LITMIR.BIZ

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didn’t. “I can tell.” Severn’s stride was long enough that he could damn well catch up. He did, and caught her arm; she was in good enough shape that he staggered a step before bringing her to a halt.

      She thought about lying to him, because she didn’t feel she owed him the truth. But when she opened her mouth, she said, “She didn’t touch me. But—when I looked at her, when I saw what she did for Catti, I thought she could. That I would let her. That she would see everything about me that I despise and she wouldn’t care. She would like me anyway.”

      “You trusted her.”

      Kaylin shrugged. She’d learned the gesture from Severn. “I always trust my instincts,” she said at last. “And yes. Even though she—yes. I felt I could.”

      “Where are you going?”

      Kaylin stopped. “I’m following you.”

      “Which is usually done from behind.”

      They had a small argument about Kaylin’s insistence on logging the hours she spent walking, because, as Severn pointed out, at least forty-five minutes of those were her going in circles.

      “It’s not even clear that this visit pertains to any ongoing investigation in the department,” Severn added, “and it may well turn out to be more personal in nature.”

      “Believe me,” Kaylin snapped back, “if the Hawklord knew that I’d received even an informal invitation from any of the Tha’alani—”

      “He’d be astute enough to send someone else.”

      “Very funny.”

      “I wasn’t entirely joking.”

      She made a face. “If he knew—and if you’re finished?—he’d make it a top priority. We don’t get much in the way of communication from the Tha’alani enclave.”

      “For obvious reasons.”

      “And there are at most a handful of cited cases in which the Tha’alani have sought the services of officers of Imperial Law in any context. He’d call it outreach,” she added, with a twist of lips.

      “That would be like diplomacy? He’d definitely send someone else.”

      “Like who? Marcus? Teela? Tain?”

      “I was thinking of the Aerians. They’re fairly levelheaded for people who don’t like to keep their feet on the ground.”

      But as arguments went, it was verbal fencing, and it generated little rage. It also gave Kaylin something else to think about as she approached the gated enclave behind which the Tha’alani lived. They were not numerous for a mortal race, and they very seldom mingled with outsiders.

      Kaylin had never been on the other side of those gates, and they had always held a particular terror for her, because beyond them was a whole race of people who could see—if they wanted to—her every thought, past and present. Who could, at a whim, make her relive every deed, every wrong, every humiliation.

      It was kind of like the waking version of a familiar nightmare, in which she suddenly appeared in her office without a stitch of clothing on.

      Severn seemed unconcerned, but he always did.

      And she was competitive enough that she had to match that, schooling her expression as she approached the gate itself. It was large enough to allow a full carriage or a wagon easy egress, but it was—and would remain—closed, unless there were reason to open it. No, the way in and out was through the gatehouse itself.

      Which she had also only seen from the outside.

      Clint had brought her, when she was fifteen; he had complained about her weight for the entire trip because she’d begged him to fly, and he had loudly and grudgingly agreed—when she’d promised to leave his flight feathers alone for at least two weeks.

      From a distance—the safest one—the gates had still been a shadow and a threat, and it was the only part of the city she had refused to look at while he flew by. His words carried—the lovely, deep timbre of his voice was something she had never learned to ignore—but only his words, and his words alone had painted the picture she now saw clearly.

      She could still hear echoes of the words that the wind hadn’t snatched away, and the murmur of his Aerian cadences.

      Severn took the lead, and she let him.

      She had something to prove, but found, to her annoyance, that pride had its limits. Even annoyance couldn’t overcome them. Because the man—the single man—at the gate was Tha’alani. And he wore not the familiar robes that she had come to hate, but rather a surcoat in the same odd gray over a chain hauberk whose arms glinted in the sunlight, making clear that the Tha’alani were a lot more fastidious in their armor care than the Officers of the Law—or someone else did the cleaning.

      “Severn,” she said, stalling for time even as they approached the sole guard, “have you ever had to run down a Tha’alani?”

      “Probably as often as you’ve had to investigate one,” he replied. Answer enough.

      “Do they never report their crimes?”

      He shrugged. “Either that, or they never commit them.”

      He must have believed that about as much as she did. But if a crime did not affect a member of another racial enclave, it was the prerogative of the enclave—and its Castelord—to deal with the crime itself in the custom of their kind. And the racial enclaves were not required to submit any legal proceedings to the Halls of Law. Kaylin had thought it cheating when she’d first joined the Hawks, and had complained about these separate laws bitterly—until it was pointed out that were they not separate she would have to learn them all, and probably the languages they were written in.

      Or growled in.

      After that, she’d kept the complaints to herself.

      The guard turned toward them as they approached, aligning first the stalks on his forehead, and then his face and body, as if the latter were afterthought. Severn appeared to take no notice of this, but Kaylin found it unsettling.

      She could not see the color of his eyes, but realized after a moment that she could clearly see said eyes—that this guard, like the Leontines and the Barrani, wore no helm. Of course he didn’t wear a helmet, she thought bitterly. It would cripple his most effective weapon. She shoved her hand into her pocket, and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. If it had taken her that damn long to notice something that damn obvious, she was letting her nerves get the better of her.

      But Severn was ahead of her, and before she could even uncurl the wretched thing, he said to the guard, “We have come at the invitation of Ybelline Rabon’alani.”

      The guard’s expression froze in place, and his stalks waved a moment in the air. He looked carefully at the hawk emblazoned on both of their surcoats, and then searched their faces.

      After this silent inspection, he nodded, not to Severn, but to Kaylin, who stood in his shadow. “She will see you,” he said, the words oddly inflected. “Someone will meet you on the other side of the guard house and show you the way to her home.”

      “Someone” was another guard, another man in mail. His hair was a pale shade of brown, but it was long, and he wore it in a braid over his left shoulder. His eyes were clear, not golden the way Dragons’ eyes were, but still some shade that was paler than brown, darker than sunlight. He bowed, rising, and she thought him younger than the guard at the gate. His eyes were alive with unspoken curiosity, and his expression was actually an expression.

      He stared at her, and she stared back.

      “I’m Epharim,” he finally said, his stalks weaving through stray strands of his hair. He waited, and then after a moment, he reddened and held out a hand.

      Kaylin took it slowly, and shook it. If it was true you could

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