. Whatever he saw, he expected her to see on her own. Severn was on Kaylin’s right, and Teela, on the other side of him. Teela was pale.

“Can you hear Annarion any better?” Kaylin asked.

“Yes.” The word was so sharp it forbid any further questions.

The portcullis had led, when used, to the grand, harshly lit foyer of Castle Nightshade.

The door did not.

It led, instead, to a room Kaylin had seen only once in the past: the statuary. She recognized it because some of the statues were still in the place she’d last seen them; the room was otherwise hollow. It felt strangely empty. The first time she had seen it, music had played, like the background discussion of a large crowd. The statues themselves had come to life, shaking off immobility with joy and excitement.

This room had been proof—if it were needed—that Nightshade was not mortal. He owned the statues, yes—but they hadn’t started out as base stone. They had started out the way Severn or Kaylin had: messy biology. He therefore wasn’t imbuing statues with life so much as allowing life to return to them.

There were humans here. A Leontine. They were beautiful in their frozen, stone encasement; they were far more beautiful when life returned to them. She could imagine that, had they continued to live in the world outside this Castle, they would have been loved or adored or followed.

She couldn’t tell when they’d left the outside world, although she was certain historians would have had some guesses, given the style of the clothing they wore. Or, in the case of the Leontine, didn’t.

But wherever they’d come from, they had ended up here, in a room that looked like a storybook throne room, with majestic pillars fronting the walls to either side. Between those pillars, a handful of statues remained. Kaylin didn’t have Barrani memory; she couldn’t recall whether or not they occupied the same positions they once had.

But she knew there were fewer of them, because she could see moving, half-dazed people wandering the interior of the room. It wasn’t clear to Kaylin whether or not any of these people could see each other; they weren’t talking if they could, but they weren’t fighting either.

“Nightshade said that the Castle allowed him to transform his visitors,” Kaylin told Teela. “...Was he lying?”

“Not necessarily,” was the cool reply. “There are a handful of Barrani that might attempt—and succeed at—a similar transformation. Corporal?”

Severn let Teela out of the chain’s loop. He didn’t, however, release Kaylin. She didn’t insist, either. She’d seen halls warp and elongate when she was standing on solid ground; she wasn’t willing to bet that they were guaranteed to remain together.

The small dragon squawked. He caught Teela’s attention, but the occupants of the room seemed unaware of his presence, or at least unconcerned by it. They seemed similarly unconcerned with Teela as she approached them. Her steps were sharp and heavy.

If it came to that, so was her sword; she’d unsheathed it. Barrani Hawks didn’t—as a rule—carry swords. But the fiefs weren’t home to the Hawks and the Halls of Law, and Teela hadn’t chosen to carry sticks into the fiefs, on account of possible Ferals.

The small dragon hissed, tightening his claws. He also opened his wings, but they were high enough Kaylin assumed he was expressing his august displeasure, rather than giving her a different view of the world as he sometimes did with his wings.

Kaylin remembered her first reaction to this room. She remembered the stiff, tense, hurt outrage that Annarion had directed squarely at his older brother in the West March before he had departed.

“Can you tell Annarion that the statues agreed to this? It was a—a form of immortality. They were probably in love with his brother.”

“Annarion is well aware of the effects Immortals have on the lesser races.”

Lesser races. Kaylin rolled her eyes. She loved Teela like family, but there were whole days she had to work at it. “His words or your words?”

“He hasn’t lived in this city. He hasn’t experienced the changes that have come down with the passage of centuries. They’re his words. But they could have been mine, once. They probably were. He sees mortals as essentially helpless.”

“And you don’t?”

Teela shrugged. “I see them as essentially mortal. If one confounds me, I put off thinking about them because they’ll be dead soon, even if I do nothing.”

Whole very long days.

“Annarion set them free?”

“That’s the gist of it, I think. You could ask them. Some have rejected the transformation, but I don’t think their decision will stand. Annarion is angry.”

“Did he always have this kind of temper?”

“He was, of all of us, the most even-tempered.” Teela slowly sheathed her sword; the Leontine standing in the center of the room looked almost docile, which was both striking and very disturbing. “And the most idealistic. Never anger the idealistic. They feel right is on their side—and right excuses much.”

“I don’t object in principle to his objections,” Kaylin pointed out. “Just the condescension they’re wrapped in.”

“You can take that up with Annarion.”

“If we can find him.”

Teela nodded. “Can you find Nightshade?”

“I haven’t tried. I forget just how much I hate this place until I’m in it. Do you know if Annarion’s found the vampires?”

“...Vampires.”

