Cast in Flame

by Michelle Sagara

  In Kaylin’s case, that had been true. Even the closet had been a gift—of sorts—from the Hawks in the office.

  These doors, however, could easily accommodate the same carriage that the drive could if it weren’t for the stairs; they were steep and narrow, as if they belonged at the front of an entirely different—and much smaller—building.

  “This place is going to be out of my pay range,” she said, as she reached the top of the stairs. “Unless it’s a rooming house.”

  Bellusdeo snorted smoke. “There is no way there would be a rooming house in a neighborhood like this.”

  “It’s not illegal.”

  “Legality is only one form of social pressure. Have you spent much time with the humans who claim wealth and power in the city you police?”

  “Remember that tact and diplomacy I appear to lack?”

  “Ah, yes. Well. This is not a place for the less well-off to either live or gather.”

  “Bets on the door opening on its own?”

  “Define on its own.”

  Severn however said, “You’re betting it won’t?”

  Kaylin snorted. “No.”

  “This, kitling, is why you lose money. That is not a bet anyone would take.”

  “I’d take it at high enough odds,” Severn countered.

  Mandoran said, “I do not understand the purpose of this ‘betting.’”

  “Teela hasn’t explained it?”

  “She’s done more than explain it—but it still makes no sense.”

  “You need to spend more time in the office,” Kaylin replied, before she actually checked the words leaving her mouth. “You’d pick it up in no time. I’m not so sure about Annarion, though.”

  The door did not roll open as they approached. There were no obvious door knockers, no pulls that might ring interior bells; those would probably be found at the trade entrance—the doors regular people were expected to enter. Kaylin had personal experience with this, as a Hawk.

  There was no glowing door ward, either, but this wasn’t unusual in the larger manor homes. Door wards were considered inferior to actual, working guards—and the wards were generally cheaper. Only in the run-down, older buildings was there a similar lack of wards, but for the opposite reason: door wards were not cheap.

  “Ready?” Kaylin asked Bellusdeo.

  “I am uncertain,” she said, after a long pause.

  Surprised, Kaylin looked toward the Dragon. The Dragon was watching Mandoran.

  Mandoran was the color of milk.

  Annarion was nowhere near as pale; to Kaylin’s surprise, he stepped in front of Mandoran; his hand fell to the hilt of a sword Kaylin would have sworn he wasn’t wearing when they entered this district. She physically turned to face Teela, whose eyes were predictably blue, raising her brows in question.

  “Someone’s coming,” Mandoran said.

  Before she could ask how he knew—and she probably wouldn’t have, as she had a suspicion she wouldn’t understand any answer he’d care to give—the doors began to roll open. Standing between them was a withered old man.

  Sadly, withered was not a figurative description.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Kaylin started forward immediately. So did Severn. Even Teela moved.

  They were Hawks. They had training. And they had some experience recognizing death when they saw it. They didn’t usually see a dead man standing between open doors as if his very last act had been opening them—but this was a big city. Stranger things happened.

  Kaylin caught him as he toppled—and he did topple; he didn’t crumple.

  The small dragon lifted his head as if he were bored. He also yawned, to drive the point home.

  Severn immediately checked for vital signs as Kaylin, grunting, lowered the man to the ground. In this particular case, she chose to stay on the safe side of the threshold. Teela came to stand on the other side of the two Hawks. She didn’t ask for the man’s status. “Is this work for Red?”

  “Hard to tell,” Severn replied. “He didn’t just open the doors and drop dead; he’s been dead for a while.”

  “How long?”

  “Less than a couple of days. There are no obvious signs of violence; no visible bruising, no bleeding; there are no obvious bumps on the back of his head.” There weren’t any on his forehead either.

  “He’s mortal?” Annarion asked.

  Kaylin was surprised. “What else could he be? He’s old.”

  Annarion joined them, kneeling by Kaylin’s side. The small dragon whiffled in his ear, but he ignored the sounds; he seemed fascinated by the corpse. Fascinated, Kaylin thought, not repelled. “He aged to death.”

  “Yes. It’s pretty much how most of us are going to go—if we’re lucky.”

  “And age means weakness.”

  “Well, this age does.”

  “There are no signs of violence,” Severn finally said. “None that I can see. He’s not emaciated enough to have starved to death.”

  “Oh, he didn’t,” Kaylin replied. She was the one who’d caught him as he toppled. “He certainly couldn’t have been poor, given where he was living. And his clothing is a little on the odd side, but it’s not cheap.”

  “You are certain,” Bellusdeo asked, keeping a respectful distance from the Hawks at work. “He lived here?”

  “Well, he either lived here or he wandered in through the trade entrance and died on the way out. There’s no sign of struggle; there’s no sign of anything obviously wrong. To know more, we’d have to send him to Red.” Before Bellusdeo could ask, Kaylin said, “Red doesn’t examine every corpse in this city; he barely has the resources to examine the bodies that are obviously murder victims.”

  “We can’t just leave him here.”

  “No, we probably can’t.” Kaylin rose. “But we’re short a wagon or a carriage, and even if we did have one, we’d have no destination.” She grimaced and added, “I hope this wasn’t the landlord.” Her expression softened. “And I hope he didn’t die alone.”

