Cast in Chaos

The doors opened and the unknown but obviously well-heeled woman entered the shop. This wasn’t unusual, and at least the woman in question had the money to throw away; far too many of the clientele that frequented Elani street in various shades of desperation didn’t.

Severn gave Kaylin a very pointed look, and she shrugged. “She’s got the money. No one’s going hungry if she throws it away on something stupid.” She started to walk, forcing Severn to fall in beside her. Her own feelings about most of Elani’s less genuine merchants were well-known.

She slowed, and after a moment she added, “I know there are worse things, Severn. I’m trying.”

His silence was a comfortable silence; she fit into it, and he let her. But they hadn’t reached the corner before they heard shouting, and they glanced once at each other before turning on their heels and heading back down the street.

The well-dressed woman who had entered Margot’s was in the process of leaving it in high, high dudgeon. Margot was—even at this distance—an unusual shade of pale that almost looked bad with her hair. Kaylin tried not to let the momentary pettiness of satisfaction distract her, and failed miserably; Margot was demonstrably still healthy, her store was still in one piece, and at this distance it didn’t appear that any Imperial Laws had been broken.

“Please, Lady,” Margot was saying. “I assure you—”

“I am done with your assurances, Margot,” was the icy reply. The woman turned, caught sight of the Hawks, and drew herself to her full height. “Officers,” she said coldly. “I demand that you arrest this—this woman—for slander.”

“While we would dearly love to arrest this woman in the course of our duties,” Kaylin said carefully, “most of what she says is confined to private meetings. Nor is what she says to her clients maliciously—or at least publicly—spread.”

“No?” The woman still spoke as if winter were language. “She spoke—in public—”

“I spoke in private,” Margot said quickly. “In the confines of my own establishment—”

“You spoke in front of your other clients,” the woman snapped. “When my father hears of this, you will be finished here, do you understand? You will be languishing in the Imperial jail!”

It was too much to hope that she would climb the steps to the open door of her carriage and leave. She turned once again to Kaylin; Severn was, as usual, enjoying the advantage of having kept his mouth shut. It was a neat trick, and Kaylin wished—for the thousandth time—that she could learn it. Or, rather, had already learned it.

“You will arrest this—this charlatan immediately.”

“Ma’am, we need to have something to arrest her for.”

“I’ve already told you—”

“You haven’t told us what she said,” Kaylin replied. Given the heightening of color across the woman’s cheeks, the fact that this was required seemed to further enrage her.

“Do you know who I am?”

It was the kind of question that Kaylin most hated, and it was the chief reason that her duties were not supposed to take her anywhere where it could, with such genuine outrage, be asked. “No, ma’am, I’m afraid I haven’t had the privilege.”

Her eyes rounded, and out of the corner of her eye, Kaylin saw that Margot was wincing.

“Who, may I ask, are you?” the woman now said.

“Private Neya, of the Hawks.”

“And you are somehow supposed to be responsible for safeguarding the people of this fair city when you clearly fail to recognize something as significant as the crest upon this carriage?”

Kaylin opened her mouth to reply, but a reply was clearly no longer desired—or acceptable.

“Very well, Private. I will speak with Lord Grammayre myself.” She spoke very clear, pointed High Barrani to her driver, and then stomped her way up the step and into the carriage. Had she been responsible for closing its door herself, it would have probably shattered. As it was, the footman did a much more careful job.

They watched the carriage drive away.

“I suppose there’s not much chance that she’s just going to go home and stew?” she asked Severn.

“No.”

“Is she important enough to gain immediate audience with the Hawklord?”

Margot sputtered before Severn could answer, but that was fine. Severn’s expression was pretty damn clear. “She is Lady Alyssa of the Larienne family. Did you truly not recognize her?”

Larienne. Larienne. Like most of the wealthy families in Elantra, they sported a mock-Barrani name. Something about it was familiar. “Go on.”

“Her father is Garavan Larienne, the head of the family. He is also the Chancellor of the Exchequer.”

Kaylin turned to Severn. “How bad is it going to be?”

“Oh, probably a few inches of paper on Marcus’s desk.”

