Cast in Flame (33 page)

“It’s not polished stone; it’s stone.”

“I’ll take that as a no.”

Both of Teela’s friends looked at Kaylin, then. Mandoran spoke; it was almost always Mandoran who spoke first. “We can see the floor glowing.” He indicated Annarion with a slight nod in his direction. “The room is brightly lit.”

“Can you see the moons?”

He lifted his chin, exposing the perfect, flawless lines of his throat. Teela would never have taken that risk. “Yes.”

“And they look like the same moons we saw on the way here?”

“I believe they are the same moons, yes.”

“Teela?”

This time, the Barrani Hawk nodded. “I see the moons, as well.” Her eyes darkened as she added, “And we have a visitor, I believe.”

“I think we’re the visitors,” Kaylin replied, and turned in the direction that Teela was facing.

* * *

The woman—and it was a woman who approached—looked frail, to Kaylin. She was delicately built, her face and neck lined; she seemed to be almost as old as the man they’d buried. Kaylin wasn’t great at guessing the age of the elderly, not correctly. The woman was dressed in a style similar to the man’s, although something about the way she wore clothing seemed more formal.

Annarion and Mandoran offered her court bows; they extended those bows as she approached. In Diarmat’s class, Kaylin had learned that the length of a bow indicated respect, unless one was prostrating oneself in front of the Emperor, in which case, it indicated utter obedience. Kaylin had been told, repeatedly, that the Emperor got to choose when that obeisance ended, not the person stuck holding it.

Clearly they didn’t consider this woman the Emperor—but they took their time straightening out.

“You have such clear voices,” she told them, as they rose. “Perhaps a little on the loud side, but I have lived in silence for decades.”

No one else made haste to bow so completely, although Teela did offer a less exaggerated version.

“It has been many years since someone has come to my doors.”

“Our years?”

The woman smiled. “Yours, dear,” she said to Kaylin, in almost exactly the same tone that Caitlin would have used. “What brought you here?”

“Evanton,” Kaylin replied. She knew she should be on her guard here; everyone except Annarion and Mandoran now were, and given their adventures in the past few days, following their lead was probably suicidal. But it was hard. The woman wasn’t tall. Her eyes were normal eyes—brown, in this case—and nothing about her implied danger.

“Thank you, dear. It is kind of you to say so.”

Since she hadn’t, she reddened.

“Evanton. Evanton. Ah, you mean the Keeper?”

“We tend to call him Evanton,” Kaylin replied. “But yes, the Keeper.”

“I am not certain I’ve had the pleasure of making his acquaintance. Oh, but my manners are atrocious. Do please follow me; I’ve tea and refreshments waiting.” She then turned and walked toward the pillars on the left. Teela and Bellusdeo exchanged a silent glance; Teela shrugged. Mandoran and Annarion had already fallen in behind her.

* * *

Manners in general dictated an exchange of names, or at least titles. The elderly woman had, so far, avoided either offering her own or asking for anyone else’s. Since “hey, you” had been a prominent part of Kaylin’s childhood, she couldn’t take offense. She followed the two Barrani men, Severn by her side. The small dragon, who had been alternately lazing and yawning, forced himself into a polite standing position on her left shoulder.

Bellusdeo and Maggaron followed her; Teela pulled up the rear. The moons and the night sky gave way to the underside of a pavilion; lamps had been polished and lit, and a rectangular table, with chairs tucked under its surface, lay waiting.

The woman’s idea of refreshments would feed the office for a day, but that was no surprise. If Caitlin were thirty years older, she’d probably be almost exactly the same.

The two Barrani men were first to sit at the table. Kaylin joined them; they were speaking to each other, but not with actual words—or at least not words any of the rest of their companions could hear. Seeing Teela’s pursed lips, she revised that thought.

Eventually, when they were all seated at the table—except for the small dragon, for whom a place hadn’t been set—the older woman joined them. She didn’t sit at the head or the foot; she chose a chair opposite Kaylin’s, in the middle. “Please, help yourself,” she told her guests. “I will pour tea, but I’m afraid I’m a bit clumsy at the moment. Young man,” she added, speaking to Severn, “if you could carve the meat, I’m sure we would all be grateful.”

Severn did as she asked. The entire meal was so unexpected and so unpredictable, Kaylin quietly pinched her thigh.