  “No, of course not,” a new voice said. They looked up. The light on the interior of the manse was bright and even; it seemed to wrap itself around a woman who now stood in the doorway, her toes touching, but not crossing, the threshold. “He hoped,” she added softly, “to be able to meet the new residents.”

  * * *

  Kaylin rose. The small dragon rose as well, although he didn’t leave her shoulders. She expected him to squawk; he was silent. His wings were high, but he hadn’t yet extended them.

  “Did you know him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know if he has family in the city?” Kaylin blinked. They had examined the body in the light from the foyer, but the light—at the time—hadn’t been so harsh. She couldn’t clearly see the speaker’s face. She could see her height, and the shadowed outline of her body; her voice was strong and clear, but it didn’t imply youth.

  “No. He has no remaining family in the city. There is a plot of land at the back of the manor; a small, private graveyard.”

  “You’re going to bury him here?”

  The woman nodded. “I would appreciate your help in this; I am afraid that I am not quite up to the task of digging a grave these days.”

  * * *

  If someone had told Kaylin that she would be digging a grave in a rich person’s bloody backyard under the moons’ light, she would have laughed at them. Well, no, she would have made a bet. Sadly, she would have lost. There were shovels of varying widths in a small shed at the corner of what was, indeed, a private graveyard. The graves were adorned by markers—all stone. The prospective landlord had offered them lamps. The Dragons and the Barrani didn’t require lamps, given moonlight; Severn and Kaylin did.

  The landlord had used a rich
person’s version of “help.” She wasn’t the one lifting shovels or making the hole in the ground; she wouldn’t be the one filling that hole, either. “Do you think she can even leave the house?” Kaylin asked, as she tossed dirt into a growing pile.

  “I note you didn’t ask her,” Teela replied. She tossed a larger amount of dirt into the same pile. “You don’t think she can.”

  “No.”

  “Do you suspect she’s responsible for the man’s death?”

  Did she? Kaylin shook her head. “...No. I think she genuinely cares that he’s laid to rest here. I think she was waiting—or hoping—that someone would stop by who could operate outside of the manor. That just happened to be us.”

  Maggaron was using a shovel that looked, in his giant hands, like a spade. If they finished this job inside of an hour, it would be because he was helping. On the other hand, his first suggestion had been instant cremation. Kaylin explained that instant required magical aid, which they didn’t happen to have on hand—and his brow had creased. Multiple times.

  Bellusdeo’s chuckle made clear why. “It doesn’t require magic at all. I could breathe on the corpse. You still aren’t used to being surrounded by Dragons, are you?” She exhaled a small cloud of smoke, to make a point.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” was Kaylin’s uneasy reply.

  “Of course you don’t,” Teela said. “It’s the practical solution.”

  Maggaron, having been raised and trained in a world where corpses could be utilized by Shadows to the great detriment of the living, would have argued; Bellusdeo shook her head, and he subsided. He did, on the other hand, insist on a pit that was at least twelve feet deep. Bellusdeo nixed that, as well.

  And so they dug a grave for an old, dead stranger. Kaylin thought the landlord looked on from one of the windows at the back of the house, but those windows—when she glanced at them—remained stubbornly empty.

  * * *

  The Barrani and the Dragons felt that something ceremonial should be said, once the corpse had been placed—with surprising care—in the open grave. Kaylin thought this was a waste of time, and was forced to say as much when they deferred to the two mortals present. “He’s dead. The dead don’t care. We don’t know him, and the only person who did isn’t actually here.” When this was met with silence, she added, “We mostly threw corpses into the Ablayne, in the fiefs. Or we left them out in the streets overnight.”

  Everyone looked appalled, which Kaylin found grating. “If you have something you want said, you can say it. I’ve got nothing. We’re not leaving him to rot. We’re not leaving him as food for the Ferals so that they might—just might—not add to the body count before morning. We’re not dumping him in the river—”

  “Which is illegal, as you well know.”

  “I know he didn’t die alone. If we believe the landlord, he didn’t die in pain. He was healthy until he died. He wasn’t hungry, he wasn’t cold, wet, or in need of shelter. For many of the people who grew up where I did, he was already blessed.”

  Silence.

  Kaylin attempted not to feel resentful, but that left her feeling guilty. She’d spent a couple of days in the company of Immortals. She knew they had their own problems and their own crises, and she could usually empathize, because when it came down to it, she did feel for them. They were her friends.

  But they weren’t like her. They never had been. The similarities didn’t erase the differences.

  She closed her eyes, exhaled, and said, “Sorry.” It was true—the differences would always be there. But Severn had lived the life she’d lived, and Severn wasn’t snapping and snarling.

  “Why did you agree to bury him?” Teela asked. Maggaron was busy putting away the shovels—which, given his size, proved difficult. The shed was not large.

  “Because she wanted us to bury him. He’s dead. He doesn’t care. But she’s not—and she does.”

  “You are certain?”

  “Yes. No. Yes.”

