Cast in Chaos

by Michelle Sagara

Elani street was not a hub of activity in the morning. It wasn’t exactly deserted, but it was quiet, and the usual consumers of love potions and extracts to combat baldness, impotence, and unwanted weight were lingering on the other side of storefronts. Remembering her mood the last time she’d walked this beat, Kaylin took care not to knock over offending sandwich boards. On the other hand, she also took the same care not to read them.

  “Kaylin?”

  “Hmm?” She was looking at the cross section of charms in a small case in one window—Mortimer’s Magnificent Magic—and glanced at her partner’s reflection in the glass.

  “You’re rubbing your arms.”

  She looked down and realized he was right. “They’re sort of itchy,” she said.

  He raised one brow. “Sort of itchy?”

  The marks that adorned most of the insides of her arms were, like the ones that covered her inner thighs and half of her back, weather vanes for magic. Kaylin hesitated. “It doesn’t feel the way it normally does when there’s strong magic. It’s—they’re just sort of itchy.”

  “And they’ve never been like that before.”

  She frowned. She’d had fleas once, while cat-sitting for an elderly neighbor. The itch wasn’t quite the same, but it was similar.

  She started to tell him as much, and was interrupted midsentence by someone screaming.

  It was, as screams went, a joyful, ecstatic sound, which meant their hands fell to their clubs without drawing them. But they—like every other busybody suddenly crowding the streets—turned at the sound of the voice. It was distinctly male, and probably a lot higher than it normally was. Bouncing a glance between each other, they shrugged and headed toward the noise.

  The scream slowly gathered enough coherence to form words, and the words, to Kaylin’s surprise, had something to do with hair. And having hair. When they reached the small wagon set up on the street—and Kaylin made a small note to check for permits, as that was one of the Dragon Emperor’s innovations on tax collection—the crowds had formed a thin wall.

  The people who lived above the various shops in Elani street had learned, with time and experience, to be enormously cynical. Exposure to every promise of love, hair, or sexual prowess known to man—or woman, for that matter—tended to have that effect, as did the more esoteric promise to tease out the truth about the future and your destined greatness in it. They had pretty much heard—and seen—it all.

  And given the charlatans who masqueraded as merchants on much of the street, both the permanent residents and the officers of the Law who patrolled it knew that it wasn’t beyond them to hire an actor to suddenly be miraculously cured of baldness, impotence, or blindness.

  Kaylin assumed that the man who was almost crying in joy was one of these actors. But if he was, he was damn good. She started to ask him his name, stopped as he almost hugged her, and then turned to glance at the merchant whose wagon this technically was.

  He looked…slack-jawed and surprised. He didn’t even bother to school his expression, which clearly meant he was new to this. Not new to fleecing people, she thought sourly, just new to success. When he took a look at the Hawk that sat dead center on her tabard, he straightened up, and the slack lines of his face tightened into something that might have looked like a grin—on a corpse.

  “Officer,” he said, in that loud, booming voice that demanded attention. Or witnesses. “How can I help you on this fine morning?” He had to speak loudly, because the man was continuing his loud, joyful exclamations.

  “I’d like to see your permits,” Kaylin replied. She spoke clearly and calmly, but her voice traveled about as far as it would have had she shouted. It was one of the more useful things she’d learned in the Halls of Law. She held out one hand.

  “But that’s—that’s outrageous!”

  “Take it up with the Emperor,” Kaylin replied, although she did secretly have some sympathy for the man. “Or the merchants’ guild, as they supported it.”

  “I am a member in good standing of the guild, and I can assure you—”

  She lifted a hand. “It’s not technically illegal for you to claim to be a member in good standing of a guild,” she told him, keeping her voice level, but lowering it slightly. “But if you’re new here, it’s really, really stupid to claim to be a member of the merchants’ guild if you’re not.” Glancing at his wagon, which looked well serviced but definitely aged, she shrugged.

