Cast in Peril

by Michelle Sagara

  “Exactly. Your judgment would not be considered impartial or objective enough.” Caitlin frowned slightly. “I realize you’re upset—”

  “I think I’m allowed!”

  “—but you shouldn’t be so upset that you forget one of the more significant rules governing investigative assignments. If it helps, the Imperial Order has been working since—”

  “Have they found anything?”

  “Not conclusively.”

  Kaylin perked up. “What was inconclusive?”

  “There was, as far as the mages could tell, only one signature left at the site.”

  “That’s unusual.” Kaylin hesitated and then added, “It’s also inaccurate.”

  Caitlin winced. “I think you should talk to Marcus, dear. But he’s been dealing with Dragons and mages, so he’s not in the best of moods.”

  * * *

  “This had better be important,” Marcus said as she approached his desk. He didn’t even bother to look up. He was elbow deep in reports. This would have been unusual, but as it was not the most unusual thing about Marcus at this very moment, Kaylin barely noticed. His left arm—or the fur on it—had been either seared or singed off. “What are you staring at, Private?”

  “Nothing. Sir.”

  “Good. Why are you gaping at nothing in front of my desk?”

  She took a deep breath and lifted her chin slightly. “It’s about my apartment.”

  “No.”

  “It’s not about the investigation,” she said quickly. “But the Imperial mages apparently only found one magical signature at the detonation site. I saw two.”

  Marcus dug a runnel into the desk. “When exactly did you see these?”

  “Just after the bomb destroyed my home.”

  “Good. I’d hate to have to demote or discipline the Hawks on duty there today; you are not supposed to be on-site. At all.” He gave up on the report he was writing—for a value of write that involved reading and a signature that was shaky to begin with—and lifted his head to stare at her. After a significant pause, he pulled a report from one of the piles. “Here.”

  Kaylin had learned love of reports from Marcus but took it anyway.

  “I’m up to my armpits in Imperial Concern,” he continued before she could ask about its contents. “The Imperial Order will be interested in what you have to say about a second signature. They’re also likely to feel insulted. I suggest you go directly to Lord Sanabalis; I’ve come this close to relieving one mage of his throat this morning already.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Read that report. You can give me a précis of what it actually says later. And, Private, I mean it: you go anywhere near our investigators at your former address, and you’ll be suspended without pay until you leave the City.”

  * * *

  Reading reports wasn’t nearly as onerous as writing them—unless you happened to be the Sergeant. Kaylin retired to her cramped, small desk, discovered that someone had commandeered her chair, and sat on the desk’s nearly pristine surface instead of going to find it. Bellusdeo was not in the office, and her mood was not Kaylin’s problem, but she felt guilty enjoying the Dragon’s absence. The report helped with that, but not in a good way.

  She was uncertain as to why the report was even on Marcus’s desk, because in theory, it involved the fiefs. The Hawks kept an eye on the bridges between the fiefs and the rest of the City, but it was cursory; they couldn’t stop traffic from entering the fiefs, and they couldn’t stop traffic from leaving them, either, although admittedly questions were asked in either case. There was, with the exception of Tiamaris, very little of either.

  Oh, wait. There it was: the small tendril that led to the large, omnipresent web. A boy, Miccha Jannoson, had, on a dare from his friends—Kaylin snorted at the word—crossed the bridge from the City into the fiefs. He was lucky, in that the fief in question was Tiamaris; there was enough traffic over that bridge, and most of it seemed to return in the other direction at the end of the day.

  He was unlucky, in that he didn’t appear to be one of the returnees. His grandmother had filed a report with Missing Persons the following morning. Which would be yesterday.

  Tiamaris was both fieflord and Dragon Lord, and he was willing to cooperate with the Halls of Law in their search.

  She read through to the end; there, transcribed, was a brief message from Tiamaris: the boy was not the only person to disappear within his fief in the past two weeks. In other fiefs, such disappearances might not be noticed, noted, or of concern; in Tiamaris, they were apparently personal, Tiamaris being a Dragon. He requested, at the Halls’ leisure, a check for possible similar disappearances within Elantra, but asked that the check be broader: not teenage boys, but people, period. Mortals.