Severn raised a brow, but said nothing.

“I don’t know what you’d call them,” Kaylin replied, trying—and failing—not to sound defensive. “They’re Barrani. They’re apparently ancient Barrani. They react to blood. I think they were already in the Castle when Nightshade took over. He said they chose the Barrani version of sleep here.”

Condescension and arrogance drained from Teela’s expression. Normally, this would have been a good thing. Today it was anything but.

CHAPTER SIX

“Nightshade took the Castle,” Teela said, her knuckles white as she gripped the hilt of the sheathed sword, “and he left them here?”

“I don’t think he considered them dangerous.” Kaylin hesitated, and then added, “They guard the Long Hall’s doors. I’m not sure the doors open without their permission for anyone but Nightshade.”

“Prior to this, I could say many things of Calarnenne—but one of them was not that he was a fool.”

“They’ve never hurt him,” Kaylin pointed out.

“And how, exactly, do you know about them?”

Kaylin swallowed. This was not the direction she wanted the conversation to take. “I met them.”

“And he told you they were...vampires?”

“Not exactly.”

“I fear that exactly will have to wait. Although it occurs to me that any attempts to kill him have their best chance of success now.”

She had her best chance of success in the West March, after the ceremony.

“They were sleeping,” Kaylin said. “I mean, Barrani sleep. They weren’t moving, and they appeared to notice nothing.”

“Except you.”

Kaylin failed to answer the question.

“And you were bleeding.”

“Look—are they dangerous now?”

“I don’t know. Do you think they can sleep through the changes that are now occurring in the Castle?”

“I don’t see why they wouldn’t.”

Teela muttered something about mortals under her breath. “Annarion has not—yet—encountered the ancestors. He is now aware that they are present. And Kaylin, they were a danger, even in our time.”

“By ours you mean yours and theirs.”

“Yes. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to have engendered a higher degree of caution in Annarion. It has, on the other hand, increased his disgust.”

“What are the others doing?”

“They are speaking with Annarion. They are more effective, at the moment, than I can be.”

“That’s good.” Kaylin was looking at her arms. Without another word, she rolled up her sleeve and pressed the gems on her bracer; the gems were already flashing.

“You wore the bracer when you knew we were coming to the Castle?” Teela asked, the words imbued with disbelief verging on outrage.

“I’m living in the Palace. You were the one who told me to observe correct form while there—and by Imperial dictate, I wear the bracer. Diarmat would probably reduce me to ash if he noticed it was missing; he’d be grateful for the excuse.”

“Less talk about the Dragon Court while we’re here,” Teela replied, in a quieter voice. “Your arms are glowing.”

“I’d noticed.”

“Do they hurt?”

“No. Not yet. You know I was looking forward to a few weeks of boring report writing and whining about Margot, right? And finding a quiet place of my own again?”

“And that’s working out well for you?”

“Very funny. On the bright side, it’s not my fault this time.”

“If you even suggest that this is my fault....”

“Yes?”

“You’ll have a chance to personally compare my temper to Annarion’s.”

“I’ll pass, if it’s all the same to you.”

“I thought you might. Roll up your sleeves,” she added. As Kaylin was more or less already doing that, she considered this unnecessary nagging. She tossed the bracer over her shoulder, but Severn bent to pick it up. She didn’t know why he bothered. The bracer was magical; no matter where she dropped it, it made its way back to Severn.

“You don’t need to cart it around. It’ll show up on your table, regardless,” she reminded him.

“While you’re living in the Palace, a certain amount of caution is probably wise. I’d be willing to bet a large sum of my personal money that it’ll return. I’m not willing to bet your life.”

The marks on her skin were a luminescent gold. They were warm, but not uncomfortably so. She wasn’t terribly surprised when they started to swim in her vision. This didn’t, on the other hand, mean there was anything wrong with her eyes.

The small dragon warbled and glanced at the marks. He flapped a bit, but not in an angry way. He was possibly the only non-mortal who wasn’t nursing anger this evening.

“Don’t eat them,” Kaylin told him.

He snorted. She was surprised when he snapped at her arm and came away with a single word between his translucent jaws.

“Hey! I mean it!”

The small dragon flew to the Leontine who seemed to be standing in a quiet daze. Kaylin sucked in air and ran after him. A docile Leontine, while a bit surprising, wasn’t going to be a difficulty. An awake, aware, and possibly angry Leontine was more than she could handle.

Teela joined Kaylin. Kaylin wanted free of Severn’s chain, because it was bloody awkward to move at any speed while it was attached to his weapons.

