Cast In Secret (6 page)

Kaylin preferred the nothing at all.

From the front, although he didn’t turn, the illusion of humanity would vanish; the slender stalks that rose from his forehead would be visible in the hallmark paleness of his face. His eyes would probably be blue; hard to tell with the Tha’alani, but then again, she usually avoided meeting their eyes – it meant she was standing too damn close.

Those stalks were their weapons, their means of invasion; they were prehensile, and they moved. They would attach themselves to the face of anyone – anything at all – in the Empire, and they would draw from that person’s thoughts
everything
. Everything they were told to look for. Possibly more. All the hidden secrets, the private memories, the terrors and the joys would be laid bare for their inspection.

Officially, there were no Tha’alani in the ranks of the Hawks; they were, however, always on call should the law require their services. The only office that had a Tha’alani on staff was this one, and he was a grant from the Imperial Court. All of the Tha’alani who served the Law were seconded
by
the Dragon Emperor. A warning to anyone who might otherwise treat them like the invasive horrors they actually
were
.

It was probably the real reason she hated the Missing Persons office so much. Men like Mallory were so common in her life, she could only expend so much energy hating him. Most of the time.

To the left of the stall in which the Tha’alani sat, back facing her, was a long, slender mirror edged in gold that had seen better days. It was flecked and peeling. It was also out of sight of the public, tucked as it was against the other edge of the wall and the divider.

Records.

She squared her shoulders and moved toward the mirror on the wall. It was inactive and she could see Severn and Mallory bent over Mallory’s impeccable desk, discussing something that no doubt would have bored her to tears. She probably owed Severn a drink or ten.

She walked toward the mirror, and forced herself to relax, to walk naturally. She tried to remember the one Tha’alani woman she had met that had not somehow terrified her. She was slender, and had reminded Kaylin inexplicably of warm sun in autumn. Now, however, was not the time to think of sunlight, or warmth. It made her job difficult. Instead, Kaylin tried to remember what Ybelline had said about the lives of the Tha’alani who
could
serve time among the “deaf,” and by that, she had clearly meant humans. Kaylin’s kind. No, wait, one of the Dragons had said that.

The Tha’alani woman, Ybelline, had corrected him gently for his unkindness, although Kaylin hadn’t bothered to be kind first.

Ybelline had somehow made Kaylin feel comfortable and safe. Had taken memories from the sleeping child she and Severn had brought with them to the office – a child kidnapped by the undead, and almost sacrificed – sparing the child the waking experience of the Tha’alani mind-touch. Holding on to that memory, Kaylin did relax.

Until she was almost at the records mirror itself, and the Tha’alani rose.

He was older than any Tha’alani she had ever met, although he was by no means as aged as Evanton; his hair, which had looked gray, was gray, and his face was lined with age, with sun and wind. His eyes were slate-gray, not a friendly color, and his lips were thin and pale.

And the disturbing stalks on his forehead were weaving in and out among themselves, as if it were the only way he knew how to fidget. It came to Kaylin as she watched them warily that he was, in fact, fidgeting.

Had she ever noticed this before?

Did they all do this?

There was no Hawk on his robes, no official sign. She wondered if he was always in this office, or if he was only here on this particular shift. Wondered, with just a faint edge of hysteria to sharpen the humor, what he’d done to deserve it, if he was.

But he
bowed
to her, and by this, she knew two things: that he’d risen because she approached him, and only because of that, and that he’d been somehow waiting for
her.
It didn’t make her comfortable. For perhaps the first time she noticed, as he rose, the deepening lines around his mouth, the slight thinning of his lips. As a thirteen-year-old girl, she had thought it a cruel expression, and that had left scars in her memory that had been slow to heal.

Now… she thought, as objectively as she could – and given she was Kaylin that was hard – that it might be a grimace of pain. And she felt, mingled with her own very visceral revulsion, a twinge of sympathy for a total stranger.

She tried very hard not to notice the way his stalks were swaying. But she
did
notice; they were swaying to and fro, but almost seemed to be shying away. From her. From, she realized, her revulsion.