She wilted. “All right, Margot. Since I’m going to be on report in a matter of hours—”

“Hour,” Severn said quietly.

“What the hell did you say that offended her so badly?”

“I’d prefer not to repeat it.”

Kaylin sourly told her what she could do with her preferences.

“So let me get this straight. Lady Alyssa comes to you for advice about her love life—”

“She is Garavan’s only daughter.” Margot was now subdued. She was still off her color. “And she’s been a client for only a few months. She is, of course, concerned with her greater destiny.”

“I’m not. What I’m concerned with is the statement Corporal Handred has taken from some of your other clients. You told Lady Alyssa that her father was going to be charged with embezzlement, and the family fortunes would be in steep decline? You?”

Margot opened her mouth, and nothing fell out of it. Kaylin had often daydreamed about Margot at a loss for words; this wasn’t exactly how she’d hoped it would come about.

“I—” Margot shook her head. “I had no intention of saying any such thing, Her father’s business is not her business, and she doesn’t ask about him.”

“Then what in the hells possessed you to do it now?”

“She—she sat in her normal chair, and she asked me if—if I had any further insight into her particular situation.”

“And that was your answer? Come on, Margot. You’ve been running this place—successfully—for too damn many years to just open your mouth and offend someone you consider important.”

“That was my answer,” was the stiff reply. “I felt—strange, Private. I felt as if—I could see what would happen. As if it were unfolding before my eyes. I didn’t mean to speak the words. The words just came.” She spoke very softly, even given the lack of actual customers in her storefront; she had sent them, quietly, on their way. Apparently, whatever it was that was coming out of her mouth was not to be trusted, and she was willing to lose a full day’s worth of income to make sure it didn’t happen again.

“So. A cure for baldness that worked—instantly—and a fortune-teller’s trick that might also be genuine.”

“I’d keep that last to yourself.”

She shrugged. “I think it’s time we visited all of the damn shops on Elani, door-to-door, and had a little talk with the proprietors.”

Severn, who didn’t dislike Margot as much as Kaylin, had been both less amused at her predicament and less amused by the two incidents than Kaylin. Kaylin let her brain catch up with her sense of humor, and the grin slowly faded from her face, as well. “Come on,” she told him.

“Where are we starting?”

“Evanton’s. If we’re lucky, that’ll take up the remainder of the shift, and then some. I’m not looking forward to signing out tonight.”

CHAPTER 2

Evanton’s apprentice, Grethan, opened the door before Kaylin managed to touch it. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in three days, and judging from his expression, Kaylin and Severn were part of his waking nightmare.

“Are you shutting up for the day?” Kaylin asked, keeping her voice quiet and low.

He looked confused, and then shook himself. “No,” he told her. “I was just—going out. For a walk,” he added quickly.

She didn’t ask him how Evanton was; he’d pretty much already answered that question. But she did walk into the cluttered, gloomy front room, and she stopped as she crested the opening between two cases of shelving. The light here was brilliant.

Evanton was wearing his usual apron, and it was decorated with the usual pins and escapee threads of the variety of materials with which he worked. But his eyes were, like the lights in the room, a little too bright. He glanced at her, his hands pulling thread through a thick, dark fabric that lay in a drape across his spindly lap. “I was wondering,” he said, although it was somewhat muffled, given the pins between his lips, “when you would show up.”

“The Garden—”

“Oh, the Garden’s fine. Whatever you did in the fiefs a couple of weeks ago was enough to calm it. It looks normal. No, the Garden is not your problem.” He removed the pins and stuck them carefully into one of a half-dozen oddly shaped pincushions by his left arm. “I’ve almost finished with your cloak,” he added, “if you want to try it on.”

She had the grace to redden. “Not now,” she told him. “I’m on duty.”

He raised a brow. “Have you two been on patrol all morning?”

Kaylin nodded.

“Notice anything unusual?”

She nodded again, but this time more slowly. Note to self: visit Evanton’s first, next time you’re in Elani. “What is it, Evanton? We’re just about to make a sweep of the street to see if anything else unusual turns up.”

“I hope you’ve got a lot of time,” the old man replied. He rose and folded the cloth in his lap into a careful bundle. “I’d offer you tea, but the boy’s forgotten to fill the bucket.”