“Do you have any idea what your small creature is doing?”

“About as much as I ever have. At least this time he’s not insulting a water Dragon.” Kaylin had never seen the small creature take an injury. She didn’t want to start now, but he was well ahead of Teela, and as Teela approached the Leontine, she slowed. Barrani against Leontine wasn’t a sure thing.

Without a lot of preparation, human against Leontine was, and not in the favor of the human.

“Can you stop him?” Teela asked.

“Probably not. Why?”

“I’m uncertain that this is likely to have a calming effect on Annarion.”

“What would?”

“At this point? Very little. If Calarnenne was a more accomplished liar, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“Liar?”

“Annarion is disappointed in his brother. Disappointment—even betrayal—is something we all encounter as we gain experience; we learn that our hopes and our beliefs are not always based in fact. Usually, we’re changing at the same time; we encounter ways in which our beliefs in ourselves are tested and found wanting. Annarion’s and Mandoran’s weren’t tested, in their youth.” She frowned. “Mandoran doesn’t approve of his place in this discussion.”

“Why?”

“He considers Annarion fecklessly idealistic; he feels a set down has been a long time coming, and is well deserved.”

“Could he keep that to himself until we’ve worked out where Annarion—or his brother for that matter—is?”

“You’ve met Mandoran. What do you think?”

Kaylin’s jaw ached, she was grinding her teeth so hard. “Why exactly did you miss these people?”

Teela laughed. “Probably because they’re like this,” she said, her eyes losing some of the saturation of blue. “I’m not ready to lose any of them again. Not yet.”

* * *

The small dragon reached the Leontine, and alighted on his left shoulder. He’d never done that to Marcus, and Kaylin was pretty certain he wouldn’t; Marcus had trigger reflexes, and things flying at his face—or his neck—were likely to set them off. Kaylin wasn’t certain if the glow that illuminated the Leontine’s face was the dragon’s or the rune’s, but his perfect fur reflected it; he was much richer in color than Marcus, and his ears didn’t have the small scars that Marcus’s did. The brunt of his entirely exposed fur was gold, but the light from the mark-lamp implied red highlights, like sunset or sunrise across a field of wheat.

His face was longer, his cheekbones more prominent; he apparently didn’t have the bulk that caused Marcus to tower over his subordinates, even when he was seated. His eyes were Leontine eyes; at the moment, they were a peculiar shade of gray. Kaylin rifled through her very inadequate memory; she’d seen gray only a handful of times in her life, and never when things were going well.

She thought gray meant sorrow.

Speaking Leontine wasn’t easy; if she had to do it for any length of time, it wrecked her voice. Only in Marcus’s pridlea did she give up on rolling r’s and the growling tone that was half the conversation; she didn’t care if his children thought she was a pathetic, mewling kitten.

Teela came to a full stop as the color of the Leontine’s eyes became clear. Kaylin continued to walk, Severn attached by a slender chain at her waist. She held out both of her hands, palms up, fingers toward the ceiling to indicate sheathed claws. Not that she had claws.

He stared at her, his dull gray eyes at odds with the rich color of fur and the gleam of perfect, ivory fangs.

“I am Kaylin ni Kayala.”

He blinked; his eyes narrowed. Kaylin noted that small and squawky still held the word in his jaws; he hadn’t dropped it on the Leontine’s forehead, and it hadn’t disappeared. If he was using it just for the light it shed, she’d have words with him later.

“You cannot be kin,” he finally said. “You are human.”

Since human more or less meant hairless, mewling kitten, Kaylin nodded. “Kayala is our myrryn. Marcus is our leader. I have shared meat at their hearth-fire; I have protected the kittens. I have fought for my leader’s survival. I wasn’t born to the pridlea, but I am of it.” She inserted all the appropriate sounds.

“Why are you here?” he asked. As he looked around the dimly lit room, his eyes turned down at the corners. “Where is Calarnenne?”

“He is at the heart of his castle,” Kaylin replied, taking the same care to add all appropriate r’s and sibilants. “His pride-kin has returned after a long absence.”

The Leontine’s eyes widened, which Kaylin had not expected. “His brother?” he said, using the Barrani word.

She nodded, and added, “Annarion. He has not eaten at his pride-kin’s hearth for hundreds of years. He finds the hearth fires hot.”

“He is home,” the Leontine replied. He closed his eyes. Opened them. They were now a shade of gold. “Calarnenne does not sing to his brother.”

Kaylin blinked. “Does he sing to you?” Leontines were not notable for the quality of their lullabies.

“Yes, when he is restless. Have you heard him sing?”

