Cast In Secret (4 page)

Evanton chuckled. “That side, yes, although the tail can be quite deadly.”

She didn’t ask him how he knew this. His words had caught up with her thoughts. “What do you mean when I meet him?”

His frown was momentary. “Never mind, girl. All in good – or bad – time. He is watching you, but even his reach is not so long that he can see you here. He is almost certainly aware that you
are
here, however.”

“What do you mean?”

“He has my shop watched.”

“Oh.” She paused, and took a step forward into a room that was, in her eyes, almost devoid of any trace of human interference. But… it belonged to Evanton, and because it did, she could see odd things that lay on stone pedestals, on stone shelves, and in alcoves that lined the nearest walls. Things that held candles – candelabras? – that were lined up in perfect precision, unlit and therefore unblemished. There were books, boxes that looked as if they’d been left out in the rain – and the sun and the snow for good measure – and small, golden tablets that looked as if they had, conversely, barely been touched by eyes. Still, it was the candles that caught her attention.

“Are they ever lit?”

“Never,” Evanton replied. “And if they are to be lit, let it be during someone else’s watch.”

She nodded and kept walking, and after a while, she said, “This is circular, this room?”

“A large circle, but yes.” Evanton’s eyes were gleaming and dark as he answered. His nod was more a nod of approval than Kaylin had ever seen from him. She took encouragement from it, and continued to watch the room with the eyes – the trained eyes – of a hawk.

Saw a small pond, saw a fire burning in a brazier; felt the wind’s voice above her head and saw the leaves turn at its passing. Saw, in the distance, a rock garden in which no water trickled.

She said, “Elemental.”

And Evanton nodded again.

“Severn?”

“I concur. But it is unusual.”

“And the books, Evanton?”

“Good girl,” he said softly. “Those, do not touch. You may approach them, but do not touch them.”

“I doubt I’d be able to read them.”

“It is not in the reading that they present the greatest threat, and Kaylin, if you spoke no words at all, if you were entirely deprived of language, these books would still speak to you.”

“Magic,” she said with disdain.

“Indeed, and older magic than the magic that is the current fashion. Fashion,” he added, “may be frowned on by the old, but I believe that the trend is not a bad one.”

She half closed her eyes. Listened to the voice of the wind as it rustled through slender branches; golden leaves, white leaves and a pale, pale bloodred, all turned as it passed. Heard, for a moment, a name that was not quite hers as she looked up, to feel its touch across her cheeks.

The mark of Nightshade began to tingle. It was not entirely comfortable. Without thinking, she lifted a hand to her face to touch the mark.

“The mark you bear affords you some protection. He must value you, Kaylin,” Evanton said. He was closer than she realized; she should have heard his shuffling step, but she had heard only the wind. And felt, for a moment, the glimmering dream of flight.

His voice dispelled the wind’s, sent it scattering, left her bound – as she would always be bound – to ground. And because he simply waited, she began to walk again.

To the pond, where small shelves and altars sat across moss beds. Books lay there, and again, candles, unlit, by the dozen. There were small boxes, and a mirror – the first she’d seen since she’d entered this room.

“The mirror – ”

“Do
not
touch it.”

“Wasn’t going to,” she said, although her hand stopped in midair. “But does it work?”

“Work?”

“Is it functional? If I wanted to send a message, could I?”

“Not,” he replied, “to anyone you would care to speak to.” It was an evasion. She accepted it. At the moment, the investigation – such as it was, since he hadn’t actually
told them anything useful
– was not about mirrors or messages, but it was the first truly modern thing she’d encountered.

Yet even as she thought it, she looked at the mirror, and thought again. Its surface was tarnished and cloudy, and its frame, gold and silver, poorly tended. Unlike the rest of the small, jeweled boxes, the reliquaries – she recognized them for that now – this had been left alone.

“Do they all have mirrors?”

“All?”