She swallowed. Composed herself – as much as that was possible. “Private Kaylin Neya,” she said, introducing herself. She did not offer him her hand, and he did not extend his own.

“I am called Draalzyn, by my people.” The word was broken by an unexpected syllable. The Tha’alani had a language that Kaylin had never bothered to learn because as far as she could tell it contained no colorful – which is to say useful – words. It, in fact, seemed to be free of most words; when Tha’alani conversed, they conversed in silence, and only their hands and their stalks seemed to move. They also touched each other too much.

And she was projecting again. She could see that clearly by the subtle shift of his expression. She wanted to tell the bastard to keep away from her thoughts. It was her first reaction.

But a second reaction followed swiftly. She knew she was the proverbial open book; how often in her life had Severn just glanced at her face and known what it was that was bothering her? She’d never bothered to count. Probably couldn’t count that high unless it involved a wager.

And the second thought, the Tha’alani almost seemed to sense, for his expression grew slightly less severe.

“Private,” Draalzyn said quietly, “I hoped to see you at some point in time.”

“I work inside.”

He nodded. He knew where she worked; that much was clear to her. He seemed to have trouble speaking; he opened his mouth several times, as if searching for words. Or, as if he’d found them, and discarded them as useless.

She waited, eyeing the mirror, and catching a reflected glimpse of Severn as he ran interference. It wouldn’t last.

At last the Tha’alani said, “Ybelline asked me to carry a message to you, if our paths should cross.”

Ybelline. The one Tha’alani Kaylin had met that she had
almost
liked.

“Why me?” Unlike Draalzyn, Kaylin rarely bothered to stop the words that first came to mind from falling out of her mouth. But she remembered this honey-haired woman so clearly she felt almost – almost – protective of her. She had been so gentle with Catti, an orphan, as unwanted by the world at large as Kaylin had been at her age.

“She believed you could be of assistance to us,” he replied quietly. “And the matter is of some urgency.” He paused, and she realized that the pallor of his face was probably unnatural. He was
worried
. Or frightened. Or both.

“What’s happened?”

“If you would come to her dwelling in the enclave – or if you would choose a meeting place that is not so crowded in the city itself, she will explain.”

Kaylin nodded.

And the Tha’alani seemed to relax; his shoulders slumped a little in the folds of his robe, as if he had been expecting something else.

Fair enough. Had it been any other Tha’alani, any at all, Kaylin would have refused. Or worse.

“She is willing, of course, to promise that there will be no intrusion, and nothing will be taken from you without – ”

Kaylin lifted a hand. “I know the drill,” she said, “and you don’t have to repeat it. I – trust her. And I don’t have
time,
” she added bitterly, looking again at the mirror’s surface, and at Mallory.

“You wish to access records without interference?” he asked. As if he had read her – no, she told herself forcefully. It was bloody obvious he had. You’d have to be blind
and
stupid not to recognize the fact.

“Yes.”

“You are looking for?”

She stopped. Looked at him, truly looked at him, as if seeing him for the first time. The Tha’alani worked in this office for a
reason
. But –

The image of a bruised child’s face rose up before her eyes, captured in water’s depths. It was so strong, so clear, that she couldn’t shake it. It was more concrete in that moment than the rest of the office.

The man waited.

She noted this, her Hawk’s training in place. And she knew as well that all
real
images that went into records, any real information, would come, in the end, through him or his kin.

“You know what’s in the records?”

“Not all of it,” he began.

“The recent reports. You might know if someone came in looking for a missing girl.”

“Of what age?” His eyes seemed to glaze over, as if he were a living embodiment of what the records contained, and he was accessing the data.

“Nine, maybe ten. Scraggly dark hair, dark eyes. Pale skin. Poor family, I think.”

“How long would she be considered missing?”

“I… don’t know. More than two days.” Maybe, given her condition, many more.

He was still frowning.

And Kaylin clenched her jaw tightly, stepped forward toward him, and, lifting her hands, drew her hair from her forehead. She was shaking. But the girl’s image was strong enough.

