Michelle Sagara - Cast In Honour

He did, however, raise an iron brow when he caught sight of Bellusdeo.

“She’s with me,” Kaylin said. “By Imperial dictate.”

“Permission,” Bellusdeo said, correcting her. “I am here with Imperial permission.”

“You must be Lord Bellusdeo.”

“I am Bellusdeo, yes. I am not a Lord of the Dragon Court.” Gavin opened his mouth, but Bellusdeo continued speaking. “I am in the process of becoming a mage of the Imperial Order. I have the ability; I lack the paperwork.”

“She has the Emperor’s personal permission,” Kaylin said, wishing Joey had been the Hawk on duty instead of Gavin. “The paperwork, while theoretically important, is irrelevant. Anything that can even bruise her can turn at least three of us into pulped corpses.”

Lianne stepped around Gavin and offered Bellusdeo a hand, which the Dragon accepted. “I heard about what you did at the High Halls. If it weren’t for you, our losses would have been much heavier. I’m Private Tsaros. Lianne. My partner is Master Corporal Gavin Karannis. He’s a stickler for details; it makes him very valuable to the force.”

“That,” Teela cut in, “is why we have Records.”

“Records,” Gavin observed, “are not run on a schedule. And clearly, the Hawks’ sense of schedule is lacking.” He turned to Kaylin. “Private, you have been asked to review the evidence, the building and the bodies themselves. The Imperial mages have been and gone; I am to discuss their verbal reports with you after you have had a chance to assess the situation. And what,” he demanded, “is that on your shoulder?”

Before she could answer—and she was honestly surprised at the question, given it had been weeks since the familiar’s appearance in the Halls—he continued, “Unless it is an active part of investigative duties, Hawks are not permitted to bring pets on their rounds.”

The small dragon hissed.

Gavin did not look impressed. On the other hand, Gavin frequently confronted a face full of bristling Leontine without lifting a brow.

Kaylin glanced at the small, annoyed dragon. “There’s no point squawking at him. He barely blinks when Marcus does it.”

* * *

Kaylin wondered who had occupied Gilbert’s current home prior to Gilbert’s tenancy—she’d have to check Records to see if there was any information. The house directly across the street, which was under investigation, was slightly larger; it was in decent condition. The grounds—small though they were—had been partially given to vegetables and fruits, but those patches were mostly tucked in the back. The front, which faced Gilbert’s home and the rest of the street, was neatly fenced in; the fence and gate were wooden.

They appeared, to Kaylin, to be perfectly normal.

But most of life—and the crimes that accompanied it—actually was. Kaylin saw a fair bit of the magical and the unexplainable, but that didn’t warp her view of the world. For the most part, magic that threatened worlds was the subject of stories or legends. Magic that made the world run smoothly—mirrors, mirror networks, streetlamps—almost didn’t count as magic to most of the citizens of Elantra. Or at least to the citizens with money.

Kaylin had grown up on streets where night brought Ferals, not streetlight.

She shook herself. Gavin was giving her the stoic stink-eye, and if she resented the expression, she knew she also deserved it. She hadn’t figured out how to mention Gilbert and Kattea, although she knew she had to say something eventually.

“Hey,” she said to the familiar, “can you lend me a wing?”

The familiar cast a baleful glare at the master corporal, but lifted a rigid wing anyway. He did not smack Kaylin across the face with it; apparently, he was going to be on his best behavior.

“What exactly are you doing, Private?”

“The small dragon’s wing is like a magical filter,” she replied. She’d practiced this explanation, but hadn’t yet needed to use it. “In special circumstances, viewing magic or areas touched by magic through his wings reveals elements that aren’t visible to normal investigative procedures.”

He did raise a brow then, as if he knew she’d practiced saying pretty much exactly that. “This has been tested?”

“Yes. Extensively. But that’s a matter for—”

“The Barrani High Court,” Teela said.

“Arcanists?” the master corporal asked, his disdain practically freezing the syllables.

“The familiar is in the possession of the private. Do you imagine that she has done work at the behest of an Arcanist, ever?”

Gavin pursed his lips briefly. “Private Neya? No. Her opinion on Arcanists is well -known. This was tested in exemption-based investigation, then?”

Teela nodded. “It involved Barrani, and only Barrani, with the exception of Lord Kaylin and Lord Severn. I did, on the other hand, have reason to confirm that the wing of her familiar does exactly what she says it does. The circumstances were rather more dire. We should not be in danger here.”

Gavin didn’t ask. Lianne looked as if she desperately wanted to—but not in front of Teela. Smart.

Chapter 5

The house had a crowded and untidy vestibule. There were six pairs of boots, though none were of a size suitable for children. None of the victims were likely to be young, which was as much of a relief as she could expect in a murder investigation.

Regardless, the shoes, the coats and the various bits of furniture were not, in any way, magical. They looked the same no matter how anyone present viewed them.

The hall that led into the house from the vestibule was the same: slightly lived in, but also in decent repair. Worn rugs had been placed over slightly less well-worn floorboards that creaked a lot less under weight than her first apartment had. The sitting room was closest to the front of the house, on the right when facing in; on the left were stairs, beneath which was a door.

There were doors that implied other rooms, and a wide, brightly lit space at the back of the house that looked into the common yard.

Nothing about any of the house itself indicated use of magic. Nothing made Kaylin’s skin ache, and nothing like the cracked street outside appeared when she looked through her familiar’s wing.

“You’re wondering why we were sent here,” Teela correctly surmised.

“Kind of, yes. Do you see anything that implies magic’s been used here recently? It’s not particularly easy to magically kill a man—or three—and it would leave some markers.” It would be faster and less easily traced to kill them in any of the more familiar, mundane ways, which would still require Hawks to investigate, but not this particular set.

Teela’s compressed lips made it clear that the answer was no. She turned to Gavin, who was also tight-lipped and about as friendly as he ever got when the sanity of the people making the decisions was in question.

“Where are the bodies?” Kaylin asked.

“Downstairs.”

“Downstairs?”

“In the basement.”

Ugh.

* * *

Kaylin didn’t particularly like basements. She couldn’t imagine that anyone did, except for small rodents and large insects. She was the shortest of the Hawks present, but even she couldn’t stand up at full height once they reached the bottom of stairs that had probably been a hazard from the day they were first built. Bellusdeo offered to enlarge the basement by sinking the floor, which Kaylin assumed was a joke—until she saw Teela’s thoughtful expression.

Gavin, however, uttered a very distinct, very chilly no . He followed it up with a lecture on structural stability that only Bellusdeo found relevant. “The bodies,” he added, “are to the left.” He carried a lamp, which bounced off rough walls and rough floors in a way that seemed almost calculated to make them less appealing. Teela had clearly had enough of this and conjured up a magical light of her own, which had the predictable effect of raising goose bumps on Kaylin’s skin.