Cast In Secret (5 page)

“This isn’t really Hawk work – ”

“The Hawks don’t investigate thefts?”

“Ye-es,” she said, breaking the single syllable into two. “But not petty thefts as such, and not without a
better
description of the value of what’s been stolen.”

“People will die,” he told her quietly, “while the reliquary is at large. It exerts its power,” he added softly, “on those who see it and those who possess it. Only – ” He stopped. His face got that closed-door look that made it plain he would say no more. Not yet.

“There were two people here,” she said at last.

“Yes. Two. An unusually large woman, or a heavyset man, by the look of those treads, and an unusually small one, or a child, by the look of the second.” He met her eyes.

And she knew who the child had been.

The shop seemed more mundane than it had ever seemed when Evanton escorted them back into it. His robes transformed as he crossed the threshold and the power of wisdom gave way to the power of age and gravity as his shoulders fell into their perpetual bend.

He was once again the ancient, withered shopkeeper and purveyor of odd junk and the occasional true magic. And this man, Kaylin had chattered at for most of her adolescence. If Severn was circumspect – a word she privately hated – she had no such compulsion.

“You think there are going to be murders associated with this theft.”

He didn’t even blink. “Indeed.”

“Or possibly already have been. When exactly did you notice this disturbance?”

“Yesterday,” he replied, his lips pursed as he sought his impossible-to-miss key ring.

“But you don’t think it happened yesterday?”

“I can’t be certain, no. As I said, I’ve sponsored a bit of a contest – ”

She lifted a hand. “Don’t give me contests I can’t enter.”

He lifted a brow. “Oddly enough, Private, I think you’re one of the few who could. Possibly. You make a lot of noise, on the other hand, and it may – ”

“Evanton,
please
, these are people’s lives we’re talking about.”

“Yes. But if I am to be somewhat honest, they are not lives, I feel, you would be in a hurry to save.”

“You’re dead wrong,” she said, meaning it.

“About at least one of them,” he said softly. “But if I am not mistaken, she is not – yet – in danger. I feel some of the mystery of their entrance can only be answered by her.”

“By a
child?
”

“You might wish to fill the corporal in on what you saw,” Evanton told her.

“It’s not necessary,” Severn replied, before Kaylin could. “I have a good idea of what she saw.”

“Oh?”

“She gets a particular look when she’s dealing with children in distress.” He paused and then said, voice devoid of all texture and all emotion, “Kaylin has always had a weakness for children. Even when she was, by all legal standards, a child herself. “And that’s not a look she gets when the child is happy or looks well treated,” he added softly. “Then, she’s only wistful.”

Evanton nodded as if everything Severn had said confirmed what he already knew. “Very well. You make a good team,” he told them both. “He’s much better for you than those two Barrani slouchers.”

Kaylin sidestepped the question in the old man’s words. Remembered the brief touch of Severn’s palms on her cheeks. But that was personal. This was worse.

“What will the manner of death be?”

“That, I cannot tell you. It is very,
very
seldom that I invite visitors into the elementarium, and with cause. You felt compelled to touch nothing and take nothing, because that room had nothing to offer you.”

“I felt compelled – ”

“Yes, but not to
take,
Kaylin. Not to acquire. And I cannot yet tell you why the water chose to show you the girl. I can only tell you that what you saw was in some fashion true.”

“She called me by name.”

He spun so fast she almost tripped over him and sent them both flying – which in his case would probably have broken every bone in his frail body. She managed to catch herself on the wall.

“By name?” he asked, one brow melding with his receding hairline.

She nodded.

“Ah, girl,” he said, with a shake of the head. He turned away again. “If I had found you first – ”

“What does it mean?”

“I cannot say for certain,” he replied. “But this much, I can guess – she touched the heart of the elemental water, and woke some of its slumbering intent. It wants you to find her, Kaylin.”

“And that’s a bad thing.”

“It may well be,” Evanton replied. “But if I told you – if I could honestly tell you – that it would mean the end of the Empire itself were you to pursue it, you’d pursue it anyway.

