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“If you’d blocked the way you said you could, he wouldn’t have broken your arm. And you didn’t, that I recall, lie about your abilities again after that. Don’t make that face. It healed quickly enough,” Teela pointed out. “You came to the Hawks as a fledgling. You’ve made this job your life.”
Kaylin tensed slightly, waiting for the rest. But she was surprised at where the conversation now went. She shouldn’t have been; she’d seen Teela drive, after all, and she knew what Teela’s steering was like. Unpredictable was probably the kindest thing she could call it.
“I came to the Hawks from the High Halls. It wasn’t considered upward mobility,” she added with a grimace, “and it wasn’t exactly peaceful.”
“You didn’t break any laws before you joined.”
“How would you know? You spent a couple of days in the High Halls, under the watchful eye of the Lord of the West March. I spent my life there. I underwent the test of Name. I lived in the Court.” She lifted her mug and drank wine as if it were water—and she was parched. “The Caste Laws apply in the High Court.”
“Teela—”
“Hush. Hear me out.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Teela glanced at Severn. Kaylin, who had always been curious about Teela’s life—about all of the Barrani Hawks, if it came to that—didn’t. But it took effort.
“Caste Law applies in the High Court,” Tain said. He waved at the barkeep, his mug empty. “Fief Law applies in the fiefs. The two are not entirely dissimilar.”
“They’re completely different.”
“No, they’re not.”
“You’ve never lived in the fiefs.”
“And you,” he said pointedly, “have never lived in the High Halls without the title Lord.”
She considered this quietly. Teela nudged her drink, and Kaylin said, “I’m not going to finish it, if you want it.” This earned her a brief grimace and a kick under the table.
“You’ve met my cousin,” Teela said, picking up the reins of the conversation again.
“As far as I can tell, half the High Court is related to you.”
“Not half.”
“Which cousin?” Kaylin asked. She wasn’t being disingenuous; she honestly had no idea.
“Evarrim.”
“Ugh.” Evarrim was an Arcanist. Arcanists, as far as Kaylin was concerned, were slightly lower on the decency scale than drug dealers. She didn’t understand why the Emperor tolerated them; he had his own mages, after all, and at least half of the Wolves’ hunts had been former Arcanists.
Tain waved the bartender over again.
“His mother was blessed with five children over the course of her marriage. Evarrim is the last one left standing. It was noted, of course.”
“What—he killed the others?” Kaylin grimaced. She’d meant it as a joke, but it had fallen flat even before Teela nodded.
“Teela—”
“If Evarrim hadn’t been the sole survivor, one of the others would have. He was canny enough, and powerful enough, to beat them at their own game. I played Court games,” she said quietly. “I also survived. Do you understand?”
After a moment of silence, Kaylin nodded.
“But even survival can become boring after a while.”
“You joined the Hawks because you were bored?”
Tain said, “No.”
“Then—then why?”
“Because she did not trust me,” he replied, “not to dare the Tower and take the test of Name.”
Kaylin stared at them both, and then turned to Severn. “If this is your idea of cheering me up, you need better ideas.”
He shrugged, but did grimace. “With the Barrani, you take whatever they offer.”
“No, with the Barrani, you don’t ask.” But she took a swig of the wine, and glanced at Tain.
“What she was trying to say,” he told Kaylin, “is that it doesn’t matter. What she did in pursuit of survival would probably give you ulcers, and she isn’t about to recount it all—it would take two months.”
“Three,” Teela drawled.
Tain rolled his very attractive eyes. Although he was serious—which seldom happened—those eyes were a shade of deep green; what he said was fact, not dirty secret. “What we did in the High Courts, we don’t do in the Imperial City. We uphold the Emperor’s law. We generally find it amusing,” he added, with a nod in Teela’s direction. “It’s certainly less formal; it’s usually less dangerous.” He said the last with a tinge of regret. “The laws that defined our lives there, and that define Teela’s life when she is called to Court, aren’t the same.
“Although we have better drink,” he added.
It was true. Kaylin looked up as food joined drink on the pocked table. It was some sort of cubed chicken with rice, potatoes and—ugh—little peas.
“I do not understand your people’s obsession with potatoes,” Teela said, her nose wrinkling in mild—for Teela—distaste. It wasn’t the first time she’d said it, and no doubt it wouldn’t be the last, but it was oddly comforting.
“The High Court is no longer my home. And the fiefs,” she added pointedly, “are no longer yours. Understood?”
“You think I’d go back there? Do I look stupid?”
“Generally,” Tain said helpfully. “Look, if they try to blackmail you, ignore it.” At Kaylin’s sudden tightening of expression, he rolled his eyes. “It’s completely obvious that’s what you’re afraid of. You can read it in your face a mile off. And you’re probably right,” he added with a shrug. “They’ll try, if they know where you are.”
They did, and that fact had bothered Kaylin almost as much as seeing Morse again. They had known where she would be, and with enough notice that they could find Billington, pay him to stir up a bit of trouble, break a window and time both things so that they’d catch her attention. If someone in the office was feeding information to the fieflord of Barren, it was more than simple trouble. If someone wasn’t feeding information to Barren, it was worse: it meant Barren had some way of looking into the Halls of Law that no one had yet noticed. Neither of these things were good.
But she hadn’t gone back to the office to talk with Marcus; she hadn’t even tried to point it out. It was what she damn well should have done. But had she, she’d have to answer questions. She wasn’t quite up to that, tonight.
“You can laugh in their face if it helps. I generally find breaking things attached to them more helpful, but you’ve been known to be squeamish, on occasion. On the other hand—”
“Shut up, Tain.”
