“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.”
“From who?”
“Private, please. I gather from your sour expression that the rumors are true. You might wish to speak with Lord Sanabalis about the events on Elani at your earliest convenience. If we are lucky, he will be unaware of the difficulties you might encounter.”
“And if we’re not?”
“He will already know, and it will mean that the difficulties are present across a much wider area of the city.”
“What will it mean to him?”
“What it should mean to you, if you’ve been studying for any length of time,” was the curt reply. But Evanton did relent. “There has been a significant and sudden shift in the magical potential of an area that is at least as broad as Elani.”
Kaylin froze. “Severn, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I’m thinking that our sample size—of three—is more than enough for the day. We should return to the office immediately.”
Evanton frowned, although with his face it was sometimes difficult to tell. “Something unusual happened outside of the confines of this particular neighborhood.”
“Yes. An enchantment laid against some of the windows in the Halls of Law has developed a more commanding and distinct personality than it possessed a few days ago.”
Evanton closed his eyes. “Go, Private, Corporal. Speak with the Hawklord now.”
Speaking with the Hawklord was not at the top of Kaylin’s list of things to do before the end of her shift. Or at all. He was—they all were—aware of the shortcomings in an education that didn’t include the rich and the powerful on this side of the Ablayne. For one, power in the fiefs usually meant brute force; manners were what you developed when you wanted to avoid pissing off the brute force in question. Marcus had once told her that manners in the rest of Elantra were exactly the same thing, but Kaylin knew they weren’t. In the fiefs, the best manners were often either silence or total invisibility.
Here, you were actually expected to talk and interact. Without obvious groveling or fawning, and without obvious fear.
Severn caught her hand.
“What?”