Cast In Secret

“Kaylin?” Severn said, and she hastily swallowed a mouthful of pastry that thankfully tasted nothing like the salty skin of newborn cub. Shook her head. He backed off, but with a slight smile.

“Where are we?”

“Almost there. Pay attention?”

“I was.”

He nodded with the ease of long practice. “Pay attention to where we actually are, hmm?”

“Trouble?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“You’re going to trip over your own feet, and stone isn’t the best cushion.” He paused, and then said quietly, “And I have something for you.”

She grimaced. “The bracer?”

“It was on my breakfast table in the morning. I thought you’d been with the midwives, and I kept it for you.” He took it out of the satchel he carried by his side. It gleamed gold and sparkled with the caught light of sapphire, ruby and diamond. It was her cage.

And it was, in its fashion, her haven. This, this cold, gleaming artifact, could contain the magic that Sanabalis, the heartless bastard, was trying to teach her to control. It was the only thing that could, and without it—without its existence—she would probably be dead by Imperial order.

It had come from the personal hoard of the Emperor, and it was ancient, although it looked as if it had been newly made. It took no dents or scratches, and no blood remained across its golden surface for long. Its gems didn’t break or scratch, either.

“Put it on,” he said.

She nodded, her fingers keying the sequence that would open it. Sliding it over her wrist, she thought of making some feeble protest—but she was with Severn, not Marcus, and Severn understood.

“You think I’ll need it?” she asked softly, as it clicked shut.

“I don’t know,” he said at last, but after a pause that was evasive. “You know you’re not supposed to take it off.” As she opened her mouth, he added, “By the Hawklord’s orders.”

She bit back the words for a moment, and when they came, they came more smoothly. “You know I can’t help the midwives if I wear it.”

“I know.”

“I can’t heal—”

“I know. I told you, I thought you might have been with the midwives when I saw it this morning.”

The other property of the bracer that would have been the envy of the stupid because it looked so very expensive was that it was impossible to lose. She could take it off if need be, drop it in the nearest trash heap, and it would find its way back to its keeper—that keeper not being Kaylin. For seven years, the keeper had been the Hawklord.

And for a month now, it had been Severn. He never asked why it came to his hand—which was good, because no one, as far as Kaylin could tell, had an explanation—and he never asked, except obliquely, why it wasn’t on hers. He simply gathered it and brought it back to her. And waited.

As a Keeper, he was a lot less onerous than the Hawklord.

“Severn—”

“It’s Elani Street,” he replied with a shrug, “and if you hunt long enough, you’ll find magic here.”

“I know where to find—” But she stopped, catching her words before she tripped over them with her tongue. “I hate magic.”

He stopped walking, turned suddenly, and looked down at her from an uncomfortable height. His hands caught both of her shoulders, and slid up them, trailing the sides of her neck to cup her face, and she met his eyes, brown and simple, dark with a past that she was part of, and a past that she didn’t know at all.

“Don’t,” he told her quietly. “Don’t hate it. It’s part of what you are, now, and nothing will change that. It’s a gift.”

She thought of the ways in which she had killed in a blind fury; thought of the stone walls that had parted like curtains of dust when the magic overwhelmed her. “A gift,” she said bitterly.

And he said, “You have fur on your tongue.” In almost perfect Leontine.

And a baby’s name—did race really matter?—like an echo in the same language, waiting to be said in affection and wonder, even if she were never again there to hear it.

He let his hands fall slowly away from her face as if they had belonged there, as if they were drawn there by gravity.

“Severn—”

He touched her open mouth with a single finger. But he didn’t smile, and he didn’t say anything else.

Elani Street opened up before them like any other merchant street in the district. If you didn’t know the city, you might have mistaken it for any other merchant street. It was not in the high-rent district—Kaylin’s patrols were somehow always designed to keep her away from the rich and prosperous—but it was not in the low-rent district, either. It hovered somewhere in the center. Clearly the buildings were old, and as much wood as stone had gone into their making, but they were well kept, and if paint flaked from signboards and windows had thinned with time, they were solid and functional.

