Moran, clearly unfamiliar with the small dragon, raised a brow but said nothing. Kaylin, however, shrieked.
“What are you doing?” She grabbed the familiar; his little jaws were a lot stronger than they appeared. He was attached to the bracelet, and he had no intention—at this specific moment—of letting go of it. He did squawk; the sound was even less impressive than it usually was, because his mouth was otherwise full.
Moran’s eyes, which had been a kind of Barrani blue, narrowed in mild confusion. “You think he’s going to harm it?”
“I’m sure that’s not what he means to do,” she said.
“Which means yes.”
“Which means his idea of harmful and our idea of harmful probably don’t really overlap much, yes.” To the familiar, she said, “Do not do anything to destroy this bracelet.”
Moran, however, seemed much more accepting of the general idea. “I didn’t take the bracelet. In theory, the dar Carafel still have it. If something happens to it—on their watch—it’s not going to reflect badly on me.” And she smiled. The smile had Leontine in it, absent the teeth.
“He’s not trying to destroy it, dear,” Helen’s disembodied voice added.
Moran didn’t even tense. She’d become accustomed to Helen—and Helen’s various intrusions—so quickly, it seemed natural. Or maybe it was just because she was mortal. Teela still found Helen uncomfortable. “Do you know what he’s trying to do?” the sergeant asked the empty air.
“I believe he’s examining it,” Helen replied.
“He can do that with his eyes.”
“Yes, in theory.”
“And in practice?”
“In practice, there’s something in the bracelet he’s not sure he likes.”
“Can you see it?”
“Not the same way, no.”
“Do you think it would be harmful to Moran to keep it?” Kaylin interjected.
“To keep it? No. To wear it? I’m less certain.”
“It doesn’t feel magical to me. I mean—I’m not breaking out in a rash. Or worse.”
“It is not, perhaps, magic of the kind that disturbs you. It is definitely magical in nature.”
“How?”
“It occupies more space than its physical dimensions suggest, for one.”
It didn’t feel particularly heavy. Or rather, it didn’t feel heavier than a bracelet of its size normally would. “Can you understand what he’s saying?”
“It’s a bit hard—his mouth is full.”
Moran was watching both Kaylin and her familiar, and listening to Helen’s careful, diplomatic concern. She smiled. The blue of her eyes faded to a normal Aerian gray.
“You didn’t want to wear the bracelet,” Helen said softly, “because you didn’t want to be praevolo.”
Moran exhaled heavily. After a long pause, in which water rippled only because Kaylin was moving her feet, she said, “I didn’t want to be their praevolo. I didn’t want to support the people who were responsible for the death of my family. I wasn’t willing to die for them, and I wasn’t strong enough to kill them. If I had worn the bracelet, I would be accepting them. I would be doing what they wanted.” She tilted her head back, closing her eyes. “I intend to live for as long as I possibly can. I don’t always enjoy my life—but the longer I live, the less likely it will be that an actual dar Carafel is born with the praevolo’s wings. I won’t be what they want. But I won’t help them get what they want by dying, either.”
“The praevolo does not, if I understand things correctly, exist strictly for the Caste Court. They exist for the entire race.”
“Helen, I’m not sure this is the right time,” Kaylin said.
Helen, however, did not agree. “Your mother and your grandmother did not abandon you intentionally.”
“Of course not.” Moran stiffened, and Kaylin surrendered. She lifted her feet out of the water, grabbed a nearby towel, glared at the familiar—who was still chewing what looked like gemmed metal—and dried herself off. This wasn’t a conversation she was supposed to be part of.
“They were murdered. They were murdered by Aerians.”
Socks. Shoes.
“But you are a Hawk, Moran. You’ve seen human murderers. You’ve seen executions. You’ve never decided that the human race—as a whole—is murderous and worthless because of them.”
“Helen, I really think this is not a conversation Moran wants to have right now.”
The familiar squawked.
“I’ve never said Aerians were worthless,” Moran countered. “I’ve never said the entire race is murderous.”
“No, you haven’t. But, dear—you’ve isolated yourself as if they were.”
To the familiar, Kaylin whispered, “Make her stop.”
“I have not—”
“Moran, you have. You tell yourself it is for their good. Their own good, I believe. You stay separate because you do not want them to become victims of political pressure, power. And perhaps that is even true now. But in the past? You’ve been a Hawk for longer than Kaylin has, and you have formed no friendships among your own kin.
