“Kitling, the only person who mentioned the dirt was you. You’re probably the only person here who cares.”
Kaylin muttered one of the milder Leontine curses, which meant, roughly, I hope your claws get caught in your blankets. It was only used on family.
“Even the landlord appears to consider it largely irrelevant.”
“I’d like to know what the landlord considers relevant,” Kaylin replied. She considered the words only after they’d left her mouth. “Actually, I’ll take that back.” Not only was she dirty, she was achy. Digging graves at the tail end of a stressful day did that. She turned around to face a windowless—and yes, doorless—wall. Exhaling, defeated, she said, “Up the stairs or into the manor? I’ve had enough of basements for a long damn time; we’re skipping all the stairs that lead down.”
* * *
The general consensus—which mostly meant a lot of watchful silence—was up the stairs. Neither Mandoran or Annarion seemed overly troubled by the change in the architecture; they were the only ones who weren’t. Maggaron looked like he expected shadows to emerge from the floors; Severn had unwound his weapon chain; Teela’s eyes were blue, and Bellusdeo’s, orange.
Kaylin turned to Mandoran. “You’re sure you have no idea where the landlord went?”
He frowned. “I didn’t say that.”
“Tell me what you did say, but in shorter words. Shorter, Elantran words.”
“I’m not certain I can lead you to the landlord.” This time, he put the emphasis in a different place. “But I’m fairly certain we could find her.”
If the building itself was in any way like Tara, the landlord could hear everything anyone was thinking. Kaylin chose Leontine as her language of choice, but kept sliding into tired, frustrated Elantran. Given Teela’s expression, she kept as much of it to herself as she possibly could; given her mood, it wasn’t one hundred percent.
“Hello!” she shouted, as they began to climb the left set of stairs. With the single exception of the doors, none of the rest of the building had undergone radical and immediate change. The stairs felt like stairs beneath her feet. The rails were cool to the touch; they were metallic. The chandelier did not magically become the type of lampstand that would have graced Kaylin’s old apartment when she could afford the fuel.
“I swear, I’m going to strangle Evanton myself.”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” Teela replied. “It’ll make what happened to your old place look tame and insignificant in comparison, in the end.”
“Why did he even make this suggestion?”
“You’re asking the wrong person. If we find a way out before you expire of old age, ask him in person.”
“Oh, I will.” She glanced at the small dragon, who was yawning. If he’d had a voice, he would have been complaining—loudly—about boredom; he had other ways of making his feelings known. But he didn’t look nervous. He didn’t look worried. He didn’t look angry.
“Do not use your familiar as a weather vane,” Teela told her. Teela knew her well enough she didn’t need to be a mindreader. The stairs joined a landing; Kaylin paused to look over the railing at the ground below; she had to squint because the chandelier was closer. The doors had failed to emerge.
“Bets on getting out of here before dawn?” she said to Severn.
“Or at all?” Teela added.
Severn, blades in hand, grinned. “I’ll take it.”
“Odds?”
“Even for Kaylin’s bet.”
“And mine?”
“There’s no win condition.”
“Fine. Make it: before the mortals perish.”
Severn chuckled. “You won’t be able to collect.”
“Oh? That’s a nice weapon you have there.”
Severn’s answering smile was slow and deep. “I’d like to see you try to pick it up.”
All three of the Barrani laughed out loud.
A golden Dragon brow arched. “The weapon was originally meant for Barrani use?”
Teela chuckled. “It was. Or rather, every wielder prior to Corporal Handred was one of my people. Weapons, however, are like friends or lovers; they form attachments that objective observers cannot predict, and they reject attachments that seem—to all outsiders—to be the most advantageous.”
“And if you attempted to wield the weapon?”
“Now? If I were lucky, I would have a burned and blistered hand.”
“Lucky,” Bellusdeo asked, “or powerful enough?”
“Both. I have been accused of many things; stupidity is not among them.”
“Not anymore,” Mandoran murmured. “If we find this landlord, do you want anything other than escape at this point?”
The obvious, smart answer was no. For some reason, it wouldn’t leave her mouth. The small dragon butted her cheek with the top of its head.
“That’s not a no,” Mandoran said.
“It should be,” she replied, finally turning to face the hall beyond the balcony. “But—” She shook her head.
“Share,” he said, grinning.
“I don’t enjoy finding corpses, and I definitely don’t enjoy digging graves for them. But—it seemed clear to me that the landlord cared for her former tenant. And cared about what happened to his body. My guess is that she doesn’t just kidnap new tenants off the street. I don’t think the manor is a prison. Well, not usually.”
“Based on what evidence?”
Kaylin shrugged.
“It’s entirely possible her tenant was only allowed to leave because he was dead.”
When Kaylin failed to answer, Mandoran looked like he wanted to pull his perfect hair out by the roots; he was frustrated. “I told Teela I wanted to give you my name and she nearly bit my head off. But this way of conversing is tiring.”
Kaylin was appalled, and she wasn’t even Barrani. “You do not go around giving out your True Name because you find speech tiring!”
“Add a few colorful phrases, quadruple the length, and you have Teela’s speech. You’re certain your eyes can’t change color?”
“Yes.”
“Other mortals have normal eyes—” He glared at Teela. “What? It’s true. Leontines. Aerians. I haven’t met the other races—but I’m told they all have normal eyes. She’s not offended.”
“And you know that how?”
“She’s not exactly reticent, Teela. I’m not sure why I’m not supposed to ask about the differences. They’re there, and she understands them better than I do.”
“It’s not her job to explain herself to you.”
“It is if she wants me to understand her.”
Bellusdeo had sidled up to Kaylin. “Should I have Maggaron throw him over the rails?”
“No. I don’t think Maggaron’s guaranteed to succeed, and I think Teela would take it badly.”
“She wouldn’t,” Teela said.
Kaylin exhaled. Again. She didn’t remember inhaling. “Leave it, Teela.”
“Why?”
“Because I asked you similar questions when I first joined the Hawks. And you answered them. Were you offended at the time?”
“No. Mostly amused. A little surprised, but mostly amused. You don’t look particularly amused.”
“I’ve had a crappy day. If I were in a better mood, I wouldn’t mind being talked about as if I were a really clever pet.”
Bellusdeo snorted. “You’re never going to be in a mood that good.”
“I was the official mascot for the Hawks for a number of years, and I survived. I even liked the Hawks enough to want to become one.”
“Mascot?”
“Don’t ask. We might as well look for the landlord. I kind of feel like this is a game of hide-and-seek.”
“Are you any go
od at seeking?”
“No. I suck at hiding, too, if that helps.”
* * *
There were doors on either side of the hall—three each. They were not as tall as the doors that opened into the foyer—but they couldn’t be, at least not from this side; the ceilings were a