LITMIR.BIZ

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twice in a single day. “Which one?”

      “Winter,” Severn replied.

      Rennick opened his mouth, but for the moment, he seemed to have run out of words. His eyes widened, his jaw closed, and his lips turned up in a genuine smile. Thirty, Kaylin thought. Or maybe even younger. “That was my second play—I wrote it before I won the seat.” He paused, and then his eyes narrowed. “Where did you see it?”

      “It was staged in the Forum,” Severn replied, without missing a beat. “Constance Dargo directed it. I believe the actress who played the role of Lament was—”

      “Trudy.”

      “Gertrude Ellen.”

      “That would be Trudy.” His eyes, however, had lost some of their suspicion. “She could be such a bitch. But she made a number of good points about some of the dialogue.”

      “The dialogue was changed?”

      “Good god, yes. Dialogue on the page is always stiffer than spoken dialogue—you can’t get a real sense of what it sounds like until actors put it through its paces. The first staging of any play defines the play. What did you think of it?”

      “I thought it very interesting, especially given where it played, and when. It was also unusual in that it didn’t feature a relationship as its central motivation.”

      “Starving people seldom have the time to worry about social niceties.”

      Severn glanced at Kaylin.

      “But you might be the first person sent me who’s actually familiar with my work,” Rennick said, picking up the reins where he had dropped them.

      “And as one such person, I have no intention of guiding your work. You know it. I don’t.”

      “And let me tell you—you don’t … Oh.”

      “But the Emperor’s dictates are clear,” Severn continued, into the very welcome silence. “Winter was a work that reached out to people who had everything and reminded them, for a moment, of the fate of the rest of the city. You were chosen to write this for a reason.”

      “I was chosen because they don’t have to pay me more.”

      At that, Kaylin did chuckle. Rennick actually looked in her direction, but the hostility had ebbed. Slightly. As far as Rennick seemed to be concerned, Dragons didn’t exist, and he didn’t bother to glance at Sanabalis.

      Kaylin did. The Dragon’s eyes were a placid gold. Clearly, he had met Rennick before, and for some reason, he had decided not to kill him then.

      “Look,” Rennick added, running his hands through his hair as if he would like to pull it all out by its roots, “Winter wasn’t meant to be a message. It wasn’t meant to tell the audience anything about the state of the poor or the starving. I loved Lament—I wanted to tell her story in a way that would move people. Talia Korvick was the first Lament—I’ll grant that Trudy did a better job, but Trudy wouldn’t touch my unknown little play for its first staging.”

      The idea that Rennick cared about moving anyone in a way that didn’t mean out of my sight surprised Kaylin. Almost as much as the fact that he would admit it.

      “You achieved that—but you also made people think about what her life entailed, and how her life might have been different.”

      “Yes—but that was incidental. I don’t know how to make people think differently. And the Emperor appears to want me to … to educate people. With characters that are in no way my own creations. It’s dishonest,” he added.

      Given that he told lies for a living, this struck Kaylin as funny. Sanabalis, however, stepped on her foot.

      “Lament wasn’t a real person but you made her real. The Tha’alani are real in the same way that the rest of us are—and Lament was human.” Severn frowned slightly, his thinking expression. “Have you been out in the streets since the storm?”

      Rennick frowned. “Not far, no.”

      “People are afraid. Frightened people are often ugly people. The Tha’alani—”

      “From all reports, they tried to kill us.”

      Kaylin didn’t care at that moment if Sanabalis stepped on her foot and broke it. “By standing in the way of the tidal wave? They would have been the first people hit by the damn thing!”

      Rennick actually looked at her, possibly for the first time. After a moment, he said, “There is that.”

      “Look, I don’t know what you’ve heard, and I don’t bloody care—they tried to save the city. And if this is what they get for trying to save it, they should have just let it drown.”

      “And you know this how?”

      “I was there—” She shut her mouth. Loudly. “I’m the cultural expert,” she told him instead.

      “You were there?”

      “She was not,” Sanabalis said, speaking in his deep rumble. “But she is a friend of the Tha’alani, and as much as anyone who was not born Tha’alani can, she now understands them. Mr. Rennick, I am aware that you find the current assignment somewhat stressful—”

      “The Imperial Playwright writes his own work,” Rennick snapped. “This is—this is political propaganda.”

      “But what you write, and what you stage—provided any of the directors available meet your rather strict criteria—will influence the city for decades to come. It is necessary work, even if you find it distasteful.”

      “In other words,” Kaylin added sweetly, “The Emperor doesn’t care what you think.”

      Severn glanced at Kaylin, and his expression cleared. Whatever he had been balancing in the back of his mind had settled into a decision. “With your leave, Lord Sanabalis, we have duties elsewhere.”

      “What?” Rennick glared at Severn. “You definitely haven’t outlasted the previous assistants.”

      “Our presence has been requested by the castelord of the Tha’alani,” he continued, ignoring Rennick—which might, to Kaylin’s mind, be the best policy. “And if you think it would be of help to you, you may accompany us.”

      Hard to believe that only a few weeks ago, Kaylin would have skirted this Quarter of the town as if it had the plague. Fear made things big; her mental map of the Tha’alani district had been a huge, gray shadow that would, luck willing, remain completely in the dark.

      Now, it seemed small. It had one large gate, and way too few guards—usually one—between it and the rest of the city. The only people who left the Quarter for much of anything were the Tha’alani seconded to the Imperial Service—and like many, many people in Elantra, they hated their jobs. Of course they did their jobs to prevent the Emperor from turning their race into small piles of ash, but they didn’t make this a big public complaint.

      And they still liked the Hawks. Kaylin privately thought that was crazy—in their situation, she wouldn’t have.

      Lord Sanabalis had arranged for a carriage, but he had not chosen to accompany them to the Quarter. This was probably for the best, as a Dragon wandering the streets could make anyone who noticed him nervous. On the other hand, people were already nervous, and if they wanted to take it out on something, Kaylin privately had a preference for something that could fight back, although she conceded that this was a fief definition of the word “fight.”

      Rennick was silent for the most part, which came as a bit of a shock. He stuck his head out the window once or twice when something caught his eye, and he frequently stuck his arm out as if writing on air, but Severn said nothing; clearly Rennick was not of a station where babysitting was considered part of their duties.

      But he

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