Michelle Sagara - Cast in Ruin

Her door was locked. It often was, but enough of her friends had keys that it wasn’t a guarantee; if Teela or Tain were totally bored, they’d show up and hang around. Tain was a bit more circumspect than Teela, who would often lounge strewn across the narrow bed while she waited. Severn, if worried, would also show up, but like Tain, he generally waited in her one chair.

Unlike Tain, he often tidied while he waited.

But he wasn’t waiting now, and the room was its usual mess. None of that mess generally caused her to trip and injure herself in the dark, as it was mostly clothing. There were, of course, magical lights that one could buy to alleviate the darkness—but those cost money, and Kaylin was chronically short of funding. She hesitated in the open door and glanced with trepidation at the mirror on the wall; she relaxed when she saw that it was, like the rest of the room, dark. No messages meant no emergencies.

No emergencies meant sleep.

Before she could sleep, she opened the shutters to her room and let the moonlight in. It wasn’t bright enough to read by; it was bright enough for navigation. There was one thing she had to check before sleep was a possibility. Kneeling beside the bed—and shucking clothing into the rough and very spread-out pile she’d, in theory, wash any time now—she pulled a smallish box out from beneath its slats and removed the lid.

Nestled among scraps of cloth that were used mostly for cleaning in the midwives’ hall, was an egg the size of two fists. Well, two of hers at any rate. It had been born during the inexplicable magical upheaval that had left the City with thousands of newcomers, and no place to house them before Tiamaris had volunteered his fief. Other children had been born during that time, and in the magical zone—but they’d been children with unusual features: extra arms, extra eyes, full speech. No one in the guildhall had any idea what was in the egg.

Nor did Kaylin. But when Marya had handed her the box—at the grieving and shocked father’s insistence that the egg be disposed of—she had dutifully picked it up and carted it home. It didn’t weigh much. She’d meant to mention it to someone who specialized in magical theory, such as it was, but she didn’t really want to hand it over to the Dragon Court, the Imperial Mages, or the Arcanum. This left a much smaller pool—of one—and her desk duty had kept her off her current beat. Which was, sadly, where the single person she had in mind lived and worked.

The egg’s shell had started out almost soft to the touch, but it had grown harder and stronger. She wasn’t sure if this meant the egg actually had something living in it, because she wasn’t sure if whatever it was could be sustained without magic. Which she didn’t have. At least, not on purpose.

And thinking that, she carefully removed the bracer she wore as a matter of course throughout most of her working days. Laying it to one side of the box, she lifted the egg out, set it on the bed, swaddled it in her own blankets, and curled around it protectively to keep it warm.

Morning happened, and judging from the fall of sunlight, she wasn’t late, yet. Her sleep had, to her surprise, been untroubled, which did happen a handful of days each year. She had time to fish food out of the magical basket that Severn had given her. Of all the magic she’d seen, this one was the most quietly impressive: it preserved food. Even bread. She wasn’t certain for how long, because food didn’t generally last long in her apartment; she’d have to test it one day.

She then dressed, snapping the bracer back into place on her wrist and rooting through the clothing she’d thrown on the floor the night before to fish out the two letters she’d been handed by two entirely different Dragon Lords. The forlorn and unhatched egg went back into its box, and back under the bed.

The walk to work ended with Clint and Tanner at the doors. Clint nodded, and Tanner said, “You keep arriving at work on time and people are going to start worrying.”

“Oh? Who?”

“The ones who are losing money.” He laughed.

She grimaced. “They’ve started a different pool.”

“I haven’t heard about a new one.”

“It’s called the end-of-the-world pool, but if you don’t like the odds, there’s one about the next call from the midwives.” They’d pulled her out of work during the day for the last three births; it meant she was on time for work, but still short hours.

Tanner chuckled and they stepped out of the way to let her pass. She ran a hand along Clint’s wings as she cleared the door, and heard his friendly curse at her back.

Caitlin was at her desk. “You’re early, dear. How did yesterday’s lesson go?”

“I’m still alive.”

“You don’t sound particularly happy about it at the moment.”

“Not at the moment, no. It only means I have to go back in three days.”

“That bad?”

“Bad enough that I now consider any other teacher I’ve had to be friendly and put upon.”

Caitlin raised a brow. “And that made you early?”

“No. Early,” Kaylin replied, removing the two sealed letters from her side pouch, “was for these. I have hopes that one of them will get me out of desk duty.”

“Kaylin…”

“And hopes that the other one won’t be an immediate call for my execution. They’re for the Hawklord.”

“Were they urgent?”

“They were delivered by Dragons. One of them, at least, was written by Diarmat.”

Caitlin winced. “Then at least one is urgent, for your sake.”

“The Hawklord’s busy?”

“Yes, dear. He and most of the Barrani Hawks are closeted in the Tower discussing the difficulties with the investigation into the Exchequer’s suspected embezzlement.”

Which meant he wasn’t going to take any interruption well.

“Head up to his office and speak with his secretary. My guess is he’ll interrupt the Hawklord, at least briefly.”

Kaylin shrugged. “My job was to deliver the letters; it wasn’t to stand over the Hawklord’s shoulder making certain he reads them.”

“Take them to his office, dear.”

The Hawklord’s office wasn’t actually the Tower, although that’s where he held most of his meetings; it was vastly more convenient for Aerians to reach, as the dome in the roof opened. He did, however, have an office, with a secretary whose function was similar to Caitlin’s, albeit for a single man and not an entire office full of Hawks.

She liked the office better than the Tower for a variety of reasons. Chief among these was the fact that the Hawklord’s office doors had no door wards. They barely had working hinges, on the other hand. Hanson sat behind his customary desk watching the door’s progress. Magic wasn’t needed for protection here; no one could sneak into this office through those doors.

“He’s not here,” Hanson said when she’d mostly managed to get the doors open.

“I know. He’s in the Tower with the Barrani Hawks.”

“Yes. And an expert who calls himself a Forensic Accountant.” Hanson grimaced.

“A what?”

“Don’t ask me. I just work here.”

Kaylin, who also just worked here, nonetheless tried to wrap her thoughts around the title, and gave up. “I have two letters I was told to deliver to him in person.”

“Do either of the sendees have any reason to want you dead or fired?”

“Not yet.”

Hanson held out a hand. It was large, square, and belied the rather bookish clothing he generally wore for office work. Too many calluses, for one. “Let me have them.”

She would normally have been more than happy to pass them off as his problem, but this time she was torn. She had hopes for the contents of Sanabalis’s letter, and pure dread about the contents of Diarmat’s. It didn’t matter, though. Hanson lifted one gray brow and said, “I’m not opening either,” in a flat tone of voice. “I recognize both seals. Were you told, in either case, to wait for a report?”