  Kaylin glanced at the small dragon draped across her shoulders. She had four days before her departure. Four days wasn’t a lot of time for an investigation of something big—and the fact that Tiamaris had made an all but official request meant he considered it significant. Maybe it was time to visit the fief and speak to Tara.

  * * *

  Teela dropped by her desk as she was planning. Kaylin almost fell over when she saw the Barrani officer’s face; it was bruised. Her eyes, however, were green. Mostly.

  “Kitling,” Teela said, sounding as tired as she looked.

  Kaylin felt her jaw hanging open, and shut it.

  “Why are you staring? I don’t recall ever saying I was impervious to harm.”

  “What the hells were you fighting? Barrani?”

  “A dozen.”

  Report forgotten, Kaylin swiveled in her chair. “What happened last night?”

  “We met some resistance.”

  “You didn’t go on a raid with two bloody Dragons expecting no resistance.”

  “Sit down. I didn’t come here to deliver bad news; I came here to extend an invitation to the High Halls.”

  Kaylin’s brows disappeared into her hairline; if they hadn’t been attached to the rest of her face, they would have kept going. “P-pardon?”

  “It is a personal invitation,” Teela added.

  “I’m guesting at the Palace at the moment, on account of having no home.”

  “Yes. You could stay with me in the High Halls instead; I find the Halls very dull and otherwise too peaceful. Regardless, you will require suitable clothing for your journey to the West March. I assume that very little of yours survived.”

  “I’m wearing most of it.” Kaylin sat. “You’re not going to tell me what happened, are you?”

  “You can read the report when it’s written. You can read any of a dozen reports; Marcus probably won’t.”

  “Teela—”

  Teela lifted a hand. “Two of the mages died. We lost four Hawks; three of them were Barrani, one was Aerian. Clint was injured, but not badly; Tain has a broken arm and the disposition one would expect from that.”

  “Marcus?”

  “His fur was singed, as you may have noticed. He’s alive. He’s alive,” Teela added, “because he can move his bulk at need, and he moved.”

  “I don’t suppose the Dragons—”

  “The Dragons are, of course, fine.”

  “The Arcanum—”

  “The Arcanum was damaged during the fighting; it is, however, still structurally sound.”

  “Evarrim?”

  “He was not involved in the fighting.” The way she said it made clear that no more questions about Evarrim were going to be answered; it also made clear that she would have been happier if he had been.

  “What were you looking for anyway?”

  “The Arcanists involved with the Human Caste Court and their missing funds.”

  “Did you find them?”

  “All but one.”

  “Are they in custody?”

  Teela stared at her until she felt embarrassed for even asking. “Do remember,” she said, “that the Emperor can hold his own laws in abeyance should the need arise, hmm? The Arcanists w
ere expecting trouble; they just weren’t expecting the quality of the trouble they did get.” She said this with a particularly vicious smile. “I’ll meet you here after work.”

  “But I can’t stay in the High Halls.”

  “Why not?”

  “Bellusdeo will kill me.”

  Teela frowned. “You haven’t learned anything from yesterday, have you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hanging around with that particular Dragon is not good for your health. I’m not sure she’s in the clear yet, and if she’s not, you won’t be.”

  “I’m in the Palace,” Kaylin pointed out.

  “Not at the moment, you’re not. Your point is, however, taken. I’d prefer to avoid the Palace, if at all possible.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the Emperor isn’t terribly happy with the Barrani, its Lords, or its mages, and I’m not assuming that he’s going to be entirely happy with its Hawks, either.”

  “Why?”

  “Kitling—think instead of talking, hmm?” She gave Kaylin five seconds to do that thinking, which seemed a tad unfair. “The bomb wasn’t thrown by mortals; it certainly wasn’t planted by Dragons. Whoever tried to kill Bellusdeo was almost certainly Barrani; it is not inconceivable that they were working in concert with humans.”

