Cast In Secret (22 page)

She looked down. Looked out the window. Saw the Halls of Law as the carriage drove past them.

When she looked up at Sanabalis, one of his silver brows was lifted. “We are not yet done with our day’s lessons,” he told her quietly.

“I hope you’re not charging the department for your time.”

“I told you – my time has value to bookkeepers. It is with them that you must take up all complaints that you have in this regard.”

“Fine.”

“I believe it will cause the department some paperwork, however.”

Her eyes narrowed. Had Sanabalis not been a Dragon, she would have kicked his shin. As it was, she grimaced and said, “You win.”

“I was not aware that we were involved in some sort of contest,” was his distant reply. “And winning? The games we play now measure such things in the number of lives we will lose before this is done. I am given to understand that betting was a way of life in the fiefs.”

“We didn’t bet on lives.”

“No?”

“Well, not often.”

Sanabalis shrugged. It was an elegant motion, but it was also a heavy one. “We have studied the Oracles text,” he said at last.

“You mean the Imperial Order of Mages?”

“Do I?”

If hearts really could sink, Kaylin’s was busily rearranging her internal organs. “You mean the Dragon Court.”

He said nothing. Loudly.

“And the paintings?”

“Everly is the only Oracle who is currently completely visual in his prophecies. He is also, at the moment, implacable in his determination to finish your portrait. He works at a speed that is tiring to watch. But even at that speed, it is not fast enough. I had desired to see the location in which you were standing, although with Everly it is impossible to predict the existence
of
location. So far, it is nonexistent. I do not think, given the various records, that he has missed a
single
mark.

“Well, not the exposed ones, at any rate.”

“It would not greatly surprise me if he had already painted the ones the dress hides,” Sanabalis replied, glancing briefly out the window.

“Why do you think there might be no location?”

“There seldom is, in his paintings.”

“Then how are they useful?”

“Spoken like a Hawk,” he replied, but without the usual approval to take the edge out of the words. “Everly is concerned only with the people he can see. Where they are does not interest him. His entire world is that gallery, and I do not think he is even consciously aware that other worlds exist beyond it. Even the dining hall causes him confusion.

“But there is much about a person that one can tell by simple things – clothing, weapons, age.”

“But – ”

“Yes?”

“The clothing – I don’t own anything like it.”

“It could be symbolic. Fashions, like climates, change over the passage of time. But it will be significant in some aspect, even if it is not, to your mind, accurate.”

“You’ve seen clothing like that.”

He said nothing, glancing again out the window before turning his gaze upon her.

“Where are we going, by the way?”

“You asked me to teach you the nature of water,” Sanabalis told her gravely. “And I have decided to accede to that request.”

If ever there was an example of “be careful what you wish for,” this was it. Kaylin spent some time wishing that someone
else
had been stupid enough to ask.

And then she forgot that part, because the carriage had come to a halt in front of gates that she recognized, even if she had only seen them from a very safe distance. Imperial gates.

The guards appeared at the window of the carriage, and one look at Sanabalis made them disappear more quickly. The gates themselves, at this time of day, were open, although they weren’t exactly open to the public. Kaylin had flown over the vast estates that the Dragon Emperor laid claim to in the heart of the city, but even in flight, Clint had soared higher, complaining the whole time about her weight. Aerians served the Emperor as guards, and they patrolled the skies above the palace. They did not seek to stop Clint, but he did not approach their territory, marked invisibly across a stretch of what seemed, at her age at the time, to be freedom.

Liveried men waited for the carriage in the courtyard, and liveried men opened the door in which Sanabalis was framed. He stepped out and spoke a few words, and the same men appeared on the other side of the carriage, silently opening the door and equally silently offering Kaylin a hand. They had placed a small step just beneath the door itself, which Kaylin nearly fell over; she was used to just jumping out.

If they were bothered by the fact that they were forced to carry more of her weight than courtesy demanded, they were utterly silent about it; a smile would have cracked their faces. Or a frown. Or any expression at all, really.

