LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Five days? We couldn’t get something like this to trial in less than five weeks!”

      But the Hawklord lifted his head and uttered a series of high, clicking whistles. It wasn’t Aerian, exactly; it was the Aerian version of a shout.

      Perenne began his descent.

      “I regret the necessity of putting you in this situation. But it is necessary, Kaylin. Do what you do best.”

      “What is it I do best?”

      He offered her a weary but genuine smile. “Get involved in everyone else’s business, whether or not they request it. My mirror has been keyed for your use and the key sequence is your voice. Attempt to exercise caution when you contact me. Now go. Mallory will be here in less than fifteen minutes.”

      “Why?”

      “He follows a schedule for his reports.”

      She nodded. Bit back the words that she wanted to say. Lifted her arms to catch Perenne as he landed.

      “Well?” Severn asked. He was waiting for her by the entrance to the carriage yard.

      “Bad.”

      “How bad?”

      “Not so bad that we can’t do something. Yet.”

      “Tell me.”

      She waited for the carriage to roll out of the carriage house. “I’ll tell you when we’re en route.”

      “To?”

      “The Leontine Quarter.” He nodded as if he had expected no less.

      CHAPTER 5

      “Given Rennick’s general regard for authority—and I must admit to being impressed—we have some leeway in our timing.” Severn glanced out the window, but it was a measured glance; he was, she knew, following the streets, cataloguing the buildings. She wondered if he was constantly fleshing out a map of the city on the inside of his head. Nevertheless, watching or not, he was still with her, as his next words proved. “But while timing with regards to Rennick isn’t a major issue, our presence or absence will be. You don’t care for Rennick—he is, however, important.”

      “He’s not an idiot,” she said, grudging the admission. “But I don’t get him. I don’t understand why he writes this stuff for people when he clearly doesn’t like them much.”

      Severn shrugged. “It’s art,” he said, as if that explained anything. Maybe it did. “Where does Marcus live?”

      “In the middle of the damn Quarter.”

      “And we’re approaching it?”

      “It’s not like the Tha’alani enclave. There’s no gate. But it’s kind of hard to miss it—the streets are pretty much always crowded. They don’t seem to have a market in the strict sense of the word.”

      Severn nodded.

      “You already know all of this.”

      “I’ve learned some of it,” he replied. “But I’ve seldom had cause to travel in the Leontine Quarter, and the Leontines are not known for their hospitality.”

      “Really?”

      “Really. Leontines don’t make people worry in the same way the Tha’alani do—in the end, we all have things we’d rather no one else know about. They make people worry in the same way that giant, man-eating animals do.”

      “Where, by people, you mean humans.”

      “I mean anything that can be killed and eaten.”

      “The Barrani don’t seem to mind them.”

      “How would you know? The Barrani affect nonchalance when it comes to bloody dragons.”

      “True.” The day Teela said “I’m afraid” was probably the day the world ended—because if Teela weren’t certain it was going to end, she wouldn’t bother with something as dangerous as vulnerability. She’d expose herself only if she was certain no one else could ever use it against her.

      “Do they frighten you?”

      “No.”

      “Why not?”

      “I’ve seen what men can do,” he replied carefully. “There’s not much a wild animal can do that would be worse. Or messier.”

      “Well, I think you’ll like the Pridlea.”

      “I think you’re right. If I’m not told to wait outside in the street.”

      “Why on earth would you have to wait outside in the street?”

      He raised an eyebrow and said, “Are you in a betting mood?”

      Kaylin left instructions with the carriage driver, and Severn left different instructions about ten seconds later. The driver seemed to take this in stride, which is to say, he did his level best not to look too amused at her expense. You had to like that in a driver.

      She approached the door. Door, at this time of year, was not exactly the right word to describe the heavy, colored curtains that shut out the sounds of the street. During the humid season that any port city suffers, these were the only doors that the Pridlea either desired or needed. After all, it wasn’t as if someone was just going to walk in off the street.

      The colors—predominantly a yellow gold—were embroidered into the fabric, which also seemed to boast a profusion of textures. Kaylin had seldom come to the Pridlea when she was on duty, and she stopped a moment to study the heavy, hanging rug. Gold was nubbled in knots around a central patch of color that seemed, to her eye, to be furrier, somehow. She bent forward, and said, “Hey, I think they used Leontine hair in this.”

      “We did,” she heard a familiar voice say. It was the voice of all Leontines when they chose to speak Elantran, and it implied a growl that wasn’t actually present. “The hanging contains the fur of every Leontine of age in Marcus’s clan. The fur of his sons are here,” she added, as she stepped out of the building—which was a squat, clay rectangle that seemed to go on forever at her back. There were windows in the front of the building, but in the back, very few. As a child, Kaylin had referred to it as Marcus’s cave. Marcus, batting her playfully—but still painfully—on the side of the head had called it Kayala’s cave.

      “The ones that don’t live here?”

      “There are no sons here, no. And yes, when they reached the age of majority, they offered some of their throat fur for this purpose, and we accepted it.” She let her hand fall away from the hanging, and hugged Kaylin suddenly and without warning.

      Kaylin, however, didn’t need a warning; she knew what to expect, and if Leontine claws and teeth were sharper and harder than some of the crappier Imperial steel she’d seen, their fur was softer than anything. She returned the hug at least as ferociously as she received it, and heard the throat-sound of an older Leontine’s purr just above her ear.

      “You look good enough to eat,” Kayala told her, as she stepped back. “We thought you might visit. But I’m afraid the house is not in order.” She looked as if she were about to say more, but stopped and slowly turned just her head to look at Severn. “You may go now,” she told him. “We will watch over Kaylin while she is with our Pridlea. She is as kin.”

      Severn glanced at Kaylin.

      “He’s not here as my escort,” Kaylin said. She could see the Leontine eyes begin to shade to an unfortunate shade of copper—something they had in common with the dragons. She also had no idea why.

      “Kaylin has not made racial differences a study,” Severn told Kayala, speaking both formally and softly. He didn’t move at all as he spoke to the Leontine Matriarch. He didn’t gesture or change the position of his head.

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