The waterfront was well away, and the merchant authority didn’t technically govern the men and women who worked here for some complicated legalistic reason that had a lot to do with history and nothing to do with the law, so the Hawks and the Swords were the sole force that policed the area. And everyone was happy that way. Except for the Merchants’ Guild, which sent on its annual weasel report in an attempt to bring Elani under its jurisdiction.

Once or twice things had gotten ugly between the Merchants’ Guild and the Elani Streeters, and blood had been shed across more than just this part of town. This was practical history, to Kaylin, so she remembered it better than the codicils on top of codicils that kept the Merchants’ Guild at bay.

They had—the Guild—even tried to set up trade sanctions against this small part of town, and while everyone in theory agreed with it, in practice, they’d come anyway, because there wasn’t any actual evidence that they’d been here. You didn’t exactly bear a brand saying Fortunes Have Been Read Across My Palm, Look Here when you left. The sale of love potions may have dropped a tad during that embargo, however.

No, the rents weren’t high here, but the take was high enough that the vendors could usually fend off the more powerful guild with effective political sleight of hand. Or so Teela said; if she admired it, it had to be underhanded.

She was, after all, Barrani.

Severn’s expression was so carefully neutral, Kaylin laughed. He raised a brow.

“You don’t like Elani Street?”

“Not much, no. You?”

She shrugged. “It’s a street.”

He stopped in front of a placard that was leaning haphazardly against a grimy window. “Love potions?” he said. The sneer was entirely in his tone. “Meet your perfect mate? Find out what your future holds?”

As she’d said more or less the same thing—well, more and more heated—she shrugged again. “It’s a living.”

“So is theft.”

“Yeah, but people come here to empty their pockets. There’s no knife at their throat.”

“Dreams are their own knife, Kaylin. Dreams, what-ifs, desires. We all have to have hope.”

“This isn’t hope,” she replied quietly. “It’s just another way of lying to yourself.”

“Almost everything is, in the end.” He glanced at the board again, and then continued to walk down the street. He walked slowly enough that she could catch up to him; on patrol he usually did. But there was distance in his expression, some thought she couldn’t read—not that he’d ever been transparent.

Still, the street itself was quiet; the Festival season had passed over and around it, and the merchants who had, enterprising hucksters all, taken stalls near the Ablayne had returned home to the nest to find it, as it so often was after festival celebrations—and the cost of those—empty.

Evanton was not above taking a stall—or so he said—but his age prevented him from doing so so close to water. It made his bones ache. Kaylin expected that it was his jaw that ached, because he had some idea of what customer service was supposed to be, and fixing a smile across lines that were worn in perpetual frown taxed his strength.

Still, she smiled when she saw his store. Touching the hilts of her daggers for both luck and memory, she walked up the three flat steps that led to his door, and frowned slightly.

“Is it late?”

“You just had breakfast. You answer.” But Severn’s frown echoed hers; the curtains were drawn. In the door’s window and also, across the shop’s wider front. Gold leaf had flecked in places, and glass was scratched atop those letters—some thief attempting to remove what was on the other side had no doubt had too much to drink that night.

She knocked. Waited a minute, counting slowly, before she knocked again; Evanton never moved quickly, and his temper soured greatly if the visitor was too stupid to realize this.

But before she could be really annoying, the curtains flipped back, and she saw a wizened face peering through glass. He didn’t look much older than he had the first time she’d met him—but then again, she doubted that was possible. The curtains fell back into place, black drape that was almost gray with sun. No stars on it, no moons, no fancy—and fake—arcane symbols.

The door opened slowly; she heard keys twisting a rusty lock, followed by creaking hinges.

“You really should get some help around here,” she muttered.

“Good help,” he said coolly, “is hard to find in this city.”

“You’ve tried?”

He grimaced. “Don’t force me to be rude, girl. You’re wearing the Hawk.”

She smiled. It wasn’t the forced smile of an officer of the law, either; she had walked back into his dusty parlor, with its long counter, its rows of shelves—a city, no doubt, for spiders—its odd books stacked here and there like so much garbage so many times she couldn’t feel uncomfortable here. If it was an odd place, it felt like someone’s home, and she was welcome in it.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Evanton added pointedly, looking up at Severn. As Evanton, bent, was about Kaylin’s height, he had to look up.