  “I am not new to the city,” the man replied. “But I’ve been traveling to far lands in order to bring the citizens of Elantra the finest, the most rare, of mystical unguents and—”

  “And you still need a permit to sell them here, or in any of the market streets or their boundaries.” She turned. Lifting her voice, she said, “Okay, people, it’s time to pack it in. Mr.—”

  “Stravaganza.”

  The things people expected her to be able to repeat with a straight damn face. Kaylin stopped herself from either laughing or snorting. “Mr. Stravaganza is new enough to the City that he’s failed to acquire the proper permits for peddling his wares in the streets. In order to avoid the very heavy fines associated with the lack of permit, he is now closed for business until he makes the journey to the Imperial Tax Offices to acquire said permit.”

  Severn, on the other hand, was looking at the bottle he’d casually picked up from the makeshift display. It was small, long, and stoppered. The merchant started to speak, and then stopped the words from falling out of his mouth. “Please, Officer,” he said to Severn. “My gift to a man who defends our city.” He even managed to say this with a more or less straight face.

  Severn nodded and carefully pocketed the bottle. As he already had a headful of hair, Kaylin waited while the merchant packed up and started moving down the street. Then she looked at her partner. “What gives?” she said, gesturing toward his pocket.

  “I don’t know,” was the unusually serious reply. “But that man wasn’t acting. I’d be willing to bet that he actually thinks the fact that he now has hair is due to the contents of this bottle.”

  “You can’t believe that,” she said, voice flat.

  Severn shrugged. “Let’s just make sure Mr. Stravaganza crosses the border of our jurisdiction. When he’s S.E.P., we can continue our rounds.”

  The wagon made it past the borders and into the realm of Somebody Else’s Problem without further incident. Kaylin and Severn did not, however, make it to the end of their shift in the same way. They corrected their loose pattern of patrol once they returned to the street; as the day had progressed, Elani had be come more crowded. This was normal.

  Some of the later arrivals were very richly clothed, and came in fine carriages, disembarking with the help of their men; some wore clothing that had been too small a year ago, with patches at elbows and threads of different colors around cuffs and shoulders.

  All of them, rich, poor, and shades in between, sought the same things. At a distance, Kaylin saw one carriage stop before the doors of Margot. Margot, with her flame-red hair, her regal and impressive presence, and her damn charisma. Margot’s storefront was, like the woman whose name was plastered in gold leaf across the windows, dramatic and even—Kaylin admitted grudgingly—attractive. It implied wealth, power, and a certain spare style.

  To Kaylin, it also heavily implied fraud—but it wasn’t the type of fraud for which the woman could be thrown in jail.

  The doors opened and the unknown but obviously well-heeled woman entered the shop. This wasn’t unusual, and at least the woman in question had the money to throw away; far too many of the clientele that frequented Elani street in various shades of desperation didn’t.

  Severn gave Kaylin a very pointed look, and she shrugged. “She’s got the money. No one’s going hungry if she throws it away on something stupid.” She started to walk, forcing Severn to fall in beside her. Her own feelings about most of Elani’s less genuine merchants were well-known.

  She slowed, and after a moment she added, “I know there a
re worse things, Severn. I’m trying.”

  His silence was a comfortable silence; she fit into it, and he let her. But they hadn’t reached the corner before they heard shouting, and they glanced once at each other before turning on their heels and heading back down the street.

  The well-dressed woman who had entered Margot’s was in the process of leaving it in high, high dudgeon. Margot was—even at this distance—an unusual shade of pale that almost looked bad with her hair. Kaylin tried not to let the momentary pettiness of satisfaction distract her, and failed miserably; Margot was demonstrably still healthy, her store was still in one piece, and at this distance it didn’t appear that any Imperial Laws had been broken.

  “Please, Lady,” Margot was saying. “I assure you—”

  “I am done with your assurances, Margot,” was the icy reply. The woman turned, caught sight of the Hawks, and drew herself to her full height. “Officers,” she said coldly. “I demand that you arrest this—this woman—for slander.”