  “If I ask why again, are you going to hurt me?”

  “I’ll seriously consider it,” Teela replied, but her eyes stayed on the safe side of blue. “Bellusdeo is both female and Dragon. The Dragon population has been static for a long time now; the Barrani population hasn’t. If we’re not at war—and we’re not—the war still informs us. Someone doesn’t want there to be any more clutches, and killing Bellusdeo pretty much guarantees that.”

  * * *

  Kaylin’s regular beat was still embroiled in the investigations and magical cleanup demanded by the Emperor and the Imperial Order of Mages. They were drawing to a close, which meant the growing line of concerned citizens—Margot chief among them—were likely to be less of a feature in the various offices the Swords occupied. Which was a pity. Margot’s inability to make money by swindling the gullible was a genuinely bright spot in what was otherwise magical chaos and displacement.

  The panicked reports of citizens at the edges of the Elani district had dropped to a manageable level in the two weeks it’d been more or less locked down, which meant the Hawks confined to desks in the public office were released to their regular duties. In the case of Private Neya and Corporal

  Handred, this meant a stroll to the fief of Tiamaris; as Elani was still in lockdown, and it was their beat, they had time in the schedule for low-level investigations of a more incidental nature. As the Hawklord called them.

  As the two Hawks headed toward the bridge-crossing that led to Tiamaris, Kaylin filled Severn in on the admittedly scant details of the report Marcus had offloaded, hoping that Severn would drop in on Missing Persons—Mallory’s domain—

  tomorrow. Mallory didn’t have the apparent contempt for Severn that he had for Kaylin. To be fair, Severn didn’t have the apparent contempt for Mallory that Kaylin had, either. Severn was much more likely to be granted full records access for a search of those reported missing the past two weeks.

  The small dragon chewed on the stick in Kaylin’s hair without dislodging it or, worse, snapping it, as they made their way across the bridge and, from there, to the less crowded fief streets. They hadn’t bothered to ditch the Hawks’ tabard, so the occupants of those streets kept their distance—but they didn’t duck into the nearest building, doorway, or alley just to move out of the way. Things improved, if slowly.

  To Kaylin’s surprise, Tara wasn’t in her garden when they approached the Tower itself. Kaylin slowed, ducked around the side of the building, and found it empty, as well. Severn nodded when she glanced at him; he found it unusual, as well.

  The Tower doors were shut. Since they had no ward—a kindness offered by Tara, who understood just how thoroughly uncomfortable wards made Kaylin—the two Hawks knocked and then took a step back to wait. The doors took five minutes to roll open.

  Standing between them as they opened was Morse. She was alone, which was also unusual; she was on edge, which was worse. “Tiamaris wants to speak with you,” she said without preamble.

  “Where’s Tara?”

  “In the mirror room. If she wants to be disturbed, she’ll let us know. She’s been there for the past three days,” she added as she turned and began to lead them into the cavernous, wide halls of the Tower.

  “Morse?”

  Morse shrugged. “Yeah,” she said, answering the question Kaylin had asked by tone alone. “It’s been bad.” She paused, squinted, and then said, “Where’d you get the glass dragon?”

  * * *

  Tiamaris was waiting in what looked like a war room. The wall opposite the doors was a vast display of mirrors, none of which were in their reflective state. The whole of the fief, in much cleaner lines than the streets ever saw, was laid out to the left. Across those streets were lines in different colors; one was a bright, sharp red. It demanded attention.

  Not even mindful of the distinctly orange color of his lidded eyes, Kaylin came to stand beside the fieflord.

  “Word arrived that you encountered some difficulty yesterday,” he said, sparing her a passing glance. The glance, however, became a full-on stare when it hit the curled body of the small glass dragon. “What,” he asked in a sharper tone of voice, “is that?”

  “The reason the difficulty wasn’t fatal.”

  “Pardon?”

  “The small dragon—”

  “It is not a dragon.”