“Water is canny that way. It sees into the deeps that we hide.” But he turned away as he spoke.

“Evanton – ”

“Old man – ”

He stopped as Severn and Kaylin’s words collided, but did not look back. “If you’re about to accuse me of knowing more than I’ve told you, stand in line and take a number,” he said in a voice so dry a little spark would have set it on fire. “I’m a very busy man. Do come and visit again.”

“Kaylin – ”

Kaylin lifted a hand and swatted her name aside.

“You’re going to crack the road if you don’t stop walking like that.”

“Severn, I don’t have a sense of humor about – ”

“Almost anything? Fair enough. I’ve been accused of that.”

She stopped walking. Although his stride was easily the longer of the two, she’d been making him work to keep up. Not that it showed. Much.

Since her entrance into the ranks of the Barrani High Court, Kaylin had grown more aware of Severn; of where he was, how close he was, or how far. It was as if – as if something bound them, something gossamer like spider’s web, but finer, and ultimately stronger. She had given him her name – if it was her name – and he had accepted it.

But he had never used it. When she shut him out, he accepted the distance.

It’s not my name
, he had told her quietly,
it’s yours. If I understand Barrani names at all.

I’m not Barrani.

You’re not human. Not completely. But you’re still Kaylin.

Could you? Could you use it?

He’d been quiet for a long time; she could still remember the texture of that silence, the way he’d stared at her face for a moment, and then turned away almost wearily.
What do you want me to say, Kaylin?

She hadn’t answered. She wasn’t certain.

“We have to find her,” she told him, her voice quieter now.

“I know. Any idea where to start?”

Missing Persons was a zoo. Almost literally. Although the offices that fronted the public square in the Halls were slightly better equipped and more severe than the interior offices in which Kaylin spent much – too damn much – of her day, they were in no way quieter.

For one, they were full of people who would never – with any luck – wear a uniform that granted them any kind of Imperial authority. For two, the people who milled about, either shouting at each other, pacing, crying or shouting at the officers who looked appropriately harried, were by no means all human; although here, as throughout most sectors of Elantra, humans outnumbered the others by quite a large margin. For three, many of the visitors were either four times Kaylin’s age, or less than half of it. Kaylin recognized a smattering of at least four languages, and some of what was said was, in the words of Caitlin, “colorful.”

Impatience was the order of the day.

Missing Persons was, in theory, the responsibility of the Hawks. Depending, of course, upon who exactly was missing. Some missing persons had left a small trail of death and destruction in their wake, and these investigations were often – begrudgingly – handed over to the Wolves, the smallest of the three forces who called the Halls of Law home.

The staffing of the office, however, was the purview of the Hawklord. Or his senior officers. None of whom, Kaylin thought with a grimace, were ever on the floors here.

She herself was seldom here, and of all duties the Hawks considered their own, this was her least favorite. She was not always the most patient of people – and people who were desperate enough to come to the Halls seeking word of their missing, and possibly dead, kin required patience at the very least.

She was also not quite graceful enough to forgive other people their impatience. But at least she was aware of hers.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the vagabond.”

And, if she were entirely truthful, there were other reasons for hating this place. Grinding her teeth into what she hoped would pass for a smile, she faced the worst of them squarely.

If it was true that the Barrani had a lock on arrogance, and the Dragons on inscrutability, it was also true that for petty malice, you really couldn’t do better than finding a truly loathsome human. And to Kaylin’s youthful disappointment, she hadn’t actually had to look that
far
to find this one.

His name was Constant Mallory – and, give him this, if she’d had that as a name, and she’d been too stupid to
change
it, she might have developed a few personality ticks. He was, for all intents and purposes, the ruler of this small enclave. He answered to Marcus, and to the Hawklord, but his answers could be both disingenuous and fawning, and she thought he’d learned enough from the Barrani to dispense with truth entirely.