  “While we would dearly love to arrest this woman in the course of our duties,” Kaylin said carefully, “most of what she says is confined to private meetings. Nor is what she says to her clients maliciously—or at least publicly—spread.”

  “No?” The woman still spoke as if winter were language. “She spoke—in public—”

  “I spoke in private,” Margot said quickly. “In the confines of my own establishment—”

  “You spoke in front of your other clients,” the woman snapped. “When my father hears of this, you will be finished here, do you understand? You will be languishing in the Imperial jail!”

  It was too much to hope that she would climb the steps to the open door of her carriage and leave. She turned once again to Kaylin; Severn was, as usual, enjoying the advantage of having kept his mouth shut. It was a neat trick, and Kaylin wished—for the thousandth time—that she could learn it. Or, rather, had already learned it.

  “You will arrest this—this charlatan immediately.”

  “Ma’am, we need to have something to arrest her for.”

  “I’ve already told you—”

  “You haven’t told us what she said,” Kaylin replied. Given the heightening of color across the woman’s cheeks, the fact that this was required seemed to further enrage her.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  It was the kind of question that Kaylin most hated, and it was the chief reason that her duties were not supposed to take her anywhere where it could, with such genuine outrage, be asked. “No, ma’am, I’m afraid I haven’t had the privilege.”

  Her eyes rounded, and out of the corner of her eye, Kaylin saw that Margot was wincing.

  “Who, may I ask, are you?” the woman now said.

  “Private Neya, of the Hawks.”

  “And you are somehow supposed to be responsible for safeguarding the people of this fair city when you clearly fail to recognize something as significant as the crest upon this carriage?”

  Kaylin opened her mouth to reply, but a reply was clearly no longer desired—or acceptable.

  “Very well, Private. I will speak with Lord Grammayre myself.” She spoke very clear, pointed High Barrani to her driver, and then stomped her way up the step and into the carriage. Had she been responsible for closing its door herself, it would have probably shattered. As it was, the footman did a much more careful job.

  They watched the carriage drive away.

  “I suppose there’s not much chance that she’s just going to go home and stew?” she asked Severn.

  “No.”

  “Is she important enough to gain immediate audience with the Hawklord?”

  Margot sputtered before Severn could answer, but that was fine. Severn’s expression was pretty damn clear. “She is Lady Alyssa of the Larienne family. Did you truly not recognize her?”

  Larienne. Larienne. Like most of the wealthy families in Elantra, they sported a mock-Barrani name. Something about it was familiar. “Go on.”

  “Her father is Garavan Larienne, the head of the family. He is also the Chancellor of the Exchequer.”

  Kaylin turned to Severn. “How bad is it going to be?”

  “Oh, probably a few inches of paper on Marcus’s desk.”

  She wilted. “All right, Margot. Since I’m going to be on report in a matter of hours—”

  “Hour,” Severn said quietly.

  “What the hell did you say that offended her so badly?”

  “I’d prefer not to repeat it.”

  Kaylin sourly told her what she could do with her preferences.

  “So let me get this straight. Lady Alyssa comes to you for advice about her love life—”

  “She is Garavan’s only daughter.” Margot was now subdued. She was still off her color. “And she’s been a client for only a few months. She is, of course, concerned with her greater destiny.”

  “I’m not. What I’m concerned with is the statement Corporal Handred has taken from some of your other clients. You told Lady Alyssa that her father was going to be charged with embezzlement, and the family fortunes would be in steep decline? You?”

  Margot opened her mouth, and nothing fell out of it. Kaylin had often daydreamed about Margot at a loss for words; this wasn’t exactly how she’d hoped it would come about.

  “I—” Margot shook her head. “I had no intention of saying any such thing, Her father’s business is not her business, and she doesn’t ask about him.”

  “Then what in the hells possessed you to do it now?”