“No, sir,” Severn said, in a much politer—and cooler—voice. “But I am aware of your establishment.”

“Fame gets me every time,” the old man replied. “Who are you?”

“He’s Severn,” Kaylin answered quickly. “Corporal Handred is also—as you can see—a Hawk.”

“Aye, I can see that,” Evanton said. “I would have called him a Wolf, if you’d asked me.”

Severn raised a brow. It went half as high as Kaylin’s. “He was a Wolf—” she began, but stopped as Severn stepped neatly, and heavily, on her foot. “What do you know about the Wolves?”

“Meaning what dealings have I had with them?”

“Meaning that.”

Evanton snorted. “You haven’t spent enough time with those Barrani, girl.”

“What?”

“That’s no way to get an answer.”

“I could threaten to break your arms if you want.”

He laughed his dry, low chuckle. “Aye, but they’re more subtle than that. I’m of use to them. It’s important in this business to be of use to people.”

Severn said, quietly, “We’re here on official business.”

“Dressed like that, you’d have to be. Although the uniform suits you.”

“You sent a message to the Hawks.”

Evanton shrugged. “I? I sent no message to the Hawks. I believe a message was sent, on the other hand. I know my own business,” he said at last, “and I know Hawk business when I see it. I prefer to keep them entirely separate, you understand, but we can’t always get what we want. You’ll want to follow me,” he added.

Kaylin was already behind him, because she always was in his store; he could bite your head off for going anywhere without him, and usually at length.

He led them behind his tall, sturdy counter. Its sides were made of solid wood that had the patina of time and disregard, not craft. It was impossible to see most of the wood, it was covered by so many things. Papers, bits of cloth, needles, thread—she had never asked why he wanted those because his answers could be mocking and gruesome. It looked more as if it belonged in a bar than a store, but then again, most of the things in the store looked as if they belonged somewhere else; the only things they had in common were dust and cobwebs, and the occasional glint of something that might be gold, or steel, or captive light—a hint of magic.

Wedged between two hulking shelves that looked suspiciously unstable was a very narrow door. Evanton took out a key ring that Kaylin could have put her whole arm through without trying very hard, chose one of three keys that dangled forlornly from its thin, tarnished metal, and unlocked the door. Like everything else in the store, it creaked.

He opened it slowly—he opened everything that way—and after a moment, nodded to himself and motioned for them to follow. Kaylin started forward, and Severn, with long years of practice, managed to slide between her and Evanton so smoothly she didn’t even step on the back of his feet. And not for lack of trying.

They entered a hall that was, like everything else in the building, narrow; they could walk single file, and if anyone had tried to pull a sword here, it would have lodged in the wall or the roof if they actually had to use it. Given Evanton, this was possibly deliberate. It was hard to say where the old man was concerned.

But at the end of the hall was another door, and judging by the jangle of keys, it, too, was locked. “Here,” he said quietly, “is the heart of my store. Let me tell you again. Touch nothing. Look at nothing for too long unless I instruct you otherwise. Take nothing.”

Kaylin bridled slightly, but Severn merely nodded. “How difficult will that be, old man?”

“Maybe you are a Hawk after all,” Evanton replied, eyeing Severn with barely veiled curiosity. “And the answer to that question is, I don’t know. I have no trouble.” He paused and added, “But that was not always the case. And I did not have myself as a guide, when I first came here.”

“Who did you have?” Kaylin asked, tilting her head to one side.

He raised a white brow.

“Sorry, Evanton.”

“Good girl. Oh, and Kaylin? I continue to allow you to visit here because of the great respect I have always felt for the Officers of the Halls of Law.”

“But I haven’t—” She stopped moving for a moment, and then brought her free hand up to her cheek to touch the skin across which lay a tattoo of a simple herb: Nightshade, by name. Deadly Nightshade, she thought to herself.

