Cast in Peril. Michelle Sagara

jaws to exhale. The motion was that of a dragon in miniature, but what he exhaled, along with his high-pitched, barely audible roar, was not a gout of flame; it was smoke.

      Opalescent, swirling gray spread like a dense cloud before Nightshade; it was amorphous enough—barely—that Kaylin could see the rise of the fieflord’s brows, the widening of his eyes. He moved—he leapt—to the left, rolling across the floor and coming to his feet as if he were an acrobat.

      The dense smoke didn’t follow him, but it didn’t really dissipate, either; it hung in the air like a small cloud. A small, glittering cloud. They both stared at the small dragon, who pirouetted in the air, which was the only time he took his eyes off the fieflord.

      Nightshade spoke three sharp words; the hair on the back of Kaylin’s neck instantly stood on end, and the skin across her forearms and legs went numb. The small dragon yawned and returned to his customary perch, which would be her rigid shoulders. He rubbed her cheek with the side of his face.

      Three lines appeared beneath the cloud, pulsing as if they were exposed golden veins. Nightshade spread his hands; his fingers were taut but steady. His eyes were a blue that was so close to black Kaylin couldn’t tell the difference. All her anger—her visceral, instinctive rage—guttered. The whole of his attention was focused on the cloud, and as he moved his hands, the lines that enclosed it shifted in place, until they touched its outer edge. When they did, their color began to change. It was a slow shift from gold to something that resembled the heart of a hearth fire.

      Nightshade spoke softly in Barrani; the words were so low Kaylin couldn’t catch them. The magical lines engraved in air brightened, losing their red-orange tint.

      “What is it?” she asked, her voice almost as low as his. Barrani had better hearing.

      “Step away from the containment,” he told her. “If you do not know what it is, I have some suspicion. It is not safe, not even in the Castle.” Although he spoke to her, he didn’t take his eyes off the cloud. Not even when the small dragon squawked. “You are mortal,” he continued. “Mortals walk the edge of hope; it is a sharp edge.

      “The question you came to ask has only one answer—an answer you knew before you arrived. Would it truly have offered any comfort were I to lie? Or would your hope blind you so badly you might choose to believe?”

      She was silent.

      As if he were Sanabalis, he said, “What purpose would such a lie serve?”

      “I don’t know. Reputation. Community standing. Tact—the desire not to hurt someone else’s feelings.”

      He frowned.

      “Yes, they’re mortal terms, but I’ve noted that absent big words, there are certain similarities.”

      “If I chose to lie to you now, how would you categorize that decision? I am not afraid of you, Kaylin. There may come a time,” he added, his glance flicking off the small dragon on her shoulders, “when fear would be the appropriate response, but I cannot see it. Your judgment of me, should you choose one, is irrelevant. Your feelings—ah, that is a more complicated issue, but I will not lower myself to live in such a way as to assuage your fear or your guilt.

      “Let me make this much clear: you are valuable to me. You. It is not because you are mortal; your mortality does not, by extension, make the residents of this fief valuable in the same way. Nor will it. I am not beholden to Imperial Law, and I do not choose to indulge in its outward appearance at this time; it serves no useful purpose.”

      “And if it did?”

      “I would acquiesce, as the High Court does. But it would not change in any material way what I feel, either for you or for the mortals you mistakenly assume are your kind. Such feelings, such…interactions…are a matter of necessity; if the weak congregate, they have some hope of survival.”

      Kaylin was silent for a long moment. When she once again met his gaze, she held it. “Tell me why,” she said, her voice heavy but steady. “Why did they buy your people?”

      “I am not at liberty to discuss that,” he replied. “And as there is no answer I can give you that will excuse the action in your eyes, I am not of a mind to do so, regardless.”

      * * *

      Kaylin’s walk back to the Ablayne was swift and silent.

      Chapter 7

      Marcus, seated behind a stack of paperwork that made him look smaller, looked up the minute she crossed the threshold that divided Hawks from Halls. His eyes were a pale orange, and given the past week, that was good. His ears flattened as she hesitated.

      “Do not tell me that you’re handing me more work,” he said, wedging a growl between every other syllable.

      “Not exactly. I went to Tiamaris.”

      “The Missing Persons report?”

      She nodded. “According to Tiamaris, Miccha Jannoson, reported missing today, crossed the Ablayne by bridge. He disappeared a few blocks from that bridge.”

      “Disappeared?”

      Kaylin hesitated, casting a meaningful glance at stacks of paperwork that weren’t in any danger of getting smaller in the near future.

      Marcus growled. This caught the attention of the Barrani Hawks; as Sergeant sounds went, growling was generally quiet. The wrong kind of quiet. “What happened? According to the Hawklord, a request for Records access has arrived from the Imperial Palace.”

      “The Palace doesn’t need permission.”

      “In this case, it does; the request has been tendered by a member of the Dragon Court, but involves access outside Imperial boundaries.”

      “We believe—and we have very little in the way of solid proof, Sergeant—that a Barrani Lord is responsible for the disappearance.”

      Someone whistled. It wasn’t Marcus; it was Teela. She approached the sergeant’s desk with care. “What very little proof do you have?” She wasn’t particularly offended. Two decades of service with the Hawks made Kaylin’s claim reasonable on the surface; the Barrani were often peripherally involved in crimes investigated by the Hawks.

      Very few of them were Lords. Kaylin turned to Teela. “I saw him.”

      “You saw him grab the child?”

      “Miccha wasn’t a child, strictly speaking.”

      Teela generally considered most mortals children when she was in a mood. “Answer the question.”

      “No. Not that one.”

      This caused Marcus’s growl to deepen, and Kaylin surrendered. “Tiamaris has been monitoring his fief carefully this past week; Miccha isn’t the only person who’s disappeared—without an obvious trace—in the boundaries of his fief. The reason he noticed Miccha at all is because of the increased surveillance.

      “While we were examining the fief’s internal Records, Tara caught something unusual; one of the citizens of Tiamaris appeared to be having a casual conversation with thin air as he approached the border between Tiamaris and Nightshade. The people who’ve disappeared have done so without struggle or obvious panic, and if someone’s going to voluntarily sneak across a fief border, it’s always going to be the one that’s between the fief and the rest of Elantra.”

      Marcus’s brows rose. They lowered again without comment.

      “The Barrani Lord,” Kaylin said, still watching Marcus, “appeared only when the citizen in question had crossed into the border zone. I didn’t recognize him,” she added. “But I would bet money he’s an Arcanist.”

      That caused a different kind of quiet. “What,” Teela finally said, “did he do to cause that assumption?”

      “The usual.”

      “And that?”