Michelle Sagara - Cast in Chaos

“Sorry,” she told him, as she picked up her walking speed.

The office was not, as one would expect at this time of the day, empty. But the foul temper the orders from on high had caused had dissipated the way it always did when there was a distinct and obvious emergency. If people weren’t thrilled to be there—and judging from some expressions, they weren’t—they were awake and focused.

They were all also, almost to a man—and one shockingly matted Leontine—in various shades of red. Patches of dried blood lay across the office floor, making a visible track between desks and mirrors; it looked as if Marcus had gone berserk.

“Private!”

Speaking of berserk… Kaylin headed straight to the Sergeant’s desk, and stood at attention, which was hard because he looked like a drowned cat. But huge. “Reporting in, Sir.”

“Well?”

“We have some street coordinates. We gathered the information we could before the rain stopped.”

He turned and shouted at the mirror closest to his desk, not that it mattered much; all of the office mirrors were alive. The window, sadly, was also alive, and it reminded people that it was time to leave, that they had to clock out, that they had to check the duty roster before they left, and that they should be careful in case of rain. Kaylin stared at it.

“Every ten minutes,” Marcus growled. “And it has special commentary on the hour.” He added, “Map, center city, low detail.” The mirror rippled, as it often did, and the image that had occupied it before his curt command receded until it was part of a larger network of lines.

“Special commentary?” She walked over to the mirror, looked at her hands, and let them drop to the side.

“It has,” he continued, ignoring the interruption, “stopped attempting to correct ‘obscene’ language.” He gestured to the mirror, stepping out from behind his desk to do so.

Since even Mallory had never attempted to rein in what was politely referred to as local color, Kaylin grimaced. She hated to think that something could be more uptight than Mallory. “I’ll wash up,” she told him.

“Don’t bother. No one else has.” To drive this point home, he ran a claw lightly over the mirror’s surface. It stopped at the intersection of Lattimar and Gorran. “You mirrored from here.”

“A bit down the road, but yes, that was the general area.”

Severn stepped up to the mirror, to the left of their Sergeant. “Magnify. Center Lattimar and Gorran.” The mirror obeyed, and Kaylin found herself holding her breath as the buildings came into view. But they didn’t leap out of the mirror’s surface, and they didn’t turn into something monstrous or strange, which was good because she needed to exhale.

Severn pinpointed the boundary—and the boundary’s width. The point just beneath his finger began to glow; gold for the outer bounds, bright pink for the inner. When she snorted, he said, “I don’t choose the colors.”

Marcus growled, which was tired Leontine for Shut the Hell Up. Since it was aimed at Kaylin, Severn continued to call cross streets. The map would blur and shift, he’d add two points, and then repeat the process. When he was done, he called “Map” again, and this time the line of dots—in gold and pink—formed a pattern. To emphasize this, a line, in each color, ran between the points, terminating at the start and the finish of their trek.

It was a third of a circle, give or take some math.

Marcus actually purred. If you had very little experience with Leontines, it sounded a lot like growling. “Good work,” he said. He barked an order, and the map began to extrapolate, from their coordinates, the perimeter of these two circles; the theoretical portions were in slightly dimmed colors, which in the case of the pink, was a distinct improvement.

“Good work, Private Neya, Corporal Handred.” He turned and then bellowed at the rest of the office. “No, don’t crowd around this mirror. Use the ones closest. Teela, Tain—you were out on the eastern edge. If what we’ve got is inaccurate, mark it. The same goes for the rest of you.” He turned to her and added, “What did Lord Sanabalis say about your report?”

Kaylin froze. “We were on our way to the Palace when it started to rain blood, Sir.”

“And you didn’t head there before you reported in.”

“No, sir. You said—”

“I know what I said, Private.” He growled. Because Kaylin did have experience with Leontines she couldn’t tell herself it was a purr. But he didn’t bite her head off, and he didn’t demand that she expose her throat, although she’d already started to lift her chin. “Did you get anything from the Halls?”

“Gibberish, mostly.”

“Useful gibberish?”

“I’ll tell you in a month or two.”

He did chuckle at that. “I’ll mirror Lord Sanabalis. You two, hop in a carriage.”

“The yard’s closed.”

“I didn’t tell you to use one of ours.”

“Sir.”

“The department,” he added, “will reimburse you.” Which meant he really was pleased.

Severn had enough money to pay the driver; Kaylin didn’t.

Severn shook his head as they parked themselves on opposite benches. “You can’t be paid so little that you’re scrounging for meals for the last week or two of every month.”

“Clearly, I can.”

“I live in a larger apartment than you do, and I can afford to eat.”

“My point. You’re a Corporal. You get paid more.”

“Some, yes, but I have the larger expense. I realize now is not the time for this discussion, but if you sat down and ran some numbers, you could plan out a month in advance.”

“What do you mean?”

“Budget.”

She snorted. “You need money to budget.”

“You have money. At the start of the month.”

“You’ve been to my place—it’s not like I’m spending it on anything. It just doesn’t last.”

It wasn’t exactly an old argument, but the few times they’d had it, it sounded the same, although admittedly sometimes there were more actual Leontine words thrown in.

He raised a brow, and then said, “Maybe you should cut back on the betting, given how often you lose.”

This, on the other hand, was new. He might as well have told her to stop speaking. She opened her mouth and no words came out. That lasted for about a minute, and she gave up on the effort and turned to look out the window instead. It was dark now.

There were puddles in small dips in the road, but their color wasn’t immediately obvious.

Given a combination of Records, the rest of the Hawks, and their own trek into and out of warm, red rain, they now had a roughly circular area. Elani fit easily within its parameters; the Halls of Law and the Imperial Palace were close to the edges, albeit on opposite sides. The circle didn’t encompass the Arcanum, for which they could all be momentarily thankful.

The carriage pulled up the road that led to the Palace; it was met before the courtyard. Kaylin jumped out; Severn followed. It was not, inasmuch as they existed, visiting hours for the Emperor or the Imperial Staff. On the other hand, like the Hawks, the Palace Guards had seen their share of blood-rain, and they didn’t blink at the sight of either Kaylin or Severn.

Kaylin wished she’d had time to clean up, anyway.

“We’re here to see Lord Sanabalis,” she began.

“We know,” was the curt reply. “He’s been expecting you.”

She wilted.

“For the past two hours.”

Sanabalis was not, however, waiting at the front doors. A pinched-face, somewhat harried man was. He was obviously aware that there’d been some difficulty outdoors, because he didn’t even blink at the state of their tabards. Or hair. Or, Kaylin thought, clasping her hands behind her back, their fingernails.