Cast In Flight. Michelle Sagara

way or another, they would. She nodded grimly. “Aerians are trying to assassinate Moran because they want someone else to be born with those wings.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

      “Her birth was a grave disappointment,” Lillias agreed, staring into her tea as if she were reading leaves and not much enjoying what she found there. “She was not, originally, Carafel. Her mother, and her mother’s line, lived in the outer Aeries, beneath open sky. We have a saying in the Aerie—” She stopped. Shook her head. “Her mother was adopted into dar Carafel—and even that was bitterly divisive.”

      “Her father?”

      Lillias grimaced. “The child was not legitimate. Were it not for the wings, nothing would be known of the father.”

      “And because of the wings?”

      “It was proof that he was of the first families. No one came forward to claim either the mother or her daughter as their own, and the mother never revealed the father’s identity. There is prestige, of course, in bearing such a child, or there should have been. The mothers of such children are accorded respect in great measure; there is no equivalent in human society. But the child was illegitimate. Either the father perished, or the father was mated, bonded—or both.”

      “Wouldn’t this also elevate the father?”

      “Yes. But not if the father was bonded—married?—to another.”

      Evanton nodded.

      “If he was of the high clans, and he was married, it would be a disgrace. It is possible Moran’s father is alive and well. It is possible he is dead. It is also possible that he would have been free to marry her when evidence of the child’s importance was known.”

      “You don’t believe that.”

      “No. Moran did not have a happy childhood. Her mother withered in the confines of the High Reach, treated with the contempt reserved for an unbonded mother in the upper reaches, and when she finally passed away, the child was returned—for a time—to her grandmother’s care. It is there that she was happiest.”

      Kaylin nodded.

      “She could fly,” the woman’s voice softened. “You have never seen her truly fly.”

      Kaylin could remember seeing Moran fly only once—but even so, it was a blur; Kaylin had been on the back of a Dragon at the time, and she’d been watching large chunks of the High Streets turn into molten rock. She’d been watching Aerians falling from the sky. Some would never rise again.

      She shook herself. “No,” she said. “I’ve never seen her fly.” It wasn’t even really a lie. She had never seen her happy, either—but she’d imagined that, as a sergeant, happiness had somehow magically been drained from her; Kaylin didn’t know any happy sergeants.

      This was different. The silence that fell after her comment was heavy, weighted; it destroyed all movement at the table, and all sound. Kaylin dragged her head around to meet Evanton’s gaze, because it was Kaylin, not Lillias, that he was watching.

      “Why did you want to see me?” she asked him.

      “Because Lillias needed to speak with you.”

      “You said she asked you to make something?”

      “No, Kaylin, I did not.” His frown was pure Evanton—well, pure Evanton when he was displeased with poor Grethan. He exhaled. “Lillias?”

      “She is not of the people,” Lillias mumbled.

      “No, she is not. But technically, neither are you.”

      Kaylin sucked in air. Sucked it in and had trouble expelling it again. Evanton’s voice had been, was, gentle. But the words...

      “Can I ask why you were made outcaste?” She cringed even as the words left her mouth. “No, I’m sorry, let me take that back? Can I ask if it had something to do with Moran?” The woman was older than Moran, even given the age that despair and desolation added to her features.

      “Yes.”

      “Have you spoken to Moran since?”

      Silence.

      Mandoran had said that he had seen wings during the failed assassination. Lillias clearly didn’t have any. Whoever the assassin had been, it wasn’t her.

      “How much danger is Moran in?”

      Evanton clearly considered this a stupid question.

      “More danger,” Lillias replied, “than you can imagine. The Keeper told me that you were responsible for her survival this morning.”

      “Not me,” Kaylin said. “She survived because of my familiar and a Dragon.”

      Lillias frowned and turned to Evanton. In Aerian, she asked, “Is this true? Is there a Dragon involved?”

      Kaylin answered before Evanton could. In Aerian. “Yes. It’s true.”

      The woman’s eyes were already as blue as they could get, so they didn’t darken. Her skin did; it flushed. It occurred to Kaylin that the elderly seldom blushed.

      “I’m a Hawk,” Kaylin said gently, although she was wearing a tabard that clearly marked her as such. “We’ve got a lot of Aerians working in the Halls, and I joined the Halls when I was a child. My Aerian isn’t great, but I can speak it. I’m sorry.” Keeping her voice gentle, she asked, “What did you ask Evanton to make?”

      The woman’s hesitation was sharp, filled with questions or doubts or both. But she eventually bowed her head and said a word, in Aerian, that Kaylin had never heard before. “Bletsian.”

      “I’m sorry—I’m not familiar with that word.”

      “No, you wouldn’t be,” Evanton said. “Neither would the majority of the Aerian Hawks. It is an old word. The Dragons would be familiar with it.” He frowned. “Or at least the Arkon would.”

      “It’s magical?”

      “Yes. Before you look askance, you have two enchanted daggers on your person. Not all magic is of the Arcanist variety, as you should well know.”

      Kaylin, still frowning, turned to Lillias. “Why would you come to Evanton for magic?”

      “Why did you?” Evanton countered.

      “Teela made me. I would never have known otherwise, given the location of your shop.”

      “Margot,” Evanton said, pinpointing the chief source of Kaylin’s dislike, “is not entirely a fraud.”

      “We’re not talking about Margot.”

      “No. I merely point out that your dislike of her—while possibly deserved—does her an injustice. It is possible to be both genuine and distasteful.”

      “Most of what she does—”

      “Is fraud, yes. But not all. And, Kaylin? Where else would she be safe to practice her gift? She is in the open here.”

      “Look—”

      “She is not confined to the Oracular Halls. Or worse.”

      Kaylin closed her mouth. “We weren’t talking about Margot.”

      “No. You were implying that nothing genuine is known to be found in Elani.”

      “Baldness cures? Come on, Evanton.”

      “Elani, very much like any other neighborhood, is not all one thing or the other. I, after all, am here. And it is to me Lillias came.”

      Lillias was listening to this conversation with obvious confusion. “Where else would I go?”

      “Private Neya feels you should have approached either the Imperial Order or the Arcanum.”

      “Kaylin