“I can fill it—”

“No. That won’t be necessary.”

She frowned.

“It’s not only in the rest of the street that the unusual is occurring,” he told her. “This morning, when he came in with the water, the water started to speak to him.”

“Evanton—”

“Yes. He was born deaf, by the standards of the Tha’alani. He has always been mind deaf, but he is still Tha’alani by birth. In the Elemental Garden, he can hear the water’s voice, and through it, some echo of the voice of his people. This is the first time it’s happened outside of the Garden, and the water was in buckets. It is not, sadly, still in those buckets. I can’t get him to drink a glass of water at the moment. He sits and stares at it instead.” He frowned. “I had heard rumors that you were studying magic with Lord Sanabalis.”

“From who?”

“Private, please. I gather from your sour expression that the rumors are true. You might wish to speak with Lord Sanabalis about the events on Elani at your earliest convenience. If we are lucky, he will be unaware of the difficulties you might encounter.”

“And if we’re not?”

“He will already know, and it will mean that the difficulties are present across a much wider area of the city.”

“What will it mean to him?”

“What it should mean to you, if you’ve been studying for any length of time,” was the curt reply. But Evanton did relent. “There has been a significant and sudden shift in the magical potential of an area that is at least as broad as Elani.”

Kaylin froze. “Severn, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I’m thinking that our sample size—of three—is more than enough for the day. We should return to the office immediately.”

Evanton frowned, although with his face it was sometimes difficult to tell. “Something unusual happened outside of the confines of this particular neighborhood.”

“Yes. An enchantment laid against some of the windows in the Halls of Law has developed a more commanding and distinct personality than it possessed a few days ago.”

Evanton closed his eyes. “Go, Private, Corporal. Speak with the Hawklord now.”

Speaking with the Hawklord was not at the top of Kaylin’s list of things to do before the end of her shift. Or at all. He was—they all were—aware of the shortcomings in an education that didn’t include the rich and the powerful on this side of the Ablayne. For one, power in the fiefs usually meant brute force; manners were what you developed when you wanted to avoid pissing off the brute force in question. Marcus had once told her that manners in the rest of Elantra were exactly the same thing, but Kaylin knew they weren’t. In the fiefs, the best manners were often either silence or total invisibility.

Here, you were actually expected to talk and interact. Without obvious groveling or fawning, and without obvious fear.

Severn caught her hand.

“What?”

“Stop rubbing your arm like that. You’ll take your skin off.”

“Like that would be a bad thing.” But she did stop. “I should have known,” she added. “You suspected?”

“I wondered.”

The Halls loomed in a distance that was growing shorter as they walked; they weren’t patrolling, so there was no need for a leisurely pace. They also weren’t running because running Hawks made people nervous.

Tanner took one look at her face and stepped to one side. “Trouble?” he asked them both.

“Possible trouble,” Kaylin replied. They breezed through the Aerie and the halls that led to the office that was Kaylin’s second home. Marcus was at his desk, and he roared when he caught sight of them. Kaylin cringed.

“Here. Now.”

Only a suicidal idiot would have ignored that tone of voice. Or the claws that were adding new runnels to scant clear desk surface. Both she and Severn made their way to the safe side of his desk—the one he wasn’t on. Kaylin lifted her chin, exposing her throat. Marcus actually glowered at it as if he was considering his options; his eyes were a very deep orange, and about as far from his usual golden color as they could get when death wasn’t involved.

“In your rounds in Elani today did you happen to encounter anyone significant?” he growled, his voice on the lower end of the Leontine scale. The office had fallen—mostly—silent; total silence would probably occur only in the event of the deaths of everyone in it.

“Alyssa Larienne.”

“Lady Alyssa Larienne. She is the daughter of one of the oldest—and wealthiest—human families in Elantra. Her father is a member of significance in the human Caste Court. Her mother is the daughter of the castelord. If you wanted to make my life more difficult when dealing with the human Caste Court, you couldn’t have chosen a better person to offend.”

Well, there is her father. This time, Kaylin kept her mouth shut.

“I expect there to be a good explanation for this.”