Sanabalis was waiting for her. He offered her an arm, just as Severn had done in the High Halls of the Barrani court. There, Kaylin had worn a dress fit for a queen. Well, fit for a really, really rich person with more money than common sense. Here? She wore her daily uniform, and was acutely aware of how much she needed new clothing. The leather legs were actually patched.

But the men who had stopped her from falling flat on her face now took the reins and lead the carriage away to wherever it was that carriages went, and Sanabalis did not seem to be aware of just
how
underdressed she was.

“Does Marcus know I’m here?” she asked in a very quiet voice.

“Marcus? Ah, Sergeant Kassan. No, I do not believe he does. Nor does the Hawklord. With luck, there will be no reason to remedy their ignorance.”

“Are you joking?”

“I? Dragons are seldom accused of humor.”

“Have you paid attention to what my luck is actually like?”

“I have heard rumors that you faced a dragon, Kaylin, and won. I consider, given your race, that you are blessed with luck.”

“Someone lucky – ”

“
When
you need it.”

“Which I will if I don’t shut up?”

“Possibly. I advise you to make as little fuss as possible while you are in these halls.”

“Ahead of you,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper.

“We are not going to Court,” he added, “but to the Royal Archives. There is also a gallery. Four galleries, to be precise. And three different libraries. At the moment, the difficulties under consideration do not involve the Imperial Order of Mages, and given that you’ve offended a third of the most important men who comprise it, I consider you… lucky.”

Lucky, she thought glumly. The
servants
were better dressed than she was. She felt like something the cat dragged in, except for the being-half-a-corpse-and-bleeding part. Hopefully that wouldn’t follow.

But silence was a burden for Kaylin, and while she promised herself that it was one she would carry, she shed it in a small shriek when she rounded the huge, gaping corner of the huge, palatial hall.

“Tiamaris!”

Dragons never looked surprised. Kaylin was certain that there was a rule book somewhere that had that as the number-one law of dragonkind. Given that Dragons were immortal, it was probably etched in stone, but still.

Tiamaris, seconded to the Hawks for a short period of time, and still in theory on the duty roster although he wasn’t sent out on patrol, raised one dark brow at her. Then he nodded gravely. “Kaylin.”

“What are you doing here?”

“He lives here,” Sanabalis replied drily.

“Yes, but – ”

“Lord Sanabalis, is this entirely wise?”

It was Sanabalis’s turn to raise a brow, although his was distinctly silver. “It is entirely unwise,” he replied. “What have I taught you about asking a question to which the answer is obvious?”

“Much,” Tiamaris replied. “But even more about the nature of what is obvious and what is merely contextually difficult.”

“Very good. Well done. Yes, you may accompany us.” He lifted Kaylin’s hand and offered it to Tiamaris, who stared at it for a moment too long before holding out the bend of his elbow. Kaylin laughed.

The entire hall had damned impressive acoustics.

“You weren’t just waiting for us?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“As certain as I can be.”

“But – this is a
huge
place. How did you – ”

“Kaylin,” Lord Sanabalis said, in a deep and suspiciously rumbling tone of voice, “please, a little respectful silence is in order.”

Before she could open her mouth to reply, Sanabalis added in perfect Elantran, “Shut up.”

Which more or less caused her jaws to snap together in shock. She dared a glance at Tiamaris, and to her chagrin, he was smiling. “It seems,” he said, “that I still have much to learn from you, Lord Sanabalis.”

“Do not make me repeat myself,” was the curt reply, although it was offered in his habitual Barrani. It caused Tiamaris to chuckle, and this much mirth Kaylin had never seen him show. Then again, the last time she’d seen Tiamaris, they’d been investigating the gruesome deaths of children in the city, so there hadn’t been a lot to laugh about.

“Why are you here?” Kaylin whispered.

“Private Neya, it may have escaped your attention, but I am
not
deaf.”

“Never mind.”

The halls could have been an Aerie. There were no winged Aerians flying above them as they walked, but they could easily have stretched their flight feathers here. It would have been welcome. The lack of any noise but footsteps – and Dragons don’t have light feet – was beginning to make Kaylin nervous.