“Once or twice. Mostly in the middle of battle.”

“You have seen him fight? You have stood by his side?” The way the last question was asked implied that it was an undreamed of privilege. Kaylin revised her estimate of his age down. He looked, in stature, to be fully adult.

“Yes,” she replied, because technically it was true.

“Do you travel to his side, now?”

“Yes.” The fact that arriving there wasn’t a certainty was unnecessary information.

“Will you take me with you?”

Kaylin faltered at the desperate hope in his eyes. And the fear, which was an edge of orange. When she failed to answer, he reached for her, grabbing both of her hands with greater than usual Leontine force.

“He woke me,” the Leontine continued. “He must have intended to be with me.” As if he were a child.

“Does he wake you often?” Kaylin asked, stalling. She could no more drag this Leontine into the wilds of Castle Nightshade than one of Marcus’s own children.

“He wakes me when he can spend time with me,” was the unadorned reply. “But he is not with me now. You are mortal.”

She nodded.

“As am I. I will wither and die if I am left to live on my own. This,” he continued, releasing her hands to trace an arc in the air that took in the whole of the chamber, “is my eternity, as promised.”

“You spend most of it as a statue,” she replied, before she could bite back the words.

He nodded, as if she’d just said water was wet. “How else can we live forever? We cannot live without aging. Age leads to death. If we wake only when he is with us, we are his forever.”

This was so not one of Kaylin’s life goals.

“He is busy. He is forever. If we live and breathe and walk as you do, we might never see him again. Do you understand? His life will lead him away from you. When he has time to return, you might be dead.”

If only, Kaylin thought.

“This way, all our lives are spent in his company.”

“And in no one else’s,” Kaylin pointed out. “Your family. Your pridlea. Your pack. They are gone.”

“They were gone when he first came to me,” was the quiet reply. “They were dead. I was carrion fodder. I remember.”

“As if it were yesterday.” Because, she thought, it might have been.

“I remember the vultures. I remember the war cries of the victors. I remember the color of blood on grass, and the wails of the survivors who would add to it. I remember my mother. My pack leader. I remember.” He smiled at her, then. It was a smile tinged, of all things, with pity. “I remember Calarnenne. I remember his song. It stopped us all—enemy and family, both. I could not understand the words, but I heard them as if he was remaking language.”

“Did you know he was Barrani?”

“I knew he was not kin,” was the quiet reply. “I had never seen beauty in other races. Not until him. But he is not here.”

Kaylin shook her head. “I don’t think he wants you to leave this room, unless you want to. Stay here. I’m not—I’m not like you. I wasn’t chosen for his—his eternity. Let me find him. Talk to your companions,” she suggested.

“They are not my companions; they are his. We are his.”

Kaylin nodded, mouth dry. “Keep them here. This hall is safe. Outside...there are predators.”

* * *

“I think Annarion is both unhappy with this outcome, and simultaneously less angry. You, on the other hand, look green,” Teela said, as she walked away from the Leontine.

Kaylin felt it, too. She was big on personal choices, and clearly, the Leontine had made his—but it left her feeling uncomfortable. “Have you found Annarion?”

“Have you found Nightshade?”

“No.”

“Is half of what Nightshade says to you unintelligible babble?”

“No.”

“Then don’t ask.”

* * *

Kaylin. Throughout the conversation with the Leontine, the fieflord had been silent. An’Teela is correct. There is a danger here.

For me, or for all us?

For all of you, he replied, with just the faintest hint of irritation. Teela is not young for one of my kind, but she is not ancient. You have seen two of the ancestors; they are bound to the Castle and its service. The binding is older than either myself or Teela. I do not know its strength. It is my belief they were made outcaste for reasons far less political than mine. They would have been hunted, Kaylin. Had they been found, they would—with grave difficulty—have been destroyed. Ask her.

Teela, understanding that the possible danger had passed, waited until the small dragon was once again anchored to Kaylin’s shoulder, still carrying the rune. When he was she turned toward the most obvious set of doors available.

She allowed Severn to loop his chain around her before she opened the doors; they weren’t warded, but she didn’t bother to touch them. Kaylin was often surprised when Teela used magic as a tool. Hawks weren’t supposed to be mages. They definitely weren’t supposed to be Arcanists or former Arcanists. She didn’t really care for this reminder of Teela’s life before she’d been part of it, which wasn’t reasonable or mature.

Some days, Kaylin fervently wished that she had already passed Adult 101 and could get on with being the person she wanted to be.

