Michelle Sagara - Cast in Peril

“That’s not making me feel a whole lot better, Teela. I know what your definition of fun is.”

* * *

Severn was waiting for Kaylin in the office when she at last reached her desk; she knew this because he was sitting in her chair. He looked up when she tapped his shoulder.

“Bad news?” he asked as he moved to let her sit. He reached into the pack at his feet and pulled out the bracer that prevented her from using magic. She’d thrown it over her shoulder on the run, because she knew it would return to Severn. It always did. “Midwives?”

She took the bracer, slid it over her wrist, and closed it. “Two in the morning.”

“And I heard that I should offer congratulations on the candle.”

The triumph of a lit candle had evaporated. She sat and folded her arms across her desk in a type of lean that implied her spine was melting. “They took Nightshade up on his offer,” she said, speaking to the wood grain and the interior of her elbows.

“Did you expect them to do anything else?”

“…No.”

“Then?”

“…I’ll be absent for eight weeks. Teela thinks it’ll actually be longer.” She lifted her head and turned to look at Severn. “You’re not coming, either.”

He shrugged; it was a fief shrug, and it was a tense one.

“So you’ll be out patrolling with some other Hawk, not me, and gods know if they won’t decide that you’re more effective working with someone else. Marcus might give my beat away.”

“Marcus won’t—”

“And the midwives won’t be able to call me. They’ve had four emergencies in the last two weeks. If those had been part of the eight, at least four people would have died.”

“At least?”

“I think they could have saved two of the babies.”

“But Nightshade’s information may well crack the Exchequer case.”

“May well? It had better tie it up in expensive cloth with bows on top.” She lowered her chin to the desk again. “But putting the Exchequer in prison—or under the ground—wouldn’t save the lives of those mothers. I’m hard put to see which lives it would save. Besides the Hawks.”

Severn tactfully steered the topic away from her visions of mortality. “Teela’s going with you?”

“Yeah. She’s a Lord of the Barrani Court, and apparently whatever this jaunt to the West March is about, it’s ceremonial. She’s got an invitation to go.”

“Well, keep an eye on her.”

Kaylin almost laughed. “Me and what army? You know Teela.”

Severn didn’t have a chance to answer. Bellusdeo appeared at his elbow. “They’ve finally let me out,” she said in accented but reasonable Elantran. She frowned. “You don’t look very happy. The magic lesson didn’t go well?”

“No, the lesson went very well.”

“This is how you react to a good lesson?”

Kaylin snorted but pushed herself off her desk and out of the chair. “No. It’s how I react to bad news.”

When Bellusdeo’s brows rose, Kaylin could almost hear them snap. “What bad news?” she asked in almost entirely the wrong tone of voice.

“The Barrani have some sort of ceremony out in the West March, and I’m obliged to attend it.”

“Why? You’re not Barrani.”

Kaylin’s mouth stopped flapping as her brain caught up with it. She glanced at Severn for help, but he had nothing to offer. “I can’t really talk about it,” she finally said. “Not without having my throat ripped out.”

Bellusdeo, however, knew that this wasn’t literal. It had taken her a couple of days to figure that out, because Marcus was still his usual suspicious and unfriendly self when dealing with Dragons. “I almost think I will apply for a job in the Halls,” she said, her voice cool. “I’ve heard that the Hawks are very multiracial, and they’ve even had a Dragon as a member before.”

“Marcus would be your boss,” Kaylin replied quickly.

“Yes. I’ll admit that is a deterrent. Are you ready to go home?”

Kaylin had been ready to go home an hour ago, which would have been during the meeting with the Hawklord, Sanabalis, and Marcus. She nodded, looking out the window, which was silent for the moment. “We have time to grab something to eat—and get changed—before we head to the palace and the charming Lord Diarmat for tonight’s personal torture session.”

* * *

The streets wouldn’t be empty for hours yet, but they weren’t quite as crowded as they had been on the way in, and Kaylin couldn’t be late, in a career-detrimental way, to enter her own apartment. She could, however, miss the few remaining farmers in the market, so she hurried to that destination, Bellusdeo in tow. Bellusdeo had a few questions about food acquisition, but in the main, the worst of them had been answered on their first foray into the market, much to Kaylin’s frustration and the bemusement of the farmers.

It was helpful to have Bellusdeo here, on the other hand, because the baskets in which food was generally carried home were still in said home. They made their way back to the apartment; by this point, Bellusdeo had no difficulty finding it.

The Dragon practiced her Elantran in the market, and she practiced it in the street. Kaylin tried—very hard—to elide all swearing from her commentary and her answers to Bellusdeo’s questions, and only in part because it was slightly embarrassing to have to explain what the rude words meant.

But she was hungry and slightly discouraged as she made her way to the apartment, her thoughts mostly on the midwives, Tiamaris, and the total lack of privacy one room afforded.

She unlocked the door, entered her room, and made a beeline for the mirror; when it showed a total lack of calls, she relaxed. She let her hair down, literally, and tried to put the stick where she could easily find it in the morning. She then went to the kitchen for a couple of plates. There was still water that was potable, and the food she’d bought for the evening didn’t require anything as complicated as cooking.

Bellusdeo took a seat on the bed, which was fair; the chair was a clothing repository at the moment, and Kaylin wasn’t so exhausted that she needed to fall over and sleep. The bed, however, creaked ominously as it received Dragon weight, and while it hadn’t yet collapsed beneath Bellusdeo, the sound reminded Kaylin of the unhatched egg that now resided beneath her. She quickly shoved the remainder of a hard, smooth cheese into her mouth and tried not to look as if she was diving in a panic for the box that contained the egg.

Bellusdeo snorted. Kaylin had the grace to look a little embarrassed as she unwound the various bits and pieces of cloth that served as poor insulation for the egg during her absence.

The egg was a pale shade of purple in her hands.

“It wasn’t that color earlier,” Bellusdeo observed, leaning back on her hands and stretching.

“No, it wasn’t. Tomorrow, if it hasn’t hatched, I’m going to bring it with me to the office.”

“Oh, your Sergeant will love that, I’m certain.” She frowned and looked up at the shutters of the window as they popped open.

Kaylin, still holding the egg, winced and rose. “Sorry about that,” she said, because the shutter had narrowly avoided the back of Bellusdeo’s head. “They’re warped. I keep meaning to see about getting them replaced—”

“When you say ‘replaced,’ do you mean you intend to build new ones?”

“Hells, no. I couldn’t make new shutters that would be half as good as these, and these are no good. Let me tie them together.”

Bellusdeo, however, was looking at something in her lap. She rose, her expression freezing solid. It wasn’t her expression that was the problem: it was the color of her eyes. They’d shifted from lazy gold to a deep, deep red without stopping for anything else in between. “Kaylin,” she said, moving toward her and toward the door, as well. “The shutters—”