  No one asked her to make up her mind. Teela, however, slid an arm around her shoulder. “Let’s head back, then. If the landlord wants to say a few words, she can say them in private. I think she’s waiting for us.”

  * * *

  When they once again climbed the narrow stairs, the doors were still open. Kaylin glanced up to the height of the foyer, expecting to see a chandelier—or four. There wasn’t one. The foyer itself was not quite palatial. The ceiling was high, and the floors—marble—caught and reflected light. There were doors that faced the front doors, and smaller doors to the right and left; there were also staircases—and these were wide—that curved from a recessed second story on both the right and the left; they wound their way down, pointing to the foyer’s center.

  What there wasn’t, anywhere in sight, was the landlord.

  “Hello?” Kaylin said, squinting slightly as her eyes adjusted to the difference in ambient light. “Helloooo!” She could swear her voice echoed. She glanced at Teela, who shook her head.

  She then turned to Mandoran. “Is the landlord still here?”

  “She is somewhere in the building; she’s no longer in the foyer.”

  Kaylin exhaled. “Fine. Why don’t we try this tomorrow when there’s more light and less dirt wedged under our fingernails?”

  “Speak for yourself,” he replied, lifting his hands.

  Barrani. Maggaron, on the other hand, looked worse than she did. She was grateful someone did.

  “There might be a slight problem with that suggestion,” Teela said.

  “Please don’t tell me the doors are shut.”

  “Not exactly.”

  Kaylin turned to see what not exactly meant. Technically, Teela was correct: the doors weren’t shut. This would be because they no longer existed.

  * * *

  “Teela was definitely right about you,” Mandoran said, in the long beat of silence that followed.

  “This has nothing to do with me,” Kaylin snapped. “You’ll note that the rest of the excitement we’ve suffered had nothing to do with me. I caused no problems in the Keeper’s Garden. I didn’t cause Castle Nightshade to wake up in revolt. I also, for the record, didn’t destroy my previous home.”

  The small dragon bit her ear. He didn’t draw blood.

  Kaylin exhaled. “And I know you didn’t mean to cause trouble, either. I’m sorry. I would like—just once—for things to work out the normal way.”

  “What is normal?” Mandoran asked, apparently with genuine curiosity, rather than bored derision.

  “Other people manage to find new places to live that don’t involve corpses, burying bodies, or doors that disappear the minute you cross the threshold.”

  “Do they?”

  “Every other person who works in the office has. Even Tain.”

  “Tain,” Mandoran replied, “is doing his best to guarantee that our stay here is dull and pointless.”

  Teela cleared her throat. Loudly.

  “Next time,” Kaylin said, “I’m going to ask Caitlin to help. It worked out fine the first time. Things like this don’t happen to her.”

  “How impressed would she be if they did?”

  “They wouldn’t.”

  “How would you feel if you got her involved in something like this?”

  “You win,” Kaylin said. “And yes, I’m whining.”

  “And it’s not attractive.”

  “Neither are dirty fingernails. Yes, okay, the whining is worse. Just—give me a sec.” She removed the stick from her hair, shook it out, and put it back up again. Looking at her reflection in the reflective, smooth flooring, she said, “This is why I need a place of my own. I want my own home.”

  “Home,” Mandoran began, frowning, “is not—”

  Teela had stepped on his fo
ot. “Home has different connotations for mortals. They do not use the word the way we do, and if some mortals are ambivalent about their homes, the ambivalence is likewise different. Kaylin feels safe in her home.”

  Annarion and Mandoran stared at Kaylin.

  “If you had been safe in your home, we would not now be looking for a new one.”

  “We aren’t looking.” She folded her arms. “There’s no absolute safety in any of our homes. Yours or mine.”

  “We have no expectation that there will be,” Annarion replied. Teela was silent and expressionless. “Home—for those of us who choose to claim one—is tied to our bloodline. It is not something that we singly own or claim. It is the seat of political power. For that reason it is the least secure of our possible residences.”

  “Our homes aren’t your homes, as Teela said. I lived in what you’d consider a large closet. I didn’t own anything you’d consider valuable.”

  “You wear the ring of the Lord of the West March.”

  “Fine. I own almost nothing you’d consider valuable. Home’s not a fortress for most of us.”

  “Then the safety is illusory, and you are aware of this fact.”

  “It’s not safety I want.”

  “What, then, do you seek?”

  “Privacy. I have had a long day,” she continued, spacing each syllable evenly as if it were a sentence of its own. “It hasn’t been fun or productive. If I had a home of my own, I’d be there now, whining at the walls, which have the advantage of not caring. I could be in as foul a mood as I want. I could curse in any language I know. I could give up on being responsible for one night and crawl under the bed and try to sleep. I could do it in any state of dress. I could be myself for a couple of hours without having to worry about offending anyone else. Or hurting them. Or caring whether or not I’ve got dirt under my fingernails. Dirt happens when you bury people.

  “Maybe other people are capable of living without that—I’m not. I want to be self-indulgent enough to feel sorry for myself for an hour or two, even if it’s not justified. I like having friends. If I don’t have a place of my own to go to sometime soon, I’ll probably drive them all away.” She had to pause for breath, she’d been talking so quickly.