“The elemental gardens. There should be four – the fire in the brazier, the water in this small pond, the rocks just beyond those silver trees. I can’t see anything for air – ”

“It is very, very hard to build a garden to air,” he replied. “But it is here, and perhaps it is the freest of the elements because it can travel so readily. And the answer is no. None of them do.”

“But this one – ”

“Was brought here. It does not belong in this room.”

“But you haven’t moved it.”

“No,” he replied. “And until the Hawks deem it wise, I will not return it to its place. But do not touch it. The hand that held it last left some impression, but it will not, I think, be the equal of yours.”

“You think of everything.”

“I? Hardly. Had I, you would not be here now.”

“Good point. Maybe.” It was hard to leave the mirror, but she did, because the surface of the pond was everything the surface of the mirror was not: clean, smooth, reflective. The breeze that blew above did not touch it at all; she wondered if a pebble would ripple its surface.

“No,” Evanton replied, as if he were reading her mind – which she’d gotten used to in the last few weeks, but still didn’t much care for. “It would not. The earth and the water barely meet here. The pond is not wide,” he added, “but it runs very, very deep.”

She nodded. “These footprints,” she said, although she had barely grazed ground with her eyes, “aren’t yours.”

“No.”

“You know whose they are?”

“I have some suspicion.”

Severn knelt with care at Kaylin’s side and examined the moss. He had seen what she had seen, of course. “There are at least two sets,” he told them both. “The larger set belongs to a person of heavier build than the smaller. I would say human, and probably male, from the size.”

Evanton’s answer was lost.

Kaylin was gazing at the surface of the pond. Although the water was clear, there was a darkness in the heart of it that seemed endless. Deep, he had said, and she now believed it; you could throw a body down here and it would simply vanish. The idea of taking a swim had less than no appeal.

But the water’s surface caught and held light, the light from the ceiling above, the one that Aerians would so love, it was that tall.

She could almost see them fly across it, reflected for a moment in passage, and felt again the yearning to fly and be free. To join them.

It was illusion, of course. There was no such thing as freedom. There was only –

Reflection. Movement.

Not hers, and not Severn’s; Evanton stood far enough back that he cast no reflection.

“Kaylin?” Severn said, his voice close to her ear.

But Kaylin was gazing now into the eyes – the wide eyes – of a child’s bruised face. A girl, her hair long and stringy in the way that unwashed children’s hair could often be, her skin pale with winter, although winter was well away. She wore clothing that was too large for her, and threadbare, and undyed. She wore nothing at all on her feet, for Kaylin could see her toes, dirt in the nails.

She came back to the eyes.

The girl whispered a single word.

Kaylin.

The first thing Kaylin had been taught when she’d been allowed to accompany groundhawks on her first investigation of a crime scene was
Do not touch anything or we will never bring you back.
This also meant,
Do not embarrass us by attempting to steal anything.
The Hawks were pretty matter-of-fact about her upbringing; they didn’t actually care. The fiefs couldn’t be actively policed, so it wasn’t as if anything she’d done there was on record. If she had been canny enough to survive life on the streets of Nightshade, tough enough to emerge unscathed, and idealistic enough to want to uphold the Law rather than slide through its grip, so much the better.

It had been a missing-person investigation – which usually meant dead person whose body had yet to be found – and they’d walked the narrow streets that faced the fiefs without – quite – touching them. The Law still ruled in this old, boarded-up manor house, by a riverbank and a couple of narrow bridges.

She had been all of fourteen years old, and had spent six long months begging, badgering, and wheedling; when they said yes, she could follow them, she had nearly stopped breathing.

By that point, being a Hawk was the
only
thing she wanted, and she had held her fidget-prone hands by her sides, stiff as boards, while the Hawks – Teela and Tain for the most part, although Marcus had come along to supervise – had rambled about a series of large, run-down rooms for what felt like hours.

There wasn’t much in the way of temptation on that particular day: nothing worth stealing.

Nothing she wanted to touch.

But this was so much harder. The girl was young. Younger than many of her orphans, the kitlings she visited, taught to read, and told stories – casually censored – of her adventures to. This girl was bruised; her eyes were wide with terror, her face gaunt with either cold or hunger. And she was real.