“Perhaps it is safer for them. Unless Kaylin invites them to visit, I cannot say that with any certainty. But I think I can say that you believe it is safer for you. We make different choices for reasons of safety. But I will say this—because I do not believe you are aware of it, as Kaylin is. I chose to destroy large parts of myself in order to remain free to choose.
“I do not regret that decision. But I do not deceive myself. Those parts are gone. Lost. They are destroyed. And there are times, even now, when I feel that loss keenly. Perhaps you are more like me than Kaylin is. Perhaps you do not regret the things you have destroyed as an act of self-preservation. But mortals are not buildings.”
Moran was silent. Her eyes were blue, very blue. Any comfort she’d gained from the bath had been obliterated.
“No, dear,” Helen continued. “I understand exactly why you made the choices you did. They were, and are, your choices to make.”
“For now,” Moran replied. She looked across the room at Kaylin, who was very, very sorry that she hadn’t managed to leave Moran to her very private conversation with a building that really didn’t understand the concept of privacy at a visceral level. To the familiar, Moran said, “Give me the bracelet.” Her voice was like steel. Sharpened steel.
The familiar looked up at Kaylin.
Kaylin wanted to ask him if it was safe, but didn’t. She reminded herself that safety was the illusion and the dream. Instead, she said, “Give me your wing for a sec.”
The familiar lifted his wing—without smacking her face with it. To her eyes, the bracelet looked the same through the wing. She saw no trace of Shadow in or around it. She had no idea what the familiar had been trying to eat or chew at, but it didn’t matter anyway. Moran had spoken in her sergeant voice.
She handed Moran the bracelet.
Moran put it on.
Kaylin could hear it snap shut; the sound echoed off the stones of the open-air spring. But her skin didn’t ache. The marks didn’t begin to glow. Moran didn’t transform. She was a naked Aerian woman, partially submerged in hot water, the edges of her hair wet, her eyes a striking blue. And she was wearing an old, colorful bracelet.
“I hope it’s waterproof,” Kaylin said. She waited before adding, “Do you feel any different?”
The Aerian sergeant deflated. “No.”
“Sometimes,” Helen said quietly, “regalia is just that. All of its power resides in the symbolism. I am sorry,” she added.
“You’ve made a home for me that I thought I’d never see again,” Moran replied. “You’ve kept me safe. You’ve told me nothing but truth. You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”
“It’s not considered good manners to tell people truths they haven’t asked to hear.”
Moran’s smile was brief, but genuine. “No, it isn’t. But you’re Kaylin’s home, and while Kaylin is valued for many things, good manners aren’t one of them.”
“My manners are better than they used to be,” Kaylin protested.
“Vastly better,” Moran agreed. She stood. Water ran instantly off her wings, but the rest of her required towels. Helen didn’t magically appear to hand them to her, but Kaylin was closer, and did.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to sleep,” Moran replied. “And then I’m going to wake up, eat breakfast, and go to the Halls in the morning.”
“You’re certain? You said you were taking a leave—”
“I’ve changed my mind.” She grimaced as if at old pain. “Helen is probably right. About me. About how I feel about my own people.”
“And dinner?”
The Aerian Hawk winced. “I’ll come to dinner, if the Emperor allows it.”
“He said it was a casual meal—”
“The Imperial version of casual was out of my reach when I was growing up. And angry Aerians have nothing on angry Dragons.”
* * *
Kaylin did not sleep well. The familiar spent the entire night nattering in his sleep—and smacking Kaylin in the face with his wings. And his tail. The fourth time she woke up, she considered opening a window and dropping him out of it.
Helen considered that idea to be unwise and unkind.
“If I haven’t done it yet, I’m not likely to start—but we all have to have daydreams.”
She woke, dressed, checked to make certain there were no emergency mirror messages waiting in Helen’s queue, and headed down the stairs. She remembered, halfway down, that she was still in possession of the blessing of air, and forgot it again five steps later.
Annarion was shouting.
Had he been shouting at Mandoran, she would have grimaced, massaged her temples—she was working on a headache—and continued toward the breakfast room. Unfortunately, the voice that returned that shout in both volume and length was not Mandoran’s.
“No, dear,” Helen said, her voice more subdued than usual. “Lord Nightshade is here.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were trying to sleep, and I didn’t want to add to the interruptions.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard Nightshade shout like that.”
“No, probably not. Let me do something about that.”