“—you’ve also been known to—”
Teela elbowed him, hard. He did stop talking, but he turned a blue-eyed and murderous glare on his partner; her own eyes had shaded dark, but she was smiling.
“All right,” Severn whispered. “You win. This was ill-advised.”
And that did make Kaylin feel a bit better.
They did not, as it turned out, end up dead drunk. An attempt to insult the barkeeper fell so totally flat Kaylin wondered if he was deaf. On the other hand, neither Teela nor Tain had worked themselves into that dangerous state the Barrani called boredom. They were, Kaylin realized, genuinely worried about her.
And given that they were Barrani, they might continue to do so when they knew what she’d done. If they ever knew.
“I was in Barren for six months,” she told them. She hadn’t intended to say it; it had just fallen out of her mouth. She set her cup aside.
“You were in Nightshade,” Teela pointed out, “for thirteen years.”
“Barren was different,” she said quietly.
“Why?”
“It was—it was just different.”
“Find out what they want, Kaylin,” Tain told her quietly. “Or we will.” He nodded in Teela’s direction.
“You can’t just walk into Barren and demand answers.”
“We can try. I’ve never been into the fiefs,” he added, “but Teela used to head there when she was bored.”
“She went to Barren when she was bored?” Kaylin could have sounded more appalled if she’d really worked at it—but not by much.
“Not just Barren,” Teela added, grinning broadly. The grin faded. “But the fiefs aren’t what they were when I was young. Find out what they want. Do not do anything stupid.”
Kaylin hesitated, and then reached into the folds of her tunic. When she withdrew her hand, it held the letter that Morse had given her. Funny, how it didn’t burn; it should have. “I wanted to keep this to myself,” she told them all: Severn, who hadn’t spoken a word, Teela, Tain. She especially did not want to talk to Marcus or Caitlin. She didn’t want to hear a word that someone out of department, like, say, Mallory, had to say. She just didn’t want to see the looks on their faces.
Teela shrugged. “Yes, that was obvious. And clearly your Corporal is willing to let you do that—but we’re not.”
Kaylin set the letter on the table, and picked up her mug. “You didn’t leave Tain behind,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“You came to the Hawks—you brought him with you. You didn’t leave him behind in the High Courts.”
Teela was silent for a moment, and the silence wasn’t punctuated by her slow grin. It was almost human. “No,” Teela said at last, “I didn’t. This person you met in Elani was a friend?”
“Maybe. A lot can change in seven years.”
“Remember that.”
Kaylin nodded, swallowing wine and something more bitter as she did. She picked up the letter, unfolded the paper and cringed before she’d read the first word. It was Barren’s handwriting. Maybe some things never changed.
Elianne,
I’ve been following your progress as I can—I admit it’s surprised me. You didn’t fall from the Tower, although the Hawklord’s still in it. You landed on your feet; he probably has no idea why you made your way out of the fiefs in the first place.
I know you didn’t like working for me; no one does. Doesn’t matter. You like working for the Hawklord, and I’m fine with that—everyone has to eat. But you probably want to keep on working across the river.
Working for the Law has its drawbacks. I don’t care what you are or what you’ve done—but the Law does. You know that.
The way I look at it, girl, you owe your life to me. You wouldn’t be where you are if I hadn’t sent you. And you probably can’t stay where you are, if they know why. I’ve got the information, and I can make your life very, very difficult without ever crossing a bridge.
But I’m not a malicious man. I’m a fieflord, and I aim to stay that way.
You’re going to help me, if the rumors are true. I’ll be generous. You’ve got three days before a small packet crosses the bridge in the hands of one of your old friends. In three days time, you can head it off at the bridge; if she sees you, she’ll bring you home, and the package will travel with you.
—Barren
She lifted the mug, drained it, choked enough to bring tears to her eyes. Then she handed the letter to Severn, in silence. Her hands were shaking.
He took it and set it down without reading it. “Kaylin—”
She picked it up again, and shoved it into his hands. This time, she met and held his gaze. “I tried to tell you,” she whispered.
“Yes. And I told you I didn’t care.”
“Care now. Just read the gods-cursed thing.”
A brief pause. Severn’s brief pause, in which she could imagine almost any thought, any concern and any anger. He ended it with a nod, and he turned his attention to the letter—but she felt it anyway. It didn’t take him long to read it, and when he’d finished, he set it down in the exact same place on the table.
“He was clever enough not to say anything at all.”
“Three days,” she replied.
“Are you two going to share that?” Teela asked, holding a hand out across the table.
“No.” Kaylin picked up the letter and folded it. “Teela, Tain—I’m almost grateful for tonight. But I don’t want you involved with Barren.”
The silence that followed this statement was exactly the wrong type of silence, coming as it did from Teela. When she broke it, her tone could have frozen water. Or blood. “And we’re somehow at more risk than a human Corporal?”
Severn’s brow rose, but he was smart enough not to answer.
“Severn trusts me enough that he’ll let me do what I feel I have to do,” was Kaylin’s very—very—careful reply. “You both think of me as if I’m still a thirteen-year-old mascot, trailing around under Marcus’s claws.”
“And that’s inaccurate how?”
“My point. You don’t trust me.”
“I trusted you,” Teela pointed out, each word sharp and staccato, “with the life of the Lord of the West March.”
“Yes—but he was as good as dead. You had nothing to lose.”
Severn caught Kaylin’s wrist. She met his stare dead-on, and after a moment, she grimaced. Without another word, she handed the letter to Teela, whose hand had conveniently not moved an inch.
“Honestly, Kaylin,” Teela said, taking it, “you make the biggest fuss about the littlest things. It’s such a human trait.”