“Why would you think you’re dreaming, dear?” the old woman asked. “Perhaps this isn’t the right venue for a meeting?”

Kaylin hurriedly said, “No, no, it’s fine!” in part because she didn’t want the food to vanish. But she noticed that Teela wasn’t eating. Neither were Bellusdeo or Maggaron. Severn, raised in the streets of Nightshade, would have started had he not been responsible for cutting the meat. The landlady didn’t, however, look at any of the other visitors; only Kaylin.

Kaylin swallowed. The food didn’t make her arms ache; there was nothing magical about it that she could see. Possibly because at this point, she didn’t want to. She just didn’t want to. Food had always been a blessing. Any food. Hunger made it all seem good. She hadn’t gone hungry for years, but she’d never reached a point where food, freely offered, didn’t seem like a gift.

“I’m pleased to meet you all,” the landlord told them, folding her hands in her lap. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Helen. This is my home. It’s a bit large, as you’ve seen. I used to live alone—but it was so easy to get lost in the emptiness.”

Kaylin chewed and swallowed. “I’m Kaylin. Kaylin Neya. I work at the Halls of Law, with the Hawks. The young man is Severn Handred; he’s a Hawk, as well.”

Helen beamed. “And your friends?”

“Teela is the Barrani woman at the head of the table. She’s a Hawk; that’s where I met her. The two men on either side of her are Annarion and Mandoran.”

“Ah, yes. They’re new to the city?”

“Very. This is Bellusdeo, and her Ascendant, Maggaron.” Maggaron sat at the foot of the table, towering over the food. Kaylin noted that the chair in which he was sitting was actually the right size—for him. He looked extremely uncomfortable in it anyway.

“And what brings you to my door?”

Since she’d already mentioned Evanton—with her mouth closed—Kaylin hesitated. Clearly the question didn’t refer to how she’d found the place. “I’ve been looking for a new place to live.”

The woman frowned. It was, like everything else about her, a delicate frown, but for the first time, it implied displeasure or disapproval. The food, however, didn’t disappear; the lights didn’t gutter; the garden didn’t suddenly rear up in shadow tendrils.

“Of course not, dear!” Helen replied, looking shocked.

Teela and Bellusdeo now looked much, much more guarded; Annarion and Mandoran, more cautious. Severn, however, continued to eat. He’d glanced up at the small dragon on Kaylin’s shoulder, who was upright, but not terribly interested in his surroundings.

“Do
not
bite that,” Kaylin told him, trying to rescue the stick that kept her hair in place before he yanked it out. “I’m sorry. I forgot someone. This is—” She winced. “This is Hope.”

The small dragon’s name was clearly not as embarrassing to Helen as it was to Kaylin; nor did she seem to find it snicker-worthy. “Hope. Such a simple word, to hold so much. I like it,” she added. “I think it’s appropriate. There is never a guarantee, where hope is concerned; hope touches the edge of dream, but it is not a simple dream. It wants work, and sometimes it is bitterly painful—but no life is lived for long without it.”

The small dragon had given up on the stick; he favored the old woman with his unblinking attention. “Did you choose her?” she asked him directly.

He squawked. A lot.

“I see.”

Kaylin was torn. She couldn’t understand the small dragon’s words—to her, they resembled angry crows. But she was going to have to learn, somehow, because so many other people did.

“Oh, I see. Isn’t that a bit extreme?”

Squawk.

“Well, then.” She smiled at Kaylin. “I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to be rude. It has been a very long time since I’ve spoken with your friend. He does find the lack of clear communication frustrating; I have reminded him that you are mortal, which he knew before he chose you. It’s not reasonable to expect people to grow extra arms just for the sake of one’s own convenience. But I interrupted you.”

“I’m looking for a new place to live.”

“And you came here?”

Kaylin exhaled. “I won’t be living here alone. Bellusdeo would be my roommate.”

“She would be part of the arrangement?”

“She’d be living with me—but the place would be mine. I’m not sure—neither of us are sure—how long she’d be staying.”

“And the
Norannir?
”

“Most of the buildings in the city are too small for him, but if—yes. If we seemed like an acceptable risk to you, he’d be living here for as long as Bellusdeo does.”