“Short of throwing them both out, or shutting them in the training rooms—I’m assuming that’s not where they are—I’m not sure you can. They’re almost as loud as Dragons.” And about as safe, Kaylin thought. “I can’t actually understand them.”
“No, dear. I can’t completely diminish the volume, but I am trying to give them some privacy.”
* * *
Bellusdeo looked about as amused at the shouting as Kaylin felt. “You look terrible,” she said when Kaylin entered the dining room.
“I look better than I feel. Have they been shouting like that for long?”
“No. That just started. When I regret my lack of family,” she added, somewhat sourly, “I remind myself that there are some things I don’t miss.”
“You had fights like this with your sisters?”
“I had worse fights with my sisters, if you must know. We were younger, and Dragons are not famously restrained when they lose their tempers.”
“But you were mostly human.”
“I’ll thank you never to repeat that. But I will then add that the elders don’t interfere much with children’s fights if they’re female children. The possible damage is so insignificant it doesn’t warrant constant supervision. That, and they generally have their hands full with the rest of the clutch because the males can cause irreparable damage when they lose it.”
“I don’t think that’s good parenting,” Kaylin replied.
Golden brows rose. “Our concept of parenting is not yours. In the old days, it was considered perfectly reasonable to let clutch-mates murder each other in fits of aggression and rage. It thinned out the weak.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
“She’s not joking,” Mandoran added. He entered the dining hall and draped himself across the table, after first dropping his butt into the nearest chair.
“And Barrani parenting?”
“More careful—but our next generations weren’t born in clutches. Or very often.” He grimaced as he glanced at Bellusdeo. “However, our ‘more careful’ wouldn’t pass your parenting muster, either. Remember why you met us. The cull-the-weak mentality exists everywhere in the immortal world.” His eyes fell to breakfast with clear distaste. “They’ve been talking for a couple of hours.”
“What are they fighting about?”
“Initially?”
Kaylin nodded.
“Kaylin, dear, they are allowed some privacy—”
“Which one of us never gets,” Mandoran snapped. “Annarion told his brother that he’s going to take the Test of Name in the High Halls.”
Kaylin, whose appetite had already been severely compromised, joined Mandoran in his contemplation of breakfast. “Has he lost his mind?”
“Funny, that’s what Nightshade said.”
“Was that the shouting part?”
“No—that came later.”
“Do I want to know?”
“Yes, obviously. You just want it to be a big misunderstanding that will resolve itself with mortal-style hugs and kisses.”
This was true. Kaylin flushed. “I know that Nightshade spent a lot of years searching for a way to find—and free—his brother. I don’t understand him. He seems very Barrani in other ways, except for the outcaste part. But if he cares about anything outside of himself, it’s his family.”
“No,” Mandoran replied, picking up a fork as if it weighed more than his entire arm. “It’s his brother. He considered the rest of his family responsible for Annarion’s loss. He did not, and would not, forgive.”
“That’s why they’re fighting.”
“More or less. Annarion is not outcaste. He is considered Barrani, inasmuch as that’s possible for any of us anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
It was Bellusdeo who answered, which surprised Mandoran, judging from his expression as he turned to stare at the Dragon. “Dragons, Barrani, almost any person of any race who is considered to be a power, hate to admit that they’ve made mistakes. They will avoid referring to their mistakes—because of course, anyone who lives and breathes makes them—with a determination that might seem stupid, when seen from the outside.
“Annarion is therefore considered Barrani—and only Barrani—in every legal way by his Caste Court. The Barrani Caste Court is somewhat elastic; it is political. Barrani outcaste lords have been repatriated, historically, with a change of leadership.”
“Not often,” Mandoran said, frowning.
“More often than Dragon outcastes.”
Mandoran shrugged. Obviously he believed her statement was both true and irrelevant.
“Annarion is not, as you are well aware, what the rest of the Barrani are. He has to struggle to retain even his shape. He’s willing to make that effort. The polite fiction is that he has returned. Because he has—and I’m sure Mandoran will correct me if I’m mistaken—he is a legitimate member of his family line. He cannot hold or take it back if he is not a Lord of the High Court. He cannot be Lord of the High Court—”
“Without taking the Test of Name.”
Mandoran did not argue or correct Bellusdeo.
“He’s not ready for that,” Kaylin said.
“You’re not going to tell him that,” Mandoran said. “First of all, he probably wouldn’t hear it, given the argument he’s having now. Second of all, it’s not going to matter. He thinks that his brother abandoned his duty to the family and the line, surrendering it to distant cousins because he made himself outcaste. He believes that the only responsible thing he can do is establish himself as a Lord of the High Court and retake what is, in theory, his.
