“I came from the fiefs. I work on the streets. I don’t belong here, and I can’t be happy where I don’t belong.”
“You are a Lord of the High Court.”
“The Barrani High Court, and you know damn well I don’t have to live in the High Halls.”
“You have visited them before.”
“I visited them with Teela.”
“And the difference?”
She grimaced. There was a difference. She wasn’t certain what it was. “Teela’s a Hawk.”
“And Bellusdeo is not.”
“Bellusdeo would never swear the oath the Halls of Law require.”
“No. Lord Teela did?”
“Lord Teela doesn’t give a damn about nonbinding oaths. They’re just words, as far as the Barrani are concerned. There is no way Marcus would ever allow Bellusdeo to join the Hawks.”
“Ah, yes. Your Sergeant’s famous mistrust of my kind.” His eyes, however, shaded toward gold. He clearly found Marcus amusing. “Your Teela understands the High Court, and she avoids it where possible. But if you enter that world, she enters it beside you—and she warns others, by presence alone, that there are consequences to any actions they might take against you. Bellusdeo cannot do that, here. And she is aware that she lacks that ability; the Palace is not her home. It is not an environment with which she is familiar, or over which she has ultimate control.
“Still, she tries. She targets Diarmat with the full brunt of her outraged disdain. Her outrage,” he added, “is genuine. She feels your marks are not accorded the respect they are due. She does not fully consider the advantage in being underestimated— and I will say, now, that there is a distinct advantage to you, in my opinion. She feels a debt of gratitude to you.”
“I didn’t do anything for her gratitude. I did it because...because....”
“Oh, do continue. I’m certain it will be fascinating. You did it because that’s what anyone would do?”
Kaylin shrugged. It was a fief shrug. Fief shrugs, on the other hand, were not a language with which the Arkon chose to be familiar.
“You grew up in the fiefs. You are aware that you are lying. Even if you aren’t, there are very few—I can think of almost no one—who could do for Bellusdeo what you did. She would have died there.” His gaze slid off hers. “I am not certain, at this moment, that fate would not be preferable in her mind. Yes, the discussion in progress—and to my mind it will be some hours before it is done—involves both your residence and hers.” He closed his eyes. “She is in pain, Kaylin. She is grieving. For us, the grief is long past; it exists only in echoes, when we turn our thoughts to the past.
“For Bellusdeo it is new. It makes her reckless. More reckless,” he added, as if this were necessary. “You see her as a Dragon, which is fair. You will age, you will die; she will live forever. She is favored by an Emperor we still consider it wise that you never meet; she is given leeway that would be granted no one else. All of this is true. It is not, however, the only truth.
“I understand that the loss of your home was due to her presence. Believe, Kaylin, that she understands this, as well. If you do not resent her for the loss—if you do not speak against her companionship—she will go where you go.”
“You...want me to move out with her.”
“No. I feel it prudent to advise you that her presence will make your life far more difficult than it might otherwise be. I want her to move out with you. I am of the opinion—at the moment—that the benefits that accrue will go in one direction; I am aware—as you are—of the risks that move entails. If Bellusdeo does accompany you, the Imperial Treasury will cover a large portion of your rental costs.”
Kaylin’s arms tightened, but she said nothing. She’d been able to afford her one-room apartment, even with Bellusdeo as a roommate. She wasn’t so flush with money that money itself was irrelevant. But...she really didn’t like the idea. At all. “She hasn’t even asked me, you know.”
“I know. She will not ask if she cannot argue the Emperor around; it would be too humiliating.”
And having a screaming fight that an entire palace had no choice but to hear wasn’t? “I don’t want my home surrounded by bloody Imperial Guards.”
The Arkon raised a white brow.
“I mean it. I don’t want home to be a jail.”
“Bellusdeo will have a security detail.”
“I apparently have a security detail, if by that you mean Imperial spies. I can’t stop them from watching my every move. I just want to pretend that they don’t.”
“Why?”
Dragons. Ugh.
“And your other demands?”
Kaylin had none. She felt guilty, because one of the things she’d been so looking forward to was having a place of her own again. She’d had nothing when she’d come from the fiefs. But she’d had hope for the future—with the Hawks, within Elantra. What hope did Bellusdeo now have that was similar?
“Yes,” she heard herself say.
“You will consider it?”
She nodded. The small dragon, silent as cloth for most of the interview, raised his head and batted the side of Kaylin’s cheek with it.
“Good. I now have work to do.”
* * *
“Midwives’ guild?” Clint asked, as Kaylin trudged up the stairs of the Halls of Law.
“Dragons,” was her curt reply. If the midwives had kept her awake through the small hours of the night, she’d’ve had something useful to show for the lack of sleep.
“If you don’t want to see Dragons,” Tanner told her, “I suggest you avoid the office for the next couple of hours.”
“Why?”
“Bellusdeo is there.”
She hadn’t been in the apartments they shared at the palace when Kaylin had dragged her butt out of her rooms in the morning.
“Alone?”
“No. Lord Sanabalis is with her. So are six of the Imperial Guard. The color of Barrani eyes in the office is almost midnight blue.”
Could this day get any worse? “Thanks for the heads-up.” Kaylin considered turning tail and finding breakfast, but she didn’t have much money on hand.
“You’re going in?”
“Trouble’ll find me when I leave the office if I don’t; I might as well get paid for enduring it.”
* * *
The Imperial Guard always set the office, as a whole, on edge. Caitlin didn’t mind them, but they were so stiff, so officious, and so smugly superior, Caitlin was an island in the Halls. Bellusdeo was standing to one side of Marcus’s desk as Kaylin entered the office. Kaylin glanced, once, at the duty roster, saw her name—beside Severn’s—on the Elani beat, and allowed herself to relax. She wasn’t late. Yet.
She didn’t, however, see Severn.
Sanabalis was standing to one side of Bellusdeo; his eyes were a very clear orange, and if Dragons didn’t physically require sleep, he looked like he could personally use a week of it. The Imperial Guard were like breathing statues.
“Private,” Marcus growled. His sense of smell had probably alerted him to Kaylin’s presence, as there were too many tall people between them for her to even see him, seated as he was at his desk, and behind the perpetual stacks of paper that girded it. She couldn’t see the color