On the other hand, she had to survive if she was ever going to reach that near unattainable goal. She glanced at squawky. His eyes were wide, black opals; they reflected nothing. As he wasn’t doing the small dragon equivalent of shouting in her ear, she assumed he didn’t consider the door a danger.

“One day,” she told him, “you’re going to talk to me, and I’m going to understand you.”

“And until then,” Teela added, “she’s going to talk to herself. A lot. Luckily the rest of us are used to this.”

The doors swung fully open; nothing leaped through them to attack. Kaylin saw a lot of hall beyond the room itself; it wasn’t brightly lit, but at least there was light. “Teela, tell me about these Barrani ancestors.”

“Tell me,” the Barrani Hawk countered, “why you call them vampires.”

Kaylin shrugged. “They said something about my blood.”

Teela closed her eyes for a couple of seconds, the Barrani equivalent of counting to ten. “They spoke to you.” The words were so flat, they were hardly a question, so Kaylin didn’t answer it. “What color were their eyes?”

“Teela, it was a long time ago.”

“It was months ago. Not even mortal memory is that bad. Please do not tell me you don’t remember.”

But she didn’t. “They were pale, even for Barrani. But perfect the way Barrani are. When we approached the door they guarded, Nightshade told them it had to be opened. Their eyes were closed until he spoke; they opened. But nothing else about them moved—not at first.” She tried to remember her first—and only—walk through the Long Halls, as Nightshade called them. She could clearly see the Barrani standing to either side of the door like perfect statues. She couldn’t, however, see the color of their open eyes. “They must have been blue,” she finally said. “I’m sure I would have noticed if they were a different color. Green would have made them harmless. Relatively,” she added.

“Were you bleeding at the time?”

“Maybe. I wasn’t bleeding enough that it was significant.” Kaylin hesitated. Severn held his weapons; she kept her hands on her daggers, but didn’t draw them. “They asked Nightshade to give me to them as price for passage.”

Teela’s eyes were, of course, midnight blue, so it couldn’t get any worse. “Passage through what?”

“Doors. They were door guards.”

“They were not simple door guards. Do you know where these doors were?”

“Yes.”

“Could you lead us there?”

“...”

“Could you make certain that you don’t lead us there without some warning?”

“It’s a Tower, Teela, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Teela began to walk, and Kaylin fell in beside her. At Teela’s frown, she fell back a bit; Teela didn’t want Kaylin playing point. Kaylin didn’t exactly want that position, either.

“I didn’t notice the color of their eyes,” she said, “because of their voices.”

Teela stopped walking. “Their voices were different?”

“Not when they spoke to me or to Nightshade. But—I could hear them talking when we approached. Without, you know, seeing their lips move.”

“I am beginning to understand why you feel boredom is not a fate worse than death,” Teela replied, with a brief pause for a healthy, Leontine curse. “Did Nightshade hear their voices—their non-speaking voices?”

“I didn’t ask him. It was the first time I’d been on the inside of the Castle, and it didn’t seem safe or smart to ask questions. If I heard it, I assume he did.”

That would be an unwise assumption. Amusement had been stripped from his voice; had he been standing beside them, his eyes would have been the same color as Teela’s.

“Kitling, this is very important, and I will strangle you if you cannot answer me clearly. What were they saying?”

Kaylin was an old hand at exposing her throat, although she usually only did it when confronted with a raging Leontine Sergeant. Teela literally growled. “I couldn’t understand them.” Kaylin spoke quietly. “I could hear them, but they sounded entirely unlike any voices I’d heard before. I could identify it as speech—but I couldn’t understand what was being said.

“I’d just come from an underground forest. I’d just touched the leftover echoes of a message from the Ancients—or even an Avatar. I was very disoriented.”

“Fine. Is there anything else you’d like me to know?”

“I’d like you to answer my question, now.”

“It wasn’t a question, that I recall.” Teela exhaled. “The Barrani, like the Dragons, are ancient races. Mortals are relative newcomers. You’ve seen the Lake of Life. I don’t know if you’ve seen the draconic birthing pits—I’m going to assume that you haven’t.”

“I haven’t.”

“I’d suggest you avoid it, although given it’s you I shouldn’t bother—you tend to do the opposite of anything resembling smart.” She murmured something about having three wings, which was an Aerian expression that wasn’t always used to imply innate stupidity. “You’ve probably heard the Barrani Hawks complain about boredom.”

Anyone with functional ears had heard the Barrani Hawks make that complaint. Kaylin nodded.

“The Ancients liked to create. Much of what they created would make no sense to you—it barely makes sense to us. We were not—Barrani and Dragon—the first attempt at creating a self-replicating species.”