“You can imagine the cousin in question, who is a Lord of the High Court and has been for centuries—that timing coincidentally around the same period in which Nightshade was made outcaste—is not thrilled. Although Annarion is in line, he has no legitimate claim if he can’t pass the test. If he takes the test and passes it, he does have a claim.
“Claims are theoretical. The law would give him the ancestral home, lands and title if he survives, but they would be slow about the grant. It’s quite possible—quite probable—that he would not survive becoming a Lord; there would almost certainly be assassination attempts.”
“I’m still stuck on the taking-the-test-and-surviving-it part.”
“So is Lord Nightshade. I believe that’s the core of his argument. If his brother has returned, he is not what he was. But Annarion’s argument is the same. Nightshade is not what he was, either.”
“And that’s caused all the shouting?”
“No, dear,” Helen said. “Annarion is angry with his older brother. He feels betrayed.”
“But Nightshade did so much of what he did—”
“To find his brother, yes. Lord Nightshade feels that sacrificing the line—or his claim to it—was an acceptable cost if it meant not abandoning the only member of his family he truly cared for. Annarion, sadly, does not see this the same way.”
Mandoran winced.
“What?” Kaylin asked him.
“Helen’s understating things.”
“You can hear them.” Of course he could.
“Yes. Helen can’t provide privacy for those who are Namebound.” Mandoran’s face was tight with pain. “Annarion is reminding his brother that duty—his duty—should never have been forsaken for something as trivial as brotherly affection.”
Even Kaylin winced. She’d never had brothers or sisters. Her mother had died. She’d never had a father. But she’d yearned for family. She still did. Severn had once said that she built family wherever she went—and maybe that was even true. But she wouldn’t want any of her made family to suffer for her sake. That wasn’t supposed to be the point of family.
“Isn’t it?” Helen asked softly.
“No!”
Mandoran snorted, some of his normal color returning to his face. “You walked into the heart of the green to try to help Teela. Yes, she was pissed off about it. She still is. You often do exactly what Nightshade did.” He shook his head. “It’s never wise to love Barrani, if you are one. For mortals—for you—you only have to maintain it for a couple of decades, after which you’re too old.”
“Too old to love?”
“Too old to shoulder the burden of it. Barrani are never too old. It’s why we avoid the hells out of each other when we’re older and smarter.” He grimaced. “I won’t repeat what Annarion just told me to do.”
“Thank you,” Helen said before Kaylin could ask.
“On the other hand,” Mandoran added, “I think this makes me grateful that my own family line is ash and dust at this point.”
Helen raised a brow.
“There’s no pressure.”
“I believe you could petition the High Court to have your line reinstated—you are, after all, alive, and you are demonstrably of your line.”
“I was a useless youngest son,” Mandoran replied, grinning. Kaylin was almost certain he was lying. “But I think I’m going to accompany Kaylin to the Halls today.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. Do you have any idea what my day is going to be like as is?”
“None at all. But I do know what my day is going to be like if I stay here.”
“It’s not like he’s going to hurt you.”
Mandoran laughed. “If you think this doesn’t cause pain, you’re not as smart as you look.”
“You think I look like a mortal idiot.”
“And your point is?”
“No one likes to watch their friends in pain when there’s nothing they can do to help them,” Moran said. Kaylin hadn’t even heard her enter the dining room.
She turned, and then stopped short as she saw the Aerian sergeant.
Moran was wearing something Kaylin had never seen her in before. It was—or appeared to be, at first glance—a dress, but as she watched Moran walk, she adjusted that assumption. What had appeared to be skirts were separate but flowing legs; they moved as if they had a will of their own—or at least a breeze of their own. They were white and powder blue and azure and gold, colors that hinted at sky, at day, at light. The sleeves, however, were indigo, full draping cloth flecked with silver and gold and pale, transparent gauze. And the chest was the color of sunset—or sunrise. The bracelet was the only thing on her bare right arm.
“You can’t go to work dressed like that.”
“I can,” Moran replied. “The tabard will cover it.”
“That’s not—”
“There are no rules to the contrary. You wear black because dirt and blood show less—but it’s not necessary, either. You could wear any functional clothing as long as you wore the tabard.”
“I couldn’t wear that—I’d trip over the hem.”
“No, Kaylin, you wouldn’t. This is a dress designed for flight, and possible fight. It will not trip me, it will not get caught in anything, it will not tear.”
