Cast In Secret. Michelle Sagara

he was right: it was not a smile she could even imagine on Epharim’s face.

      Ybelline was waiting for them in a garden that was both sedate and seemed, at first, very simple. She sat at a table in the open air, and there were empty chairs around it—two empty chairs. Kaylin bowed briskly; Severn’s bow was extended. But genuine. He obviously knew Ybelline, and Ybelline’s graceful nod implied that she remembered him. They’d met before. Maybe they’d even worked together. Seven years, Severn had lived a life that Kaylin knew nothing about.

      Did you see what I can’t see? she thought with a pang. Do you know what he won’t tell me?

      As if in answer, Ybelline turned to Kaylin. But her antennae were flat against the honeyed gold of her hair, and her eyes were dark, a color that sunlight didn’t seem to penetrate. Kaylin had seen that color before in Tha’alani, but she wasn’t certain what it meant.

      “Please,” Ybelline said, her voice rich and deep, but still slightly odd. “Be seated.”

      They both obeyed her easy request as if it weren’t a thinly veiled command—and Ybelline was so gracious, it might not have been. She offered them tea, and like the color of her hair it was warm and honeyed. Severn drank without pause, although Kaylin knew he didn’t particularly like sweet in beverages. Kaylin, on the other hand, thought they should be desserts.

      “What you did, Kaylin Neya, was good.”

      Kaylin was confused.

      “Ah, I meant with the son of Raseina. The boy. Epharim told me about it.” She did not smile as she spoke, but her tone conveyed gratitude. Which was odd. “You are fond of children,” she added, “and now, the collective knows this.”

      Collective?

      “The Tha’alaan,” Ybelline said, raising one brow. She looked at Severn, who was wincing. But she didn’t miss a beat, and her brow fell. “Your introduction to my kin was not a kind one. Perhaps not harsher than you deserved, but still, harrowing.”

      Kaylin nodded at both statements.

      “I have been gathering my own thoughts among my kin,” Ybelline continued, “and I would have conveyed what I felt in you the first time we met—but this was better. The child touched you—he is strong—and what he felt, the Tha’alaan felt. Your people believe in lies,” she added, “because they cannot hear truth.

      “But there is no lie in that affection, although you fear us.”

      “He’s a child—” Kaylin began.

      “He is, but he will not always be a child, and many of your kind would fear him for what he might see, or how they might affect him with their fear and their secrets, the things they cannot help but hide. Hiding didn’t occur to you when he ran toward you.”

      “It was a test?”

      “No. Not a planned test, but perhaps the gods are kind.”

      Kaylin had her doubts, and was aware that keeping them to herself around this woman was impossible. Then again, she generally didn’t keep that particular thought to herself, so no big loss.

      But Severn said, before she could continue down that path, “Why was this fortunate, Ybelline? Why would it have been necessary to make such a statement to the Tha’alaan?”

      Kaylin looked at Severn with surprise and a complete certainty that his question was actually one she should have been thinking.

      “Yes,” Severn said, not bothering to spare her because, well, Ybelline would probably hear it anyway, “it was. But where children are concerned, you seem to forget simple things like thinking.”

      Funny man. She thought about hitting him. Briefly.

      Ybelline’s stalks rose and fell, as if thought itself were too heavy. She was silent for a long while, staring at Kaylin, and at Severn. Then she rose, leaving the table behind, and turned her back on them. Even among humans, this would not have been considered a good sign.

      “You are very guarded,” Ybelline said to Severn. “And I choose to trust you without touching your inner thoughts.”

      “And Kaylin isn’t.”

      “No,” Ybelline said softly. “And I think she may have more that she feels needs to be hidden.”

      Severn said nothing.

      Kaylin froze for just a second. But Ybelline’s voice was so gentle, so free from censure, that the moment passed, and Kaylin let it go. She wanted to trust this woman. She had wanted to trust her the first time she’d laid eyes on her. Kaylin didn’t remember her mother very well—but something about Ybelline reminded her of that past. Never mind that the past was in the poverty of the fief of Nightshade.

      Ybelline lifted her arms, wrapped them around herself. Kaylin could see her fingers trembling in the still air, the warm sun. “We need you to help us,” she said quietly.

      With anything came to mind, but didn’t leave Kaylin’s lips. Of course, the fact that this didn’t matter occurred to her only after she’d successfully bit back the words; they were so loud.

      “One of our children is missing.”

      CHAPTER

      4

      Missing.

      The word was heavy. It opened between them like a chasm created by the breaking of earth in the aftermath of magic. Kaylin did not look at Severn, but she was aware that he was watching her. Not staring, not exactly, but aware of her reaction. She schooled her expression—a phrase she hated—with care, entirely for his benefit.

      “You haven’t reported her as missing.” Not a question.

      “No,” Ybelline said, and she almost shuddered. Did, although it was subtle, a ripple that passed through her and left her changed.

      “You don’t believe that she just wandered out of the quarter on her own.” Flat words.

      “No,” Ybelline replied.

      Which made sense. The young child Kaylin had so unselfconsciously lifted had had the attention of everyone in the street simply because he wanted it, and the adults were happy to indulge the simple desire of someone who was certain he was loved. Any child, Kaylin thought, would have that certainty, among the Tha’alani. She felt a pang as she thought of the orphans in the Foundling Halls, Marrin’s kits. They had never been certain of that.

      Kaylin stepped back, but not physically. She was a Hawk, and reminded herself that that was what she had chosen to be. And a Hawk asked questions, sought answers, sifted through facts. No matter how much they dreaded them.

      “What happened?” she asked, not bothering to hide that dread.

      Ybelline did not close her eyes as she turned back to them, and her eyes were dark. The color, Kaylin thought, of either sorrow or horror. She still wasn’t sure.

      “She was not at her home,” Ybelline began. “Understand that we have a … looser sense of home … than your kin. We are aware of where our children are, and we watch them, as a community. We listen for them. We hear their pain or their fear, and any one of us—any—will come to their rescue if rescue is required.

      “Mayalee is a wanderer,” she added. “A young explorer. And she is fond of night, and stars, and navigation. She is bold—” The words stopped for a moment. “She is afraid of very little. Not even heights or falling.

      “And none of our children—in the Tha’alaan—are afraid of strangers. We have no word for it,” she added, “that does not mean outsider. And no outsiders come here.”

      “You think one did.”

      “One must have,” Ybelline said bitterly. But something was not right, something about the words hinted at evasion. Kaylin looked at Severn to see if he had noticed, but