expelling it again. Evanton’s voice had been, was, gentle. But the words...
“Can I ask why you were made outcaste?” She cringed even as the words left her mouth. “No, I’m sorry, let me take that back? Can I ask if it had something to do with Moran?” The woman was older than Moran, even given the age that despair and desolation added to her features.
“Yes.”
“Have you spoken to Moran since?”
Silence.
Mandoran had said that he had seen wings during the failed assassination. Lillias clearly didn’t have any. Whoever the assassin had been, it wasn’t her.
“How much danger is Moran in?”
Evanton clearly considered this a stupid question.
“More danger,” Lillias replied, “than you can imagine. The Keeper told me that you were responsible for her survival this morning.”
“Not me,” Kaylin said. “She survived because of my familiar and a Dragon.”
Lillias frowned and turned to Evanton. In Aerian, she asked, “Is this true? Is there a Dragon involved?”
Kaylin answered before Evanton could. In Aerian. “Yes. It’s true.”
The woman’s eyes were already as blue as they could get, so they didn’t darken. Her skin did; it flushed. It occurred to Kaylin that the elderly seldom blushed.
“I’m a Hawk,” Kaylin said gently, although she was wearing a tabard that clearly marked her as such. “We’ve got a lot of Aerians working in the Halls, and I joined the Halls when I was a child. My Aerian isn’t great, but I can speak it. I’m sorry.” Keeping her voice gentle, she asked, “What did you ask Evanton to make?”
The woman’s hesitation was sharp, filled with questions or doubts or both. But she eventually bowed her head and said a word, in Aerian, that Kaylin had never heard before. “Bletsian.”
“I’m sorry—I’m not familiar with that word.”
“No, you wouldn’t be,” Evanton said. “Neither would the majority of the Aerian Hawks. It is an old word. The Dragons would be familiar with it.” He frowned. “Or at least the Arkon would.”
“It’s magical?”
“Yes. Before you look askance, you have two enchanted daggers on your person. Not all magic is of the Arcanist variety, as you should well know.”
Kaylin, still frowning, turned to Lillias. “Why would you come to Evanton for magic?”
“Why did you?” Evanton countered.
“Teela made me. I would never have known otherwise, given the location of your shop.”
“Margot,” Evanton said, pinpointing the chief source of Kaylin’s dislike, “is not entirely a fraud.”
“We’re not talking about Margot.”
“No. I merely point out that your dislike of her—while possibly deserved—does her an injustice. It is possible to be both genuine and distasteful.”
“Most of what she does—”
“Is fraud, yes. But not all. And, Kaylin? Where else would she be safe to practice her gift? She is in the open here.”
“Look—”
“She is not confined to the Oracular Halls. Or worse.”
Kaylin closed her mouth. “We weren’t talking about Margot.”
“No. You were implying that nothing genuine is known to be found in Elani.”
“Baldness cures? Come on, Evanton.”
“Elani, very much like any other neighborhood, is not all one thing or the other. I, after all, am here. And it is to me Lillias came.”
Lillias was listening to this conversation with obvious confusion. “Where else would I go?”
“Private Neya feels you should have approached either the Imperial Order or the Arcanum.”
“Kaylin doesn’t feel anyone should approach the Arcanum,” Kaylin snapped.
“Ah.”
“Lillias,” Severn said, joining the conversation—as he so often did—late. “Forgive our ignorance. What is a bletsian?”
“It is a blessing,” the old woman replied. “A blessing of wind, of air.”
“It is a gift,” Evanton told Kaylin, “that she wishes delivered to Moran dar Carafel.”
“Moran’s not big on gifts.”
Evanton ignored this. “She cannot deliver it in person. You, however, can. If you are willing to do this, I will create what has been requested, and I will hand it directly to you. There will be no tampering and no interference.”
“Lillias, what does this blessing do, exactly?”
“It confers,” Evanton said, after it became clear that Lillias would not answer, “flight. Literal flight. It does not, and cannot, last, but some small part of the elemental air will carry the bearer as the bearer desires until the breath of wind is consumed.”
Kaylin looked at this wingless, outcaste woman. “You’re certain,” she said to Evanton, although she didn’t move her gaze, “whatever you give me will be safe for Moran?”
“Yes.”
“Because the assassin used magic. And not a small amount of it,” she almost growled. “And no, I don’t—and won’t—know who the assassin was, or what magic was used, or how powerful the spell was, because the entire thing is under exemption embargo.”
“Kaylin,” Evanton replied softly, “stay out of this.”
“You’re asking me to deliver a magical trinket to a sergeant in the Halls of Law, and I’m supposed to stay out of it? She’s living in my house, Evanton.”
“I am aware of that. I do not disapprove in any regard save one: you know too many Aerians, and you consider them family.”
“I consider them Hawks!”
“They are. My point, however, stands. This is not your fight, Kaylin. Do not make it your fight.” To Lillias, he said, “You see how she is?” As if Kaylin had been a topic of discussion.
Lillias turned to Kaylin then, as if making a decision. Her expression was more open, more generous with pain and loss, than it had been when Kaylin had first entered the kitchen.
“Moran’s mother did not immediately reveal the child. She was poor, even by the standards of the flights. She was considered fine-feathered, strong, healthy—but she was of no good flight. She bore a child, hidden, with only her