She was aware that he and Marcus had, as the office liked to call it, “history.” She’d once asked why, and Teela had said, with some disdain, “You really
don’t
pay attention, do you? How much of history is spent discussing happy children and fluffy bunnies?”

“It’s true,” Tain had half drawled. “If humans actually had a lifespan, things would have been a lot more interesting around here a few centuries ago. But that’s the problem with mortals – they get a little power and it all comes tumbling down. It’s a good thing you breed so quickly.”

Teela and Tain had no problems at all with Mallory. They didn’t
like
him, but then again, given the way they treated people they
did
like – and Kaylin had some experience with this – their lack of affection was a dubious negative. Like many humans, he treated the Barrani with respect and care. He had not always given Marcus the same respect.

Or rather, he’d given him exactly the same respect, but then again, Marcus took subtle office politics about as well as he took vegetarian menus.

Mallory had wanted the Leontine’s job. Then again, so had Marcus. Marcus had come out on top. The miracle of the tussle, to Kaylin’s mind, was that Mallory had come out alive. She gathered that not everyone had.

But getting people who’d been there to talk about it was more difficult than getting criminals to cough up useful information. And, as a harried Sergeant Kassan had finally said, “You’re usually so proud of your ignorance. Learn to live with it, Kaylin.” The implication being that living and living with it, on that particular day, were the same thing.

Mallory was tall. He was, by human standards, fit, and not even painful to look at: he was competent, quick-witted, and good with a sword. He handled his paperwork with care – a distinction that he did not fail to note on the rare occasions he was allowed to visit Caitlin’s office.

But he was a self-important prick, and he was the only Hawk of note who had spoken against her induction. The latter, she was unlikely to forget. The former, she had come to expect from the world at large.

His greeting was not in any way friendly. Her smile was not in any way friendly. It was, as Marcus called it with some distaste, a human social custom. Probably because it didn’t involve enough blood and fur.

But she had never come with Severn before.

And Severn became completely
still
beside her.

“Corporal Handred,” Mallory said, greeting him as if that stillness were not a warning signal. “Our newest recruit.”

Severn extended a hand, and Mallory took it firmly. “I see that they have you babysitting. It’s unusual to see the private in any company that isn’t Barrani. How are you finding the Hawks so far?”

“Interesting,” Severn replied. At least he hadn’t gone monosyllabic.

“Compared to the Wolves?”

Severn didn’t even pause. “Yes. Longer hours. I confess that I’ve seen many reports from your office, but I’ve seldom had a chance to visit in person.”

Mallory looked slightly at a loss, but he recovered quickly enough. “We do important work here,” he began, straightening his shoulders somewhat. “It’s here that most of the cases that require official attention are brought to the notice of the Law.”

“I imagine you deal with a lot of reports. How do you separate the frauds from the actual crimes?”

Mallory looked genuinely surprised, and Kaylin fought an urge to kick someone – mostly because she couldn’t decide whether or not she’d kick Severn or Mallory. Mallory took the lead, and Severn, walking by his side, continued to ask pleasant questions, his voice engulfed slowly by the office noise.

Leaving Kaylin on her own, with no Mallory vindictively standing over her shoulder. It was a trick not even Teela had ever tried.

There were two ways to get useful information about the missing persons being reported by the people who came to the Halls. The hard way – which was to take notes, to have the official artists employed by the Halls on hand, and to attempt to draw a picture of some sort that could be used as an identifier. This was both the least efficient and the most commonly used method of gaining some sort of visual information the Hawks could then use.

The second, and far more efficient, method involved the Tha’alani. And the reason it was little used was, in Kaylin’s opinion, pretty damn obvious. She looked across the crowded office as if the people in it were shadows and smoke, and against the far wall, bordered on either side by finely crafted wooden dividers, and no door, sat a gray-haired man.

At least he looked like a man from the back. But he wore robes, rather than the official uniform of the Hawks; if he was finicky about detail, there
might
be a gold Hawk embroidered on the left breast of the gray cloth; if he wasn’t, there would be nothing at all.