in the Imperial investigative archives, so there is no point at all in bringing in Imperial mages, even if the case were remanded to the regular system.”
“Do you know why?”
Evanton looked to his guest, who stiffened, her hands tightening around the bowl of the teacup as if to draw strength from it. She looked across the table at Kaylin. “If Moran dar Carafel is dead, the wings will pass on.”
“The wings?”
The woman’s lips tightened; this was followed by a downward shift of shoulders as she bowed her head. She was silent for long enough that Kaylin thought she wasn’t going to answer.
Evanton said nothing; he waited, as if he were patience personified. Given the way he generally treated both Grethan and Kaylin, this was unusual. “I was reluctant to involve you,” he said—to Kaylin. “I am still reluctant. You have a way of causing snarls and snags in the cleanest and simplest of tasks—most of which are not predictable and therefore not controllable. But in this case, there is no other option. Lillias, if you will not speak, I must allow the Hawks to go back to their duties.”
Lillias. It was not a familiar name. Kaylin waited while the woman struggled in the silence left by Evanton.
When she finally lifted her head, her eyes were a deep blue.
Part of Kaylin was wondering if she’d seen the woman’s eye color incorrectly the first time, because part of Kaylin wanted that to be the truth. But this blue was a color specific to Barrani and Aerians; she had never seen humans with eyes this particular shade.
And she had never seen Aerians without wings.
She wanted to ask the woman if her wings were somehow hidden, invisible, but she already knew the answer, and her mouth was suddenly too dry for questions. Every word Clint had said while he stood in Darrow Lane came back to bite her. She tried to keep the horror off her face, but had no idea whether or not she succeeded.
But she would not show pity to a stranger she knew almost nothing about, even if the thing she did know was larger than nightmare.
“Moran dar Carafel’s wings are unique in the flights of the Southern Reach. They are not unique in the history of the flights. They do not exist in every generation. But if one is born with those wings, they are the only ones who can or will bear the markings. No others will be born while the bearer lives.” She spoke slowly, as if weighing all of her words and picking out only the good ones.
“Are the marks determined by gender?”
“No.”
“Are they significant in any other way?”
Silence. When it was broken, it wasn’t broken with an answer. “Moran dar Carafel was injured in her duties here, duties which would be almost anathema to the leaders of the flights. She was not given permission to undertake them; she was not given permission to risk her life in combat. She could not, however, be made outcaste.” The last word was said bitterly. So bitterly. “And now, she is crippled.”
“The wings will heal,” Kaylin said, with more force than the statement merited.
“Will they?”
One way or another, they would. She nodded grimly. “Aerians are trying to assassinate Moran because they want someone else to be born with those wings.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
“Her birth was a grave disappointment,” Lillias agreed, staring into her tea as if she were reading leaves and not much enjoying what she found there. “She was not, originally, Carafel. Her mother, and her mother’s line, lived in the outer Aeries, beneath open sky. We have a saying in the Aerie—” She stopped. Shook her head. “Her mother was adopted into dar Carafel—and even that was bitterly divisive.”
“Her father?”
Lillias grimaced. “The child was not legitimate. Were it not for the wings, nothing would be known of the father.”
“And because of the wings?”
“It was proof that he was of the first families. No one came forward to claim either the mother or her daughter as their own, and the mother never revealed the father’s identity. There is prestige, of course, in bearing such a child, or there should have been. The mothers of such children are accorded respect in great measure; there is no equivalent in human society. But the child was illegitimate. Either the father perished, or the father was mated, bonded—or both.”
“Wouldn’t this also elevate the father?”
“Yes. But not if the father was bonded—married?—to another.”
Evanton nodded.
“If he was of the high clans, and he was married, it would be a disgrace. It is possible Moran’s father is alive and well. It is possible he is dead. It is also possible that he would have been free to marry her when evidence of the child’s importance was known.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“No. Moran did not have a happy childhood. Her mother withered in the confines of the High Reach, treated with the contempt reserved for an unbonded mother in the upper reaches, and when she finally passed away, the child was returned—for a time—to her grandmother’s care. It is there that she was happiest.”
Kaylin nodded.
“She could fly,” the woman’s voice softened. “You have never seen her truly fly.”
Kaylin could remember seeing Moran fly only once—but even so, it was a blur; Kaylin had been on the back of a Dragon at the time, and she’d been watching large chunks of the High Streets turn into molten rock. She’d been watching Aerians falling from the sky. Some would never rise again.
She shook herself. “No,” she said. “I’ve never seen her fly.” It wasn’t even really a lie. She had never seen her happy, either—but she’d imagined that, as a sergeant, happiness had somehow magically been drained from her; Kaylin didn’t know any happy sergeants.
This was different. The silence that fell after her comment was heavy, weighted; it destroyed all movement at the table, and all sound. Kaylin dragged her head around to meet Evanton’s gaze, because it was Kaylin, not Lillias, that he was watching.
“Why did you want to see me?” she asked him.
“Because Lillias needed to speak with you.”
“You said she asked you to make something?”
“No, Kaylin, I did not.” His frown was pure Evanton—well, pure Evanton when he was displeased with poor Grethan. He exhaled. “Lillias?”
“She is not of the people,” Lillias mumbled.
“No, she is not. But technically, neither are you.”
Kaylin sucked in air. Sucked it in and had trouble expelling it again. Evanton’s voice had been, was, gentle. But the