“I wasn’t the one who actually offended her, if that helps.”

He snarled, which meant it didn’t. “What happened?”

“She’s a client of Margot’s.”

“You’re telling me—with a straight face and your job on the line—that Margot offended her.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How?”

“That’s part of why we’re here—”

“Stick with this part, for now. Report on the rest later.”

“Yes, sir.” She took a deep breath. “Lady Alyssa arrived for her usual appointment. Today, Margot chose to tell her that her father, Garavan Larienne, was to be arrested for embezzlement.”

Breathing would have made more noise than the combined contents of the office now did.

“Let me get this straight. Margot told Alyssa Larienne that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was to be arraigned for embezzlement.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And your part in this was?”

“Lady Alyssa demanded that I arrest Margot for slander. I personally would love to arrest Margot for anything she could possibly—”

Marcus flexed his claws. Kaylin took this as a sign that she should answer his questions, and only his questions. “I asked Lady Alyssa what Margot had said. She declined to repeat it. She did not decline to repeat her demand.”

Marcus’s eyes were still orange.

“She did, however, take offense at the idea that I didn’t immediately recognize the crest on her carriage or her own import, since obviously either of those would lead me to arrest Margot on the spot, and said she would take it up with Lord Grammayre personally.”

Marcus growled. “This is extremely unfortunate. I would like you to request that Margot come into the office for debriefing.”

Kaylin’s jaw nearly dropped. “What?”

“Which part of that sentence wasn’t clear?”

Severn cleared his throat. “When would you like us to request Margot’s cooperation with the Halls of Law?”

“After you finish speaking with Lord Grammayre. You’re early,” he added, his eyes narrowing. “Please tell me there is no other emergency in Elani.” Oddly enough, when he said this, his eyes began to shade into a more acceptable bronze.

Severn was notably silent.

“It would save me paperwork and ulcers if I just chained you to a desk, Private. Go talk to the Hawklord. Now.”

“Private,” Kaylin whispered, as they walked quickly up the spiral staircase. “As if you weren’t there at all.”

“You seem to be fairly good at attracting trouble in spite of your assigned partner,” Severn replied, with a faint smile.

“If Margot has somehow blown things for an ongoing investigation…” She didn’t finish, because they reached the Hawklord’s tower door. They’d bypassed his office, but Kaylin didn’t expect him to be in his office; he rarely conducted his meetings there. For one, it was as crowded and cluttered as any busy person’s office. It also wasn’t as imposing as the more austere and architecturally impressive tower itself.

“This,” Kaylin muttered, as Severn placed his palm firmly across the doorward of the closed tower doors, “is worse than magic. This is politics.”

“On the bright side,” Severn replied, as the door swung inward, “this is probably making etiquette lessons look a lot more inviting.”

The Hawklord was standing in front of his perfect, oval mirror. In and of itself, this was not a bad sign. The mirror, however, reflected no part of the room, which meant he was accessing Records. Kaylin could see nothing but a blank, black surface. He glanced over his shoulder as she and Severn walked into the room, and she stopped almost immediately.

His eyes were blue.

Blue, in the Aerians, like blue in the Barrani, was not a good sign. With luck, it meant anger. With less luck, it meant fury. In either case, it meant tread carefully. Likewise, the Hawklord’s wings were high above his shoulders. They weren’t fully extended; they were loosely gathered. She’d seen loosely gathered Aerian wings strike and break bone exactly once.

She offered the Hawklord a perfect salute. Severn, by her side, did likewise.

“Alyssa Larienne came to this tower just over an hour ago,” he said without preamble. “Sergeant Kassan attempted to detain her by taking a detailed report of the incident which had angered her.”

Kaylin winced.

“As a result she left the Halls some fifteen minutes before your arrival.” The Hawklord’s wings twitched. His eyes were still a very glacial blue. “She did not appreciate the filing of an incident report. I was assured that Sergeant Kassan was polite and respectful.”

“She probably doesn’t have much to do with Leontines on a daily basis,” Kaylin pointed out. “She might not have been able to tell.”

“That,” the Hawklord said, and he did grimace, “is my profound hope. What happened in Elani street, Private Neya?”