  “She—she sat in her normal chair, and she asked me if—if I had any further insight into her particular situation.”

  “And that was your answer? Come on, Margot. You’ve been running this place—successfully—for too damn many years to just open your mouth and offend someone you consider important.”

  “That was my answer,” was the stiff reply. “I felt—strange, Private. I felt as if—I could see what would happen. As if it were unfolding before my eyes. I didn’t mean to speak the words. The words just came.” She spoke very softly, even given the lack of actual customers in her storefront; she had sent them, quietly, on their way. Apparently, whatever it was that was coming out of her mouth was not to be trusted, and she was willing to lose a full day’s worth of income to make sure it didn’t happen again.

  “So. A cure for baldness that worked—instantly—and a fortune-teller’s trick that might also be genuine.”

  “I’d keep that last to yourself.”

  She shrugged. “I think it’s time we visited all of the damn shops on Elani, door-to-door, and had a little talk with the proprietors.”

  Severn, who didn’t dislike Margot as much as Kaylin, had been both less amused at her predicament and less amused by the two incidents than Kaylin. Kaylin let her brain catch up with her sense of humor, and the grin slowly faded from her face, as well. “Come on,” she told him.

  “Where are we starting?”

  “Evanton’s. If we’re lucky, that’ll take up the remainder of the shift, and then some. I’m not looking forward to signing out tonight.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Evanton’s apprentice, Grethan, opened the door before Kaylin managed to touch it. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in three days, and judging from his expression, Kaylin and Severn were part of his waking nightmare.

  “Are you shutting up for the day?” Kaylin asked, keeping her voice quiet and low.

  He looked confused, and then shook himself. “No,” he told her. “I was just—going out. For a walk,” he added quickly.

  She didn’t ask him how Evanton was; he’d pretty much already answered that question. But she did walk into the cluttered, gloomy front room, and she stopped as she crested the opening between two cases of shelving. The light here was brilliant.

  Evanton was wearing his usual apron, and it was decorated with the usual pins and escapee threads of the variety of materials with which he worked. But his eyes were, like the lights in the room, a little too bright
. He glanced at her, his hands pulling thread through a thick, dark fabric that lay in a drape across his spindly lap. “I was wondering,” he said, although it was somewhat muffled, given the pins between his lips, “when you would show up.”

  “The Garden—”

  “Oh, the Garden’s fine. Whatever you did in the fiefs a couple of weeks ago was enough to calm it. It looks normal. No, the Garden is not your problem.” He removed the pins and stuck them carefully into one of a half-dozen oddly shaped pincushions by his left arm. “I’ve almost finished with your cloak,” he added, “if you want to try it on.”

  She had the grace to redden. “Not now,” she told him. “I’m on duty.”

  He raised a brow. “Have you two been on patrol all morning?”

  Kaylin nodded.

  “Notice anything unusual?”

  She nodded again, but this time more slowly. Note to self: visit Evanton’s first, next time you’re in Elani. “What is it, Evanton? We’re just about to make a sweep of the street to see if anything else unusual turns up.”

  “I hope you’ve got a lot of time,” the old man replied. He rose and folded the cloth in his lap into a careful bundle. “I’d offer you tea, but the boy’s forgotten to fill the bucket.”

  “I can fill it—”

  “No. That won’t be necessary.”

  She frowned.

  “It’s not only in the rest of the street that the unusual is occurring,” he told her. “This morning, when he came in with the water, the water started to speak to him.”

  “Evanton—”

  “Yes. He was born deaf, by the standards of the Tha’alani. He has always been mind deaf, but he is still Tha’alani by birth. In the Elemental Garden, he can hear the water’s voice, and through it, some echo of the voice of his people. This is the first time it’s happened outside of the Garden, and the water was in buckets. It is not, sadly, still in those buckets. I can’t get him to drink a glass of water at the moment. He sits and stares at it instead.” He frowned. “I had heard rumors that you were studying magic with Lord Sanabalis.”