“But—but—” She exhaled. Met Moran’s military blue gaze.
“This is the ceremonial dress of the Illumen praevolo. And that,” she added, taking a stool and pulling it up to the table, “is what I am.”
* * *
“I like the dress,” Teela said. Both she and her partner were lounging in the foyer, having chosen to miss breakfast.
“Thank you,” Moran replied. “I was concerned that it would be a little too much for the office.”
“Not a little,” Kaylin countered. Last night, Moran had planned to take a leave of absence, as requested. By the Hawklord. One conversation later—if Annarion and his brother didn’t count—she was not only going into the office, but she was going in dressed as the Illumen praevolo. It should have been hard to look martial in that dress. It wasn’t. Moran looked very much like she was prepared for the battlefield.
“You’re going to cause a bit of a stir,” Tain added, looking appreciative. “But it suits you.”
“The stir or the dress?” Moran asked, the corners of her lips rising.
“Both, I think.”
“I’m almost sorry we missed breakfast. But Annarion wasn’t in the best of moods,” Teela said. Tain’s addition was lost, for a moment, to shouting. “They almost sound like Dragons.”
“You think?”
“They really don’t,” Bellusdeo said, “but if you want a Dragon to compare it to, I’m happy to oblige.”
“I bet you are,” Mandoran said. “And I’d just as soon take your word for it.”
“You’re willing to take my word for something?”
“Given the alternative, yes. Don’t get used to it.”
Bellusdeo snorted smoke, but her eyes were close to golden. They left the house in a huddle the minute Severn showed up at the door.
* * *
“They sound like Dragons,” Severn said as he reversed course and headed back down the walk.
“Don’t you start, too,” Bellusdeo told him. “They sound nothing like Dragons—they just happen to be loud.”
It was Kaylin’s turn to snort. “Having listened to your indecipherable discussions with the Emperor half a palace away, I’m going to say that loud isn’t the only thing they have in common.”
Bellusdeo looked down her nose at Kaylin, lifting a brow as she did.
The familiar was sitting on Kaylin’s shoulder, his wings folded. He looked alert, but not alarmed. The Barrani were blue-eyed, which was pretty much normal. It was amazing to Kaylin how similar their eyes were to Moran’s at the moment. Bellusdeo’s eyes had settled into an alert orange, but it was a pale color.
Moran attracted attention. She hadn’t chosen to don the tabard for the walk to the Halls, and people in the streets stopped to look—or, in one or two cases, stare—as they walked past. In part, it might be the bracelet and bandaged wing—Moran hadn’t elected to remove the dressing that kept the damaged wing in place. Kaylin doubted it, though. Moran walked with a kind of bold confidence she’d never seen.
Not that Moran lacked confidence, of course; in the infirmary, she had more pull than the Hawklord. She certainly had more pull than any of her patients, and had even threatened to strap an angry, hurt Leontine to a bed on at least one occasion. But that was a function of knowing her job, and knowing it well. This was different. It was almost as if she’d spent the whole of her life flying under cloud cover, and had finally flown free of it. She looked younger.
No, not younger, Kaylin thought. But...brighter, somehow. As if the trappings of the praevolo that she’d disdained for all of her life had been a missing, and essential, part of her nature.
“I’d like to see her fly,” Mandoran said—very quietly. Aerian ears weren’t Leontine or Barrani; in that, they were much closer to human, so whispering was safe.
“So would I,” Kaylin replied, just as quietly. And it was true. She wanted Moran to let her heal her wing. She wanted Moran to fly. She thought, if she flew today, the Aerian would own the skies.
Instead, as if she were human, Moran owned the streets. Maybe it was the dress. Maybe it was the brilliance of the colors. Usually, Moran—like any sergeant—seemed both definitive and gray, as if it was necessary to let the office determine her shape. Or rather, she had. Today was a revelation. The Aerian didn’t look happy, exactly. From everything she’d said, being praevolo had not been pleasant for her. It had cost her her mother, her grandmother—the only family she had.
Kaylin hated winter and fiefs and disease, because those three things had killed her mother. But it was like hating rain. Railing against weather didn’t change the weather, because the weather didn’t care. It had no essential malice. It was something to be endured.
Moran had lost kin because of people. It was different. It was profoundly different. And she’d denied the wings that had been her unwanted birthright. She’d ignored them. She’d proved that she didn’t need them to make a place for herself. She’d made one.