  “Sorry. The small winged lizard—” The glass dragon lifted his head and glared balefully at the side of her face. “You’re smaller than he is,” she told it.

  “It appears to understand what we are saying.”

  “Yes. He doesn’t speak, though. He was hatched during the explosion of the Arcane bomb that destroyed a quarter of the building. Given what’s left of my apartment, we should have gone down with it. We didn’t. Bellusdeo thinks it’s because the— He protected us.”

  Kaylin turned to Severn, who was examining the map with a frown. “The Arkon is doing research as we speak. None of which is relevant at the moment. The red is the last known location?”

  The fieflord shook his head. “I will never understand mortals. Yes.”

  She counted. There were a lot more than one missing boy.

  “What did the Sergeant tell you?”

  “He handed me a report,” she replied. “Miccha Jannoson crossed the bridge from the City and didn’t return. Are any of these lines relevant to that report?”

  Tiamaris lifted a hand, and Kaylin followed its movement. One thread. It started three yards from the bridge, on the fief side of the Ablayne. It was notable for its length: it was short, much shorter than the streets.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Tara spent much time constructing these overlays,” he replied, as if that would explain things.

  It didn’t. “Miccha wasn’t a citizen of the fief.”

  “No.”

  “The Tower, any Tower, is in theory capable of tracking its citizens.”

  “That,” he replied, “is a statement only partially based in truth. What she can track, should she so choose, is the approximate activity of people within my domain, if she has enough information to work with. Her records of the Barren years are notably scant, but the information she’s processed since I accepted the mantle of fieflord are of necessity more complete.”

  “She couldn’t find Bellusdeo,” Kaylin pointed out, her gaze moving to the other tracks of red, some much longer.

  “She couldn’t, no,” he agreed. “But there are probable reasons for that, chief among them being she had only a corpse with which to work.”

  “She has even less in the case of Miccha.”

  Tiamaris turned to regard her. “She is watching the bridge closely,” h
e finally said.

  “What are the purple points?”

  “The purple points—and they are not markedly purple to my eye—are unknowns.”

  “Unknowns?” She glanced at the Dragon Lord. Miccha was an unknown, but Tara had clearly tagged him. “What exactly do you mean by ‘unknown’?”

  “The fieflord, through the auspices of his or her Tower’s defenses, can see anything that occurs within the fief should they be paying attention. It is not, however, a trivial affair on our part. It is less difficult when the Tower is sentient, awake, and watchful, but even Tara has her limits. In the case of Miccha, she noted him precisely because he crossed the bridge and appeared to have very little reason to do so.”

  “He did it on a dare.”

  Tiamaris raised a brow. “It was an expensive dare,” he finally said.

  “You think he’s dead.”

  “I think he will not return to his family.” He hesitated and then added, “He is not the only person within my fief’s borders to disappear abruptly; he is the only citizen of the Empire to do so and therefore the only person who is directly relevant to your duties.”

  “A lot of missing-persons reports are filed, Tiamaris. You know that.”

  “Yes.”

  “What distinguishes this one from those?”

  “There is no obvious commonality among those who are missing. They are variously youthful, elderly, male, female.”

  “They were reported missing?”

  “Two were, directly to Tara. Those are the burnt-orange lines. Relatives of the missing women came to Tara for help a day after their parents disappeared. The orange lines are their known paths and destinations for the day prior to the reported disappearance. She was not, then, at full alert.”

  “Now?”

  He indicated four red lines. “These occurred after the first requests for aid. Those,” he added, pointing at lines that were a paler orange, “are possible similar disappearances. Morse has her people out in the streets in an attempt to discern whether or not the disappearances are real.”

  Morse wouldn’t get that information directly, but she had Tara as backup. She asked the questions no one in their right mind—for a fief value—would answer; Tara eavesdropped on the conversations that occurred after Morse left the vicinity of possible witnesses. The citizens of the fief, if they thought about it for a few minutes, could figure out what was going on, but years of survival-based behaviors didn’t disappear in a month or two, and Morse caused terror in anyone sane, regardless. Tara didn’t.