“The Shadows—”

“We don’t believe the Shadows were meant to be a distinct species. The Ancients’ sense of either distinct or species, however, is poorly understood. You know that we require words to fully come to life.”

“Names. True names.”

“We require one,” Teela continued. “And the one is drawn from the Lake, by the Lady. Without it, the vessel of our body never wakes. When our ancestors were created, there was no Lady. There were Ancients.”

“Were you like the Dragons, then?”

“In what way? I am not aware that Dragons require two names.”

“They don’t require it. But I think they can contain more.”

“That is a thought you will keep firmly to yourself. Forever.”

“The Dragons were supposed to be made of stone and imbued with life.”

“Yes, well. It’s probably true of the first Dragons. We are not entirely certain that it’s true of the first Barrani. You think of stone as something that can be chiseled into the desired shape; it is why the word stone is used in these tales. The Ancients were not so limited in their building materials. Flesh could be—and was—shaped and changed.”

The Leontines.

“Flesh could be merged and combined, while both living creatures somehow remained alive for the process. But flesh was perhaps a later concept, for the Ancients. You think of them as large, powerful people. Perhaps that is how they appeared to us, when they still walked the world—or the worlds. But it was only a facet of what they were in total, and they couldn’t show us most of their faces. We couldn’t perceive them; couldn’t interact with them.

“It’s my belief—and I am not a sage—that they could speak to us and we could not hear them unless they chose a form with which we could interact. We could not see them, unless they chose to confine themselves or diminish themselves in a similar fashion; we were too slender, too fixed, and too small.”

“I’m guessing that’s not the popular view among the Barrani.”

“It is accepted as probable history. Popularity has very little to do with it. The earliest of our kin were not concerned with keeping records for their possible descendants.”

“Did they have descendants in the traditional sense? Like, children, grandchildren, that kind of thing?”

“Not most of them, no.”

“Then why are they even called Barrani?”

“Because we lived in the cities they built. They were not like us, Kaylin. You hate Arcanists. You wouldn’t have a word for what the ancestors were. But it is believed that they were not possessed of single, true names, but complex phrases. When the ancestors were bored, they had options to alleviate that boredom that are undreamed of by the rest of my people now.

“One of them historically involved destroying the rest of us.” At Kaylin’s sharp intake of breath, Teela shrugged. “They did not see it as destruction; they wished to take control of the words that gave us life, and to remake them in some fashion.

“They attempted to do the same with the Dragons; if I am fair, they attempted to relieve the Dragons of their names first.” Teela began to walk again, taking the hall to the right because the hall to the left ended abruptly in a lot of wall.

“I’m going to assume that failed, since we still have Dragons.”

“It was not notably successful, no. It caused some difficulties with the Dragons.”

“Were there Dragon ancestors, as well?”

“You will have to ask your Arkon,” was the stiff reply. “The Barrani are not keepers of Dragon lore, except where it involves war.”

Kaylin was silent for another long beat. Dragons did not require names to wake. They didn’t require names to live. They just required true names to become their dual selves. She decided that if Teela didn’t know this, she wasn’t about to inform her. Then again, Nightshade was probably listening. Ugh.

He was diplomatic; if he heard, he said nothing.

“If they were that dangerous, how did you kill them?”

“We formed the war bands,” she replied. When Kaylin failed to respond immediately, she added, “You didn’t think they were created just to fight Dragons, did you?”

Since the answer was more or less yes, Kaylin said nothing. “We don’t have a war band here.”

“No. You said there were two?”

Kaylin nodded.

“I’d really like to strangle Nightshade.”

“How would Annarion feel about that?”

“At the moment? Sanguine. He doesn’t, on the other hand, feel it would be easy.”

“Easier than meeting the ancestors head on?”

“Definitely easier than that.” Teela stopped. “Corporal? The halls have not materially changed since we entered them, and I dislike being roped together like human foundlings.”

Severn nodded and unwound his chain. To Kaylin’s surprise, he also released her. He didn’t sheathe his weapons, and the visible scar on his jaw looked whiter and more pronounced than it usually did. The talk of Barrani ancestors had clearly raised the stakes.

Not that they were insignificant to begin with.

Nightshade, are the ancestors still guarding the Long Halls?

Yes.

Are they awake?

I am uncertain, Kaylin. The Castle is in flux.

Where are you, damn it?

I am at the heart of my castle.

And where is Annarion?

He is also at the heart of the Castle. Before you ask, we are not in the same place.

Kaylin hated magical buildings with a loud, multisyllabic passion. Can you come to us?