But it was a conflicted space—Kaylin saw that now, if only in comparison. She had been saying, in every possible way, Ignore me, ignore my differences. She’d forced herself to fit in. By denying what she was, she’d created a life in which everyone else did, or could, deny it, as well. And that would have been fine, if not for the Caste Court. Or so Kaylin would have said. Now, she wasn’t certain. Moran had lived behind walls. Kaylin wasn’t certain if she’d knocked the walls down or opened a door, and it didn’t matter.
No one attacked her on the way to work. The familiar was alert. Everyone was alert, even Mandoran. But there were no more invisible attackers, no more magical assassins. There was just open, clear sky. There were normal Aerian patrols.
There was, when they reached the doors, Clint and Tanner.
Tanner blinked but otherwise held his post. It was Clint who froze in place.
“If you don’t close your mouth,” Kaylin told him cheerfully, “you’re going to end up swallowing flies or other large insects.”
His hands had locked around the halberd’s pole; his eyes were purple. Fair enough. Purple was Aerian surprise, and Kaylin expected to see a lot of it today. Tanner’s eyes remained their normal color. He didn’t whistle—it wasn’t worth his job.
Kaylin expected Clint to say something to her; he’d gone out of his way to warn her to stay out of things. Or maybe she expected him to be cold, once the shock had worn off. Or—hells, she had no idea what she expected. She only knew that she hadn’t expected him to fold at the knee, to spread his wings—into Tanner, since the Aerian wingspan was actually far greater than the span of the door frame.
And Moran accepted what was an obeisance. She let him hold it for what felt like minutes—and Kaylin’s eyes would have been purple had she been Aerian, because she realized that Clint had no intention of rising until given permission. Which Moran finally did.
“If you do that once I’ve entered the Halls,” Moran said pleasantly, “I’ll see you busted back to private.”
He rose, and reality reasserted itself. His eyes shaded from purple to a different Aerian color. Kaylin had expected that color to be blue, because she expected that this act of defiance on Moran’s part would be considered trouble. But they went to gray instead. Honestly, racial interactions always contained hidden complications that made Kaylin feel stupid.
They entered the Halls.
* * *
Moran went to the infirmary—it was hers, after all—where she donned the version of tabard designed to accommodate Aerian wings. She allowed Bellusdeo to help her, glaring Kaylin out of the room before she could offer.
“I’m not the sergeant you have to worry about while you’re here. And I can practically hear the other one growling.”
There was a division in office space between the Aerians and the rest of the groundbound Hawks, because Aerians and the run-of-the-mill chairs and desks didn’t combine well. They required more space, different chairs and less-confining desks; they worked at tables, without the drawer real estate, and they generally preferred to stand, although they’d take the sturdy stools created for their use.
Comfortable or not, they were required to turn in the same paperwork anyone else was; in that, Marcus was an equal-opportunity sergeant. If he had to suffer through paperwork, he made sure the suffering was shared.
Kaylin therefore missed some of the early Aerian reactions.
Marcus, however, with Leontine hearing and general paranoia, didn’t. The growl was so loud, Kaylin missed the fact that her name was wedged somewhere in its depths. His eyes, of course, were a bright orange, which appeared to be darkening into the bad color for Leontines. She made her way to the front of his desk. Hardwood was definitely better when it came to Leontine claws; given his mood, there should have been runnels in the wood. Fortunately, there were only visible scratches so far.
“What,” he demanded without preamble, “did you do?”
Kaylin considered the truth, which was bad. She considered the Leontine bristling in front of her: also bad. And she considered being caught in a lie while the Leontine was in this mood. She settled for less bad; there was no good here.
“I returned an item to Moran. It belonged to her,” she added, keeping her voice as flat as possible.
“And this item wouldn’t happen to be the bracelet she’s wearing, would it?”
“Sir.”
“It looks a lot like the bracelet in the Records transmission.”
“Sir.”
“Which would generally be considered evidence.”
“Sir.” She stopped herself from wilting, because it never actually helped.
“And the sergeant’s dress?” He spoke the last word with clear distaste.
“Is hers. It’s not against regulations. She has full freedom of motion in it, and she’s wearing her identifying colors. Sir.” Shut up, Kaylin. Just shut up.
Marcus said, “The Hawklord wants to speak to you. Now.” His mirror was flat and reflective. Seeing her glance move—it was the only thing about Kaylin that did—he said, “Over your left shoulder.”
Hanson stood in the arch that led to the Tower stairs, arms folded.