and at odd intervals throughout the year, the cloths were dragged off the various bits and pieces of furniture—and the paintings and candelabras—and the room was opened to the visiting actors.
Kaylin had been there for almost all of the plays that occurred at any time other than Festival; Marrin often called her in to help supervise. She didn’t always get the play—and some of the stories, which were clearly meant to be familiar to small children before they watched the play, were a mystery to her—but the men and women in their funny hats and wigs and makeup were universally friendly and warm. The kids loved plays; they would watch in near silence—near being as much as anyone sane could hope for—and laugh or scream at all the right lines.
Kaylin seriously hoped that this play wasn’t meant for those children, because they would have been bored to tears. And bored children were a special hell of their own.
As near as she could tell, Mr. Rennick had decided that a budding romance between two Tha’alani teens was a good idea—for reasons that made no sense to Kaylin. Having seen evidence of the Tha’alani concept of romance, Kaylin had no doubt at all that this would be first on the list of things that Ybelline had attempted to correct. Second on that list would be the disapproving parents. Third on that list would be the couple attempting to sneak off somewhere together so they could be alone.
She stopped herself from dumping the play out the window, and only partly because the Swords on the streets were in a bad enough mood they might stop even an Imperial Carriage and attempt to hand someone a ticket for littering.
“Does this ever get to the point?”
“Hmm?”
“I mean, does he even get to the docks and the damn tidal wave?”
“Well, yes—but the love story is meant to convey to the audience that the Tha’alani are as human as we are. And misunderstood love occurs in all species.”
“It does?”
“Well, in Mr. Rennick’s mind, yes. But I would say that he is not entirely wrong.”
“Oh. What does a Dragon romance look like?” she asked.
Sanabalis snorted. Kaylin swore she saw a small plume of fire erupt just above his beard. Which seemed to constitute his answer on that front, and Kaylin couldn’t offhand recall mention of a female Dragon at court. She was certain they must exist somewhere.
She wondered, briefly, what a Barrani romance looked like, and decided she probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between that and one of their assassination attempts. Instead, she said, “Look, the Tha’alani are like the rest of us. Sort of. But this whole romance—it’s just wrong. I think Ybelline would find the … the possessive-ness, the sense of—”
“Ownership?”
“Don’t mock me, Sanabalis. What I’m trying to say is that they don’t experience love that way.”
“Which is not, in fact, what you did say.”
“Fine. The point is, they don’t. They don’t have the disapproving parents thing, and they definitely don’t sneak off for privacy.”
“Ah. Well, then, how would you structure a play in which it was utterly essential that the audience empathize with the Tha’alani?”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
“I’d write about the years in which they were tortured like criminals because they wouldn’t serve the Emperor by reading other people’s minds for him. Because they couldn’t, without going insane, and driving everyone they knew and loved insane in the process.”
Sanabalis’s eyes shaded to orange. In Dragon eyes, this meant irritation. Red was anger, and in general, if you saw red Dragon eyes, it was probably the last thing you would ever see.
“Kaylin,” Severn said.
“It would work,” she told him, an edge to the words. “People could sympathize with that.”
“I believe it would cast the Emperor in an unflattering light.”
She said nothing. Loudly. But it didn’t last. “I’m sorry, Sanabalis.”
“Generally one apologizes for behavior one means to curb,” he replied stiffly. But his eyes shaded back to burnished gold.
“It worked for me,” she told him quietly. “Knowing that—knowing what they suffered—it changed the way I felt about them. Look—I understand why people are afraid of the Tha’alani. I know why I was. It never occurred to me that they wanted to be left alone. That they never ever wanted to read our minds. And the experiments conducted on the Tha’alani—it changed the way I felt about them. Forever.”
He nodded. “You understand, however, why that information could not be part of a public entertainment.”
She nodded slowly. “It’s just that it would work, that’s all.” She looked at Severn. “Did you ever fear them?”
“Yes. But my understanding of the Tha’alani was different.”
She had the grace to say, “You wanted to understand them.”
“Yes.”
“I wanted to hide from them.”
He nodded again. “It’s natural. Kaylin, I’m five years older than you are. Five years ago—”
“It’s not your age,” she said, swatting the words away. Willing to be this truthful. “It’s you.”
“Perhaps. But I have often found understanding my enemies gives me an edge when confronting them.” He paused and then added, “The first Tha’alani I met was Ybelline herself.”
“You met her first?”
“I was under consideration for the Shadows,” he told her. “Ybelline could read everything of note, and still remain detached. There are very few others who could. She was summoned. And it is very, very hard to fear Ybelline.”
Kaylin smiled at this. It was a small smile, but it acknowledged the truth: it was hard to fear her. Even though she could ferret all truth, all secrets, from a human mind. Because in spite of it, one had the sense that Ybelline could know everything and like you anyway.
Maybe that was something they could work with.
CHAPTER 2
Kaylin’s first impression of Richard Rennick could be summed up in two words: Oh, god.
She wasn’t fussy about which god, either. She was pretty sure she couldn’t name half of the ones that figured in official religions, and of the half she could name, the spelling or accents would be off. One of the things that living in the fiefs taught you was that it didn’t particularly matter which god you prayed to—none of them listened, anyway.
Rennick looked like an Arcanist might look if he had been