Not safely—for you. I am attempting to keep the Castle’s defenses at a minimum.

Given the existence of Barrani that even Teela feared, this didn’t seem like a great idea.

If the Castle’s defenses are fully mobilized, it will attempt to exterminate all intruders. This is unlikely to harm the ancestors. It is, however, likely to damage you.

You don’t seem that concerned.

No? I am unlikely to perish here, no matter what the outcome. You, however, are not guaranteed to survive. Do not look for me; look for the runes of the Ancients. It is there you will be safest.

She was silent for a beat, watching Teela’s tense back. The runes are in the heart of the Castle. We’ll need to enter the Long Halls to even get there.

In theory, yes. But remember: you are in a fief Tower now; geography bends to the dictate of will.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The dimly lit hall seemed to go on forever, something Kaylin definitely didn’t remember from her first visit to the statuary. She had been by Nightshade’s side while traversing the halls; he had made it clear that she was not to leave him if she wished to move safely within the Castle.

This wasn’t something Tara, the Avatar of the Tower of Tiamaris, had ever enforced. But Tara was awake, in a way that the Avatar of Castle Nightshade wasn’t. She’d asked the fieflord once why his castle didn’t speak directly to her; he’d replied that living within the folds of a sentient being was not one of his life’s ambitions.

What his actual life’s ambitions were, he’d never made clear.

“Teela, is Annarion talking to anyone? I don’t think he’s speaking to his brother at the moment.”

Teela replied without looking back. “I believe he is speaking with...something. He isn’t speaking a language I recognize or understand.”

“Would he know if he was speaking to your ancestors?”

“We prefer the ancestors, if we must speak about them at all; it’s not considered wise.”

“Probably wiser than walking into a sleeping, sentient building that’s having nightmares.”

“If the building hears us, it is not guaranteed to end our lives.”

“It might help preserve them,” Kaylin replied.

“No, Kaylin. Your Tara—and I am making assumptions on hearsay, because I have not visited the Tower in Tiamaris—was, in some ways, emotionally corrupt. You cannot assume that the other Avatars are likewise compromised. If their mission was to halt shadow and its contamination, we are—in the best case—irrelevant.”

Squawk.

“Can you hear Annarion?” Kaylin asked the small dragon.

Squawk.

“...Can he hear you?”

The small beast tilted his head to the left. All the way to the left; by the time he stopped, it was almost upside down, which made it hard to meet his eyes. He whiffled.

She would have pursued the line of questioning, but the ground beneath her feet—stone, and at that, rather plain stone—began to rumble. She looked to Teela and Severn; they’d both stopped walking. They hadn’t stopped moving; they were now on alert, and they scanned the halls and the walls that enclosed it, hoping to see danger before it dropped on their heads.

The small dragon wilted. So did Kaylin, as the walls to the left and right began to recede. The stone beneath their feet didn’t, but it expanded to fill the growing space. The ceiling above, however, faded from sight. In its place was something that didn’t resemble normal architecture in any way.

It looked a lot like sky, if sky were full of storm clouds and edged in flashes of luminescent light that refused to remain one color. The clouds were gray-green; they weren’t the roiling darkness of the shadows at the heart of the fiefs. Kaylin frowned; something was wrong—if you didn’t count the disappearance of ceiling and the sudden enlargement of the halls themselves.

The clouds weren’t moving; they were fixed. She revised her opinion of their composition; they looked like they were made of stone. She hoped there were support beams somewhere that kept them off the ground.

“Forward or back?” Teela asked, dragging Kaylin’s attention away from the heights.

Kaylin shrugged. Reaching into a pocket, she flipped a coin, caught it, and laid it against her forearm. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the result. “Forward.”

“What’s wrong?” Severn asked.

She grimaced and handed him the coin.

He held it up to Teela, trusting Barrani vision to show her what he could see up close. The coin had two sides—which anyone expected from a coin. The two images, however, were not the usual Palace and Emperor; they were the profiles of two familiar men. Nightshade and Annarion.

“Nightshade was forward?” Severn asked, as he handed the coin back to Kaylin.

“Nightshade landed face-up. There’s no way he was responsible for changing the coin,” she added. “Having his face on money is probably beneath him. If I had to guess, the Castle is making its opinion known.” She glanced up. “In more ways than one.”

* * *

Wider halls meant they could walk three abreast. Kaylin drew a dagger, although moving her arms made her skin ache. The small dragon was making his usual quiet noises; the rune that was glowing between his teeth didn’t seem to inhibit his version of speech.

“You’re thinking out loud again,” Teela said.