“You know this child?” he asked, understanding exactly what she offered.

“No. But I’ve seen her once.”

“And you are willing – ” But he stopped. He was, by law, required to give her a long speech full of unreassuring reassurances.

None of which she had time for. He did her the courtesy of not failing to read this clearly, and held her gaze for just that little bit longer than required. She didn’t blink.

His forehead stalks began to elongate, to thin, as they moved toward her exposed skin.

“Don’t touch the mark,” she warned him.

“Ah,” he replied. “No. I will not.”

And they were feathery, those stalks, like the brush of fingertips against forehead. He did not touch her face with his hands, did nothing to hold her in place. In every way, this was unlike the first time she had submitted to the Tha’alani. But this was an act of choice.

And if he saw more than she wanted him to see, what of it? It made her squirm, the fear of exposure, and she balanced that fear – as she so often did – with the greater fear: the child’s bruised face. The frustration, anger and, yes, pride and joy that she felt just being deemed worthy to bear the Hawk. The fear of failing what that meant, all that that entailed.

The Tha’alani stalks were pale and trembling, as if in a breeze, but they lingered a long time against her skin, although she did not relive any memories but the memory of the water, its dark, dark depths, and the emergence of that strange child’s face.

Then he withdrew, and he offered her a half-bow. He rose quickly, however, dispensing courtesy as required, and with sincerity, but no more. “I better understand Ybelline’s odd request,” he told her quietly. “And I do not know if what I tell you will give you comfort or grief, but no such child has been reported missing. There is no image of her in the records.

“But go, and speak with Ybelline, Private Neya. I fear that your partner is about to lose his composure.” He bent to his desk, and wrote something carefully in bold, neat Barrani lettering. An address.

“And you’ve never hit him?” Severn asked, as they left the crowded courtyard behind in the growing shadows of afternoon.

“No. He and Marcus have history. I couldn’t find where Mallory’d buried the skeletons in his closet, so it didn’t seem wise. Marcus, in case you hadn’t noticed, has a bit of a temper.”

Severn’s dark brow rose slightly. “Wise? You
have
grown.” He paused and added, “He probably doesn’t have them in his closet – he probably has them neatly categorized by bone type in his filing cabinets.”

Kaylin snickered. “You feel like a long walk?”

“Was that rhetorical?”

“No. Whatever that means. We can walk, or we can hail a cab.”

“Given the pocket change you have for the next few days, we’ll walk.”

“Ha-ha.”

“But I wouldn’t mind knowing where we’re going.”

She frowned. “I know where I’m going.”

“You know where you want to be,” he replied.

“I know the city, Severn.”

He shrugged. “I’ve been led to understand that you know every inch of every beat you’ve ever covered.”

“And your point is?”

“Let’s just say I take Sergeant Kassan’s warnings seriously – and I have my doubts that you’ve covered this beat much.”

“Why?”

“You’re walking toward the moneyed part of town.”

She shrugged. It was true. Marcus said that she could make dress uniform look grungy when it had just left the hands of the Quartermaster. You needed a certain bearing to police this section of town, and Kaylin had its opposite. Whatever that was.

Kaylin’s unerring sense of non-direction added about an hour to their travel time. She cursed whomever had built the streets in gutteral Leontine, and the fifth time she did this, Severn let out a long sigh and held out his hand, palm up.

She shoved the address into it. “Don’t even think of saying it.”

He did her the grace of keeping laughter off his face, but his brows rose as he read the address. “You’re going
there?
”

“Yes,” she said tersely. Followed by, “How the hell do you know where it is?”

“I know Elantra, Kaylin. All of it that’s in records. I know the historical shape of the streets, the newer sections, the oldest parts of the town. I’m familiar with the wharves, and the quarters given to the Caste Lords of each of the racial enclaves.

“I’m less familiar with the southern stretch,” he added. He would be. That was where the Aerians lived. “The Wolves seldom run there.”

Of course. He was a Wolf. A Wolf in Hawk’s clothing. “Lead on,” she said quietly. “And yes, I’m going voluntarily.”