This cloud hovered above the food in the still air of the room.
Since Teela and Tain were already on high alert, its existence didn’t noticeably change their expressions or their eye colors—in fact, Teela’s eyes might have actually lightened.
Gilbert stared intently at the cloud. Kattea sensibly asked, “Is it dangerous?” She spoke to Gilbert.
“Indeterminate,” he replied. At Kattea’s frown, he added, “I’m not certain yet. Is it?” he asked the small dragon.
The small dragon squawked.
Gilbert frowned. When he answered, he spoke in a language that Kaylin couldn’t understand. It was not a language that felt familiar, either; its vowels seemed sharp enough to cut the tongue on.
The small dragon squawked.
Oddly enough, this interchange seemed to set everyone else at ease—or as much at ease as they were likely to get—except Kattea, who frowned. “Why can’t you speak a language I can understand?” she demanded.
“I do not believe he is capable of it,” Gilbert replied. “And even if he is, there are some concepts I cannot easily discuss in your tongue. It is not always comfortable to exist in this fashion. My kin are often less confined in the shapes they choose to take.”
“He won’t teach me,” Kattea said to Kaylin. It was the first time she’d sounded less than perky.
“I don’t think he can,” Kaylin replied.
“Why not?”
“Because he’s not human.”
Kattea rolled her eyes. “So?”
“We’re mostly stuck being what we are,” Kaylin replied. “We can learn to do more—or less—with what we are. We can live on either side of the bridge. We can learn to hunt Ferals—” Kattea shrunk into Gilbert’s side, at this “—even if we start out hiding in abandoned buildings and praying they can’t get in. But Teela is Barrani. She’s immortal. She’s going to live forever. She doesn’t really get cold and she doesn’t need to sleep. There are a lot of things we can do together, but I’m never going to be immortal, and when I get no sleep, it’s really bad.
“Gilbert isn’t like us.”
“I have explained this to Kattea before,” Gilbert added. “But apparently the word of a Hawk carries more weight.”
“The word of a mortal,” Kaylin countered. “The immortal don’t generally know much about us, except that we’re weak and not much of a threat.”
“That’s harsh,” Teela said.
“I notice you’re not denying it.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t true.” She turned to Gilbert. “Why are you in Elantra?”
“It was safer for Kattea.”
“Are you responsible for the deaths of your neighbors?”
“Did they die?”
“Yes. Their deaths are the reason you have Hawks in your parlor.”
Small and squawky came back to Kaylin’s shoulder and settled there. He didn’t seem to dislike or distrust Gilbert—and that, more than anything else, was the deciding factor for Kaylin. If Marcus ever learned of it, he’d bite her head off. While immortals tended to take the small creature seriously—possibly because he didn’t sound like an irate chicken to them—mortals didn’t.
“Private Neya,” Gilbert said, “may I ask one question?”
Kaylin nodded.
“The mark on your face—where did you come by it?”
* * *
Teela reacted first. In a voice that implied that frost was her natural element, she said, “Why do you ask?”
“It is unusual. I have not spent the majority of my existence in your streets, but I have spent some time observing—and I have not encountered its like anywhere else.”
“I should hope not,” Tain said.
“Does it break your laws?”
“Our laws, yes. The laws of the Emperor, no. In general, Imperial Laws are designed to deal with difficulties that are well understood and even common.”
“Is it painful?” Gilbert continued.
Kaylin ignored the question. “Can I offer you some advice for blending in?” she asked him.
He looked surprised at the question. “Yes, of course.”
“Blink occasionally. And stare less.”
This confused him. Which, given his origins, was probably to be expected. “The mark on my face was put there by the fieflord of Nightshade.”
Gilbert rose and bowed. “Then it is to you I must speak. You are Lord Kaylin?”
“I am Private Neya,” she replied, uncomfortable—as she always was—with the Barrani title. It had a weight she didn’t understand how to shoulder, and even if she could, wasn’t certain she wanted. “I’m a Hawk, and I serve the Emperor’s law.”
“Yes. I do not see that these are mutually exclusive.”
“What, exactly, do you need to speak with me about?”
“Lord Nightshade,” he replied. “I carry a message for you.”
Nightshade’s name—his True Name—reverberated in the hush that followed.
Calarnenne.
There was no answer. There had been no answer for weeks now, and the silence was slowly driving his younger brother insane.
It was Kaylin who attempted to repair the break in the conversation. “You’ve met him?”
“Yes, and no. If you enter Ravellon now, you will not find him.”
Kaylin nodded.
“But he is to be found there—or so he hopes—in the future.”
* * *
“She is not traveling to Ravellon,” Bellusdeo said flatly.
“It’s illegal,” Kaylin added, although the clarification probably wasn’t necessary, given the color of Bellusdeo’s eyes.
“It is not safe,” Gilbert agreed, as if that was the entire subtext of Bellusdeo’s statement. “But I was tasked with delivering a message.”
“From whom?”
Gilbert frowned. Kaylin considered the question a bit pointless, all things considered. “From—” and here he spoke a word that was thunder. With lightning for emphasis.
All of the hair on Kaylin’s body stood on end; her skin instantly broke out in the worst of the rashes that magic caused. In case there was any doubt, her arms—beneath the shroud of long sleeves—began to glow. It was not a glow that could be easily missed. Kaylin couldn’t fit syllables into the word—or words—that Gilbert had just uttered. She could not repeat the sounds.
The small dragon, however, lifted his head, squawking, and the pearly gray cloud that had hovered in place since he’d exhaled it began to move. It descended, and when it was a foot away from the top of the table on which Kattea had settled both food and drink, Kaylin leaped forward to rescue them.
The small dragon bit her ear without drawing blood; his eye rolling would have been at home on a Barrani face, if Barrani faces had contained eyes that looked like black opals.
“I