Bellusdeo was surprised. Kaylin noticed only because she’d lived with the Dragon for weeks; it didn’t change the color of her eyes much. Maggaron, however, had practically swelled two feet in height.

Helen smiled. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Yes. But you’ve probably heard it by now anyway.” Kaylin’s appetite finally deserted her. She looked up at the frail old lady and felt like one of the criminals she spent her life discouraging. “We need a new place because my old place was destroyed.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Destroyed?”

“I don’t know how familiar you are with
our
version of magic, but my former apartment met an Arcane bomb. It was meant—we think it was meant—for Bellusdeo. It didn’t destroy her. It did destroy my apartment.”

Kaylin always tried to be pragmatic. She tried to be practical. She tried—and most days it was a real effort—not to take life personally. But it was
still
hard to think about the loss of what was, stripped down, a slightly run-down room with warped shutters and creaky floorboards. The bed and the armoire that had been a secondhand gift were splinters and shreds. The basket Severn had given her that kept food fresh had likewise been destroyed. The clothing she’d owned—and there hadn’t been a lot of it that had still been in one piece, because she was hard on clothing—was gone.

The paintings Caitlin had brought to put up on her walls, and the scarf—scratchy, rough wool in Kaylin’s opinion—that Caitlin had knit for her. The mirror she’d partially paid for. The chair that served as the closet on long days. Oh, hells, on
most
days.

All of them, gone.

Teela had a key. She still had a key. Tain had a key. Caitlin had a key. Any of them could walk in and out of her apartment when they felt like it, although Caitlin had always mirrored ahead if she was coming. The keys still existed; they just didn’t open anything anymore. There was no place that Kaylin could be found at home. There
was no home.

The apartment had been the first home she’d chosen, and the first she’d really had since her mother’s death. She couldn’t even hate the man responsible for its loss because most of his mind had been destroyed and what was left was...pathetic and hopeful and naive.

“Kitling.”

She swallowed and blinked. To her surprise, Helen was blinking as well, which made Kaylin rise in near-panic. “I’m sorry!” she said, almost knocking her chair over as she ran around the table.

Helen rose as well, and held out both of her hands; Kaylin took them almost without thinking. “My dear,” she said—and tears trailed down her lined cheeks, “you do realize that
home
is the place that ties you down?”

It wasn’t what Kaylin expected to hear. Then again, she wasn’t certain what she’d expected. She swallowed again. “Home,” she said, her voice less steady than she wanted it to be, “is the place you return to. It’s the place that’s waiting. It doesn’t have to be perfect—mine wasn’t. But...it was mine. I could offer my friends a place to crash. They could eat with me, or sit with me, or—”

“Listen to you complain?” Teela asked.

“Or that. In my space.”

“Go on, dear.”

“It’s not that home means safety—if it did, I wouldn’t
be
looking for a new one. But—if it’s my space, I can be myself in it. I can be—be at home.”

The hands that were holding hers tightened, but not in a way that was uncomfortable; they were too frail for that. “You are looking for a
home,
then?”

Kaylin nodded. She wanted to weep—and hated herself for it. This was
not
the way to impress a possible landlord.

“Not another landlord, perhaps,” Helen said. “Do you know what
I
look for, dear? Here, give me back my hands and let me pour; I have been shockingly remiss.” She returned to the table, leaving Kaylin with empty, but warm, hands. There, she bustled in place, pouring tea which seemed at odds with the plethora of dinner foods.

“People look for places—as you called them—to live. It is considered, by most, a necessity. They want different things from those places, of course. You are not the first person to enter my home since my last tenant passed away. You
are
the first to remain at the sight of his body. You surprised me, dear. You laid him to rest. It is not, I’m certain, an activity you undertake often.

“He fretted terribly in his final days and hours. He did want to meet the tenants who would replace him. He wanted to give them his advice, you see. To explain what he considered my eccentricities. He didn’t want to leave.”

“You didn’t want him to leave.”

Her smile was gentle, now. “No. It is always hard when someone leaves home for the last time. I wanted to find tenants before he died because it would have given him peace—but that is not, sadly, the way I am built. There are many people who would choose to live here if they could. Not all of them can reach me; not all the people who can are suitable. There are people who would like to rearrange my grounds and change my fences and open up my drives and renovate my exterior. They want to live here not because I am me, but because I am in the right place.