Nervous gave way to something else when Sanabalis at last stopped. He stopped because there were doors that were half the hall’s height in the way. And the doors bore a mark that was at the level of a grown man’s reach.

Door-wards. Kaylin hated them.

Sanabalis reached out and placed his palm against the mark. The doors didn’t open – that would be too much to hope for. Tiamaris let go of Kaylin’s arm and also walked to the door, where he placed his palm against the same mark. And of course, the damn doors stayed closed.

“Private Neya? In your own time.”

Which meant
touch the bloody door now so we can get going
. Dragons might speak in Barrani, but tone of voice was universal.

She walked up to the door, gritted her teeth, and planted her palm against the ward as if she hoped it would go through it.

Blue light enveloped her, snapping at the air. The strands of her hair that
never
stayed up flew out to the sides as if trying to escape her skull.

She started to shout something, bit her lip, and waited; her arm was numb.

But the door-wards had taken whatever it was they were looking for, and the doors began to swing slowly inward.

“That,” said Tiamaris in a low voice, “was impressive.”

She would have cursed in Leontine, but she liked her tongue where it was.

“I imagine that anyone of note in the palace now knows you’re here,” he added.

If they – the nebulous
they
that always made Kaylin slightly nervous – were aware of her presence, they didn’t choose to do anything about it. No alarms sounded; no guards surged through the open doors to greet her. Instead, she was hit with
silence
. It didn’t so much descend as stomp. Where the halls had been cold and shining marble, the floors here were carpeted for as far as the eye could see. That much, Kaylin expected, and she didn’t find it strange. The fact that the carpets slid up the walls, on the other hand – where walls could be seen – she found a bit unusual.

In between the bits of visible wall were shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling, bisected neatly in the middle by a narrow catwalk that followed their precise contours. There were ladders, which were sensible, given the height of the shelves, and smaller ones rested on the catwalk above the main floor, leaning up against the space between shelves. There were more books than Kaylin had dreamed existed.

She stood, her jaw temporarily unhinged, as she stared. Even the quiet click of the doors at her back didn’t easily draw her attention. Sanabalis had said there was more than one library, but he hadn’t said they were all in one place.

“Private,” Lord Sanabalis said tersely, “you may have all day to stand there and gawk. I, however, am a busy man. A
very
busy man.”

“If it would please you, Lord Sanabalis, I can escort Kaylin from here.”

“It would not please me to see the two most difficult students in the history of the Imperial Order left to run rampant in this august wing,” Lord Sanabalis replied curtly.

Tiamaris shrugged. “So the rumors are true,” he said to Kaylin.

“Which ones?”

“That you are his pupil.”

“More or less.”

“Knowing you, Kaylin, you probably did something to deserve it.”

She stepped on his foot. He kept walking. His hold on her arm tightened so that she didn’t go flying across the carpets. “You already knew.”

“Of course. Had the Imperial Order chosen to listen to me, you would not have been given the opportunity to offend so many of its constituency.”

“They were arrogant, know-it-all, judgmental – ”

Tiamaris raised a brow. “Your conversation is almost certainly being captured in Imperial Records,” he told her. “You might consider what you say with care.”

“They were inflexible.”

“A much better choice of words.” He spoke Elantran, as he had done when he walked the streets as a Hawk. “You might
also
consider speaking in Barrani while you are here. It’s harder to make the same verbal mistakes in that tongue.”

She shrugged. “Why? Given who’s likely to be listening, it won’t make a difference.”

He conceded the point.

“Why did he bring me here?”

“I can only guess,” Tiamaris replied gravely. “And as you will know soon enough, I will keep that guess to myself. But your progress has been followed in the Court. You went to visit the Keeper?”

“You mean Evanton?”

“Indeed.”

“I visit him all the time, Tiamaris.”

“And when you returned, you asked Lord Sanabalis about the nature of water. That can hardly be a coincidence.”