“I’m just trying to remember how Tiamaris took the Tower in the fief.”

“And you have to work that hard?”

“Very funny. The heart of the Tower in Tiamaris was covered in words. Very like the words on my arms—except that Tara could read them. I think, in total, they were meant to be the governing commands of the Tower; I’m not sure all Towers have identical words at their heart.

“But...there was one room—and room is a really bad description—that was also adorned with words in Castle Nightshade. It was where I first heard the word Chosen.” She hesitated again.

Teela’s exhalation was sharp enough to cut. Or should have been. “Out with it.”

“I—does Annarion know that I know...”

“No. I am not a child; I understand how to maintain privacy of thought and action from those with whom I’ve shared my name.”

Clearly implying that Kaylin didn’t. “I would have been lost in that room if I hadn’t had Nightshade’s name as an anchor. I didn’t take his name. I couldn’t see it. He offered it to me.”

“Why exactly did you require an anchor?”

“I don’t know, Teela. I just—I’m not sure I could have come back from wherever it was I got stuck. I couldn’t really see the Castle or the rest of the world clearly. I could see his name.”

“That is far too much information. I’m amazed Calarnenne isn’t screaming his lungs out.”

I have some concern for my dignity.

“You weren’t likewise trapped in Tiamaris.”

“No. But Tara was there. She was trying—inasmuch as she could—to guide me. I had to choose the words that would reaffirm her existence as a watchtower without the benefit of actual understanding.”

“But you don’t own the Tower.”

“No. I didn’t get a chance to fully finish whatever it was I was trying to do. Tiamaris kind of threw me out of the circle.”

“And Nightshade is likely to do the same?”

“I don’t think the situation’s the same. We’re not under attack here. By shadows,” she added. “The Tower defenses kick in on their own in emergencies; they’re open to suggestions— or commands—if the emergency isn’t the one they were built to handle.”

“You’re still hesitating, kitling.”

“I’m not sure we can all get to the heart of the Castle without passing your ancestors.”

“The ancestors.”

“Whatever.”

* * *

She hadn’t had to walk through the Long Halls to get to the forest at the heart of the Castle. Nightshade had opened doors which should have led to halls in any sane building; they’d opened to trees, instead. Kaylin had thought—for one long moment—that she’d stepped outside. She hadn’t. The forest grew within the Castle.

She’d been afraid of Nightshade, that first time.

It was not fear, he told her softly, but caution. Caution, when dealing with my kin, is not only wise, but necessary.

A stray memory of Teela stretched, catlike, across Kaylin’s narrow bed passed by; she made an effort not to grab it.

Even An’Teela. Perhaps, in her current situation, especially An’Teela.

I don’t understand why you can’t come to us.

I am not entirely mobile; the Castle itself demands most of my concentration.

Is Annarion aware that we’re approaching him now?

He should be. If he is not, consider why.

Kaylin exhaled. We need to bypass the ancestors.

Yes, sadly, I believe you do. Be cautious, Kaylin. It is not in your nature, but try. I think the possibility that they remain bound to the Castle’s environs during this upheaval is low. There is nothing in the Castle that presents more of a danger to you now.

She thought of him. He laughed; she could feel the warmth of his surprise and amusement. Yes, he replied. But I am only a danger to you should I decide that your death—at this moment—suits my purpose. It is your preservation that is proving more challenging—but that is oft true of mortals. The humor dimmed. If An’Teela can communicate at all with my brother, she must make the threat the ancestors pose clear.

I can’t imagine she’s not trying. Teela was unimpressed. Annarion would likely be less so.

Yes. But it may be enough to focus his fury; to narrow it. He...is still my brother at heart, but we have both changed in inexplicable ways—to each other.

* * *

“I do not think it wise,” Teela said, when Kaylin hesitantly asked her to tell Annarion that danger times two was likely to pop up at any time.

“I know. But we don’t have Nightshade with us. We can’t circumvent the ancestors—if they’re still standing guard at the doors at all.” Kaylin slowed. She’d bypassed the ancestors on the way into the forest, the first time. They had had to walk through them to leave it.

Clearly it was easier to find one’s way into the heart of the Castle than to leave it, even for Nightshade.

“I know you don’t like the chain line,” she began.

Teela waved her, imperiously, to silence. “I’ll accept it. You think you can take us to where we have to go?”

“Yes. I should warn you that if I can, it’s a one way journey; we get back the long way. Severn?”

He was already winding links of chain around Teela’s waist. Kaylin was surprised: she’d meant to use the chain as a rope line. It didn’t look like he could fight while they were bound together.

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