If it had only been a tattoo, it would never cause her trouble. It felt like skin to her, and the Hawks had become so used to it, she could almost forget it existed.

But this mark was—of course—magical, and it had been placed on her cheek by Lord Nightshade, a Barrani Lord who was outcaste to his people, and oh, wanted by every division in the Halls of Law for criminal activities beyond the river that divided the city itself.

Lord Nightshade had marked her, and the mark meant something to the Barrani. It meant something to the Dragons. To the other mortal races, it was generally less offensive than most tattoos. But clearly, it meant something to Evanton, purveyor of junk and the odd useful magic. He understood that it linked her, in ways that not even Kaylin fully understood, to Lord Nightshade himself.

But if Evanton’s eyes were narrowed, they were not suspicious. “Here,” he told her quietly, “there is some safety from the mark you bear. He will not find you, if he is looking.” He pushed the door open so slowly, Kaylin could have sworn she could feel the hours pass. “Is he?”

“Is he what?”

“Looking.”

She shrugged, uneasy. “He knows where to find me,” she said at last.

“Not, perhaps, a good thing, in your case. But enough. You are clearly yourself.”

“You can tell that how?”

“You could not have crossed my threshold if you were under his thrall.”

She nodded. Believing him. Wanting to know why she couldn’t have.

Severn spoke instead. “You sent a message to the Halls?”

“Ah. No, actually, I didn’t. If you check your Records carefully, you will not find a single—”

Severn lifted his hand. “Where did you send the message?”

“Ah. That would be telling. And probably telling too much,” the old man replied. “But people in power have an odd sense of what’s important. I imagine one of them took the time to read my elegant missive.”

“You expected this visit.”

“Of course. Forgive the lack of hospitality, but I don’t drink, and I can’t stand tea.”

And he held the door slightly ajar, motioning them in. Watching them both more carefully than he had ever watched Kaylin before. She wasn’t certain how she knew this, because he looked the same—eyes and skin crinkled in lines around his lips, the narrow width of his face. He wasn’t smiling, but he almost never did.

She meant to say something, but the words escaped her because from the width of the hall and the door she had expected the room to be tiny. And it was the size—and the height—of the Aerie in the Halls, where the winged Aerians who served the Hawklord could reach for, and almost touch, the sky.

Sunlight streamed down from above, as if through colored glass; the air moved Kaylin’s hair across her cheeks, suggesting breeze and open space. As a fiefling, she had had no great love of open spaces, but daylight had always suggested safety. There was a hint of that safety here, and it surprised her—magic almost always made her skin crawl.

The wooden plank flooring, often covered with carpets that made the floors look both older and more rickety, rather than less, had given way entirely to … grass. Blue-green grass, thick and short, that was so perfect she was almost afraid to take a step on it without removing her boots. She couldn’t see the far walls—she imagined this was because they were painted the color of sky—but she could see trees—tall trees—and the hint of water ahead, and to her left, the large curve of boulders seen between slender trunks.

A garden.

A magical garden.

“Yes,” Evanton said, as the door clicked shut at her back. She turned slowly to face him and saw that he had changed. His clothing was different, for one, and he seemed to stand slightly taller; the stoop in his shoulders, the bend, the perpetual droop of his neck, had disappeared. He was not young, would never be young, but age had majesty here that it had never had before.

“Yes?”

“It is a magic, of a type, Kaylin Neya. If you stand here for long enough, and you listen carefully, you might hear the sound of your name on the wind.” He paused, and then tendered her something shocking: A perfect, formal bow. “Lord Kaylin,” he said quietly, “of the High Court.”

“Don’t you start, too,” she began, but he waved her to silence.

“In this place, names have import, and there are rumors, girl.”

“Never bet on a rumor.”

His expression shifted and twisted, and for a moment she could see the man she had first met in this changed one. “Why not? You do.” He lifted an arm; blue cloth clung to it in a drape that reminded her of Barrani High Court clothing. It was not so fine in line, and it hung a little long, and perhaps a little heavily, on his scrawny frame—but it suggested … gravity. Experience.

