fief, yes,” Severn replied. And then, after a moment, added, “And the fieflord, Kaylin.”
CHAPTER
5
Kaylin was silent on the walk home. She didn’t even try to lead; she followed Severn as if she were his shadow, a part of his movement, impossible to separate from it.
“Kaylin?”
She shook her head. “I’ll go,” she said quietly.
“Alone?”
“I think it—I think so.”
“I despise the fieflord,” Severn said in a flat and neutral tone, “but his taste has never run toward the mutilation of children. Not her age.” He paused, and then added, as if it were dragged from him and he was unwilling to let it go, “I do not think, even if it did, that he would pursue it while you lived. There are some things that you do not forget.”
“Did Nevaron give you all of Grethan’s memory?” She felt almost dirty asking. Like a gossip, but worse. And she hated herself for it; she was doing what she herself feared might be done to her. Hypocrisy and Kaylin were not close friends.
“No,” Severn replied. “It was not his to give. He is Tha’alanari. He understands why barriers must be placed, and where.”
She nodded. The answer was both a frustration and a comfort. “Just an image?”
“More than an image, but not a whole story,” he replied. “The image of Mayalee is not the same as the description of the girl you saw in Evanton’s … shop. I do not think they are the same child,” he added, “although neither have been reported as missing. As neither have been officially reported,” he added quietly, “I’m not sure we’ll be allowed to officially investigate, either.”
She nodded absently. “Subsection of the human rights code v.8 states clearly that—”
“Those who are incapable of stating a case are still protected by the dictates of law.”
“It was meant to make provisions for—”
“Abused children, or those sold to brothels by their parents, often for transport to the fiefs.”
“You’re good,” she said with a half smile.
“As are you, which is probably more surprising given your general academic history.” His smile was fleeting, but genuine. “But the first case almost certainly involves magic.”
“And the second?”
“It involves Nightshade,” Severn said quietly. “What do you think?”
“Magic.” She said the two syllables with the emphasis she usually reserved for Leontine cursing. “Gods, I hate magic.”
“Don’t start, Kaylin.”
“All right. I won’t.”
“And speaking of magic—”
“Yes, damn it, I know.”
“You’re late.”
“Did I not just say I know that?”
“Have you ever been on time for one of your lessons?”
“Once. I think it almost gave Sanabalis a heart attack. If,” she added darkly, “Dragon lords have hearts.”
“I believe they have four.”
“Probably because they ate three.” She started to run because Severn had begun to jog.
“I have a few questions to ask the sergeant,” Severn said. “I’ll meet you after you’ve finished.”
Lord Sanabalis of the Dragon court had that aura of aged wisdom that had not yet declined into dotage. She found him both comforting and frightening—but then again, she’d seen a Dragon in its serpent form, so that was understandable.
He was also, in his own way, kind. The day she had been on time, he had been late. In fact he had taken to arriving about half an hour to an hour later than their scheduled appointment, probably to put Marcus at ease. It was not something she thought other Dragons would do; even Tiamaris, technically still seconded to the Hawks, would not have condescended to show that much consideration for the merely mortal.
Especially not when it was Marcus.
Today, Sanabalis was waiting for her in the West room, in the chair he habitually occupied. It was the largest chair in the office, and it was made of something so hard you could probably have carved swords out of it and they would still have maintained a killing edge.
Dragons were not exactly light.
She bowed when she entered the room, her hair askew. She had, as usual, flown through the office at a run, and paused only to let Caitlin fuss a bit.
But she sagged slightly when she saw her nemesis sitting on the table: a pale candle with an unlit wick. Grimacing, she took her seat opposite Sanabalis.
“Good of you to come,” he said. This was code for I’ve been waiting half an hour. She had thought she would only be half an hour late, and revised that estimate up by about thirty minutes.
“I was delayed,” she said carefully, “by a request from Ybelline of the—”
He lifted a hand. “It is not my concern.”
He waved toward the candle, and Kaylin said, without thinking, “Instead of trying to get me to understand the shape of fire, can you teach me the shape of water?”
His utter silence was almost profound, and his eyes had shifted from calm, placid gold to something that was tinged slightly orange. Red was the color of death in Dragon eyes.
Orange just meant they might pull an arm off for fun.
“It is very interesting that you should ask that, Kaylin. You will of course amuse an old man by telling him why.”
Kicking herself was not much fun, but she did it anyway. “It’s—”
His eyes shifted shades. His inner lids began to fall. Certainly made his eyes a more vibrant color. “Why water, Kaylin? Why now?”
Because she was either brave or stupid, she said, “Why do you care so much?” She didn’t tilt back in her chair; she couldn’t affect that much nonchalance in the face of a concerned—she liked that word—Dragon lord. But she did try.
It wasn’t the answer he was expecting. She could tell by the way he blinked; the last few weeks had given her that much. “Water is pervasive,” he said at last, and his eyes had shaded back to gold, but it was a bright and fiery gold, unlike the normal calm of Dragon eyes. Too keen, and too shiny.
“All of the elements—and that is a crude word, Kaylin, and it conveys almost nothing of their essence—have