Kaylin stared straight ahead. She wanted to at least look at Severn, because she could read minute changes in his expression well enough to be guided by them. But in the Hawklord’s current mood that might be career-limiting.

“We’re not entirely sure, sir. We cut our patrol short to report,” she told Lord Grammayre. “After we visited Evanton.”

The Hawklord’s face became about as inviting and open as the stone walls that enclosed them. “Continue.”

“There were three incidents in the space of a few hours of which we’re aware. With your permission, we’ll canvass the merchants and residents of the street tomorrow to see how many others we missed.”

“Incidents?”

She hesitated; he marked it. But he waited. “The first was a man selling a cure for baldness that actually appeared to work—instantly.”

He raised one pale brow. “It is Elani street.”

“Sir.” This time she did glance at Severn; his chin dipped slightly down. “We took the merchant’s name. Corporal Handred acquired a sample of the tonic.”

“You…believe that this was genuine.”

“Much as I hate to admit it, yes.”

“Go on.”

“The second incident of note, you’ve already heard about. Alyssa Larienne.”

“Lady Alyssa Larienne is young, idealistic, and convinced of her own importance.”

Severn cleared his throat.

“Corporal?”

“I would say that she is young, insecure, and in need of someone to convince her of that import.”

“She throws her weight around—” Kaylin broke in.

“If she was certain she had that weight, she wouldn’t need to throw it.”

Kaylin shrugged. “For whatever reason, she’s been a client of Margot’s for many months.”

“Margot Hemming?”

“The same.”

“Margot Hemming is not, to my knowledge, and to the knowledge of Imperial Records, a mage. She has no training, and no notable talent or skill. She is, by human standards, striking. She is forty years of age—”

“She can’t be forty.”

“She is forty years of age,” he repeated, spacing the words out thinly and evenly. “And she has twice been charged with fraud in the last twenty-five. She is not violent, she has no great pretensions, and for the last decade, she has settled into the life of a woman of modest, respectable means.”

Kaylin glanced at the flat surface of a mirror that reflected nothing, and the Hawklord continued. “She has no known criminal ties, she is despised by the merchants’ guild, she donates money to the Foundling Halls.”

Kaylin’s brows disappeared into her hairline. “She what?”

“She can afford it.”

“That’s not the point.”

“No. It is not. She has very few clients of any significant political standing. Garavan Larienne does not travel to her shop, nor does his wife. She supports no political causes that we are aware of, and believe that I have demanded every possible legal record that she might be associated with, however distantly. But she has, today, single-handedly caused the Hawks—and the Swords, and possibly indirectly, the Wolves—more difficulty than the Arcanum has in its entire history.”

Kaylin closed her eyes.

“What did Margot Hemming do, Private?”

“She told a fortune, more or less.”

“I am aware of the fortune’s contents.” He turned. “The other difficulties?”

“After the incident with Margot, we paid a visit to Evanton’s. Evanton said that…there was an incident in the store, involving his apprentice.”

“Did it also involve the future of arguably the most politically powerful human in Elantra?”

“No, sir.”

“Then I am not interested in the details at this present moment. Continue.”

“It was also of a magical nature. Evanton thinks—thought—that there is an unusually strong flux in the magical potential of a specific area, and it’s causing things to go completely out of whack.”

“His words?”

“Not exactly.”

“What, exactly, were his words?”

“He thought I should speak with Sanabalis—”

“Lord Sanabalis.”

“Lord Sanabalis. Now.”

“Far be it from me to ignore the urgent advice of so important a man,” the Hawklord replied.

“He thinks it could be disastrous if we don’t—”

“It has already been almost disastrous. At this particular moment in my career, I fail to see how it could be worse. Take Corporal Handred with you, avoid any discussion of Larienne, and avoid, as well, any men who obviously bear his colors. Go directly to Lord Sanabalis, make your report, and return directly here. If I am absent, wait.”

“Sir.”

The Imperial Palace, home of future etiquette lessons, loomed in the distance of carriage windows like the cages outside of Castle Nightshade. The flags were, as they almost always were, at full height, and the wind at that height was impressive today; it buffeted clouds.