Maybe even nobility, and no one sent Kaylin to talk to the nobles. Or the people who—far worse—wanted to be nobles and hadn’t quite made it yet, in their own minds.

“I bet small change,” she began. Severn snorted.

“Small change,” Severn told Evanton, unphased by the change in the man, “is all Kaylin ever has.”

“So you bet everything you have, time and again? You really should choose different companions, girl. But,” he added, staring at Severn again, “I don’t disapprove of this one.”

“You didn’t disapprove of Teela or Tain, that I recall.”

“It hardly matters, where the Barrani are concerned. And Teela is a slightly unusual case. I have known her for some time,” he added, almost gently. “She was the first customer I had in this store, when I finally opened it.”

“When you finally opened it?”

“Ah, yes. It took me some time to find my way back. From this place,” he added, looking beyond Kaylin, his eyes slightly unfocused. She knew the look; he was remembering something. Something she was certain he wasn’t about to share. “And she was waiting, with, I might add, her usual patience.” Which would of course be none at all.

“How long had she waited?”

“Quite a while, from all accounts. It was well before she joined the Hawks,” he added, “and she cut a formidable figure.”

Thinking about the drug dealers on the banks of the Ablayne—the ones who had been unfortunate enough to sell Lethe—Kaylin said, “She’s pretty damn formidable now.”

“In a fashion. She was waiting for me, and she was not with Tain. She did have a greatsword, however, a fine piece of work. It predated the Empire,” he added. “But I do not believe it was a named weapon.”

“Don’t believe? You mean you aren’t certain?” Kaylin felt her jaw drop. Luckily, it was attached to her face, or it would have bounced off the grass.

“Not entirely certain, no. There was something of a glamour on it, and since it looked like a serviceable, if old-fashioned, sword, the glamour clearly wasn’t there to make it look more impressive. But making it look less impressive, holding some power in reserve—that’s Barrani all over.”

She shook her head. “Teela doesn’t even use a sword.”

“If the sword she had with her that day were one of the named weapons, she wouldn’t—she wouldn’t insult the responsibility of ownership by using a lesser blade. What does she use, anyway?”

“Mostly hands or feet, but sometimes a great big stick.”

He nodded.

Severn, who was the model of studied patience, finally spoke, scattering the pleasant gossip to the winds that Evanton had mentioned. “Why are you showing us this?”

“A very good question. I’m surprised Kaylin didn’t ask it,” he added, frowning at her, although he spoke to Severn. “She always asks too many questions—they try what little patience I’ve managed to preserve.” But he said it without rancor. “This is not unlike the High Halls of the Barrani—and if I’m not mistaken, Corporal Handred, you are also entitled to be called Lord while you are in the High Halls.”

Severn nodded.

“This place is, however, older, I think, than the Halls, and one of the few such ancient places within the city that are not governed by either Barrani or the Dragon Emperor himself.

“Although when I was called to answer for my stewardship of this place, I will say the Dragon Emperor was a tad … testy. I’d advise you to stay on his good side when you do meet him.”

“You mean the side without the teeth, right?” Kaylin asked.

Evanton chuckled. “That side, yes, although the tail can be quite deadly.”

She didn’t ask him how he knew this. His words had caught up with her thoughts. “What do you mean when I meet him?”

His frown was momentary. “Never mind, girl. All in good—or bad—time. He is watching you, but even his reach is not so long that he can see you here. He is almost certainly aware that you are here, however.”

“What do you mean?”

“He has my shop watched.”

“Oh.” She paused, and took a step forward into a room that was, in her eyes, almost devoid of any trace of human interference. But … it belonged to Evanton, and because it did, she could see odd things that lay on stone pedestals, on stone shelves, and in alcoves that lined the nearest walls. Things that held candles—candelabras?—that were lined up in perfect precision, unlit and therefore unblemished. There were books, boxes that looked as if they’d been left out in the rain—and the sun and the snow for good measure—and small, golden tablets that looked as if they had, conversely, barely been touched by eyes. Still, it was the candles that caught her attention.

“Are they ever lit?”

“Never,” Evanton replied. “And if they are to be lit, let it be during someone else’s watch.”