The water did not distort her; she did not sink into the depths, beckoning for Kaylin to follow to a watery, slow death. There was an aura about her, some faint hint of magic, but there would have to be.

Kaylin knelt with care by the side of this deep, deep pond, this scion of elemental magics. She did not touch the water’s surface, but it was a struggle not to; not to reach out a hand, palm out, to the child whose dark eyes met hers.

As if he knew it – and he probably did – Severn was behind her. He did not approach the water as closely as she herself had done, but instead put both of his hands on her shoulders and held tight.

“Corporal,” she heard Evanton say quietly, “what do you see?”

“Water,” Severn replied. “Very, very deep water.”

“Interesting.”

“You?”

“I see many things,” Evanton replied. “Always. The water here is death.” He paused and then added, “Almost everything is, to the unwary, in this place.”

“Figures,” Kaylin heard herself say, in a voice that was
almost
normal. “But whose death?”

“A good question, girl. As always.”

“You usually tell me my questions are – ”

“Hush.”

But the girl didn’t vanish until Evanton came to stand by Kaylin’s side. “You’re not one for obedience, blind or otherwise,” he told her, with just a hint of frustration in a voice that was mostly approving. “But I believe I told you to look at nothing too closely.”

“If you saw what I saw – ”

“I may well, girl. But as I said, I see many things that the water chooses to reveal. There is always temptation, here, and it knows enough to see deeply.”

“This
is not
– ”

“Is it not? Here you sit, spellbound, horrified, gathering and hoarding your anger – which, I believe, is growing as the minutes pass. It isn’t always things that tempt our basest desire – not all temptation is sensual or monetary in nature.” He lifted his hands and gestured and the water rippled at the passage of a strong, strong gust.

All images were broken as it did, and the girl’s face passed into memory – but it was burned there. Kaylin would not forget. Couldn’t. Didn’t, if she were honest, have any desire to do so.

“I know what you saw, Kaylin Neya. More of your life is in your face than you are aware of, in this place. And in the store,” he added quietly.

“This is why you called me,” she said, half a question in the flat statement.

“On the contrary, Kaylin, I requested no one. But this, I believe, has some bearing on the call the Hawks did receive. Even had I wanted to deal with the Law directly – and I believe that there are reasons for avoiding it – I would merely send the report or the request. The old, belligerent Leontine who runs the office would decide who actually responds.”

“Marcus,” she said automatically. “Sergeant Kassan.”

“Very well, Sergeant Kassan, although it was clear by description to whom I referred.” He paused, and then added, “Something was taken from this… room.”

Her eyes widened slightly. “How the hell did someone get
into
this room?”

“A very good question, and believe that I have friends who are even now considering the problem.”

“Friends?”

“At my age, they are few, and not all of them are mortal, but,” he added, and his face warped into a familiar, wizened expression, “even I have some.”

“And they – ”

“I have merely challenged them to break
into
the elementarium without causing anything to alert me to their presence.”

“Good luck,” she muttered.

“They will need more than luck,” he said softly. “But I expect most of them will survive it.”

She straightened slowly, her knees slightly cricked. It made her wonder how long she’d knelt there. The answer was too damn long; she was still tired from the previous night’s birthing. But the elation of saving a cub’s life passed into shadow, as it so often did.

“What was stolen?” she asked Evanton as she rose. Her voice fell into a regular Hawk’s cadence – all bored business. And watchful.

“A small and unremarkable reliquary,” he replied. “A red box, with gold bands. Both the leather and the gold are worn.”

“What was in it?”

“I am not entirely certain,” he replied, but it was in that I-have-some-ideas-and-I-don’t-want-to-tell tone of voice. “The box is locked. It was locked when I first arrived, and the keys that were made to open it… It has no keyhole, Kaylin.”

“So it can’t be opened.”

“Jumping to conclusions, I see.”

She grimaced. “It has to be opened magically.”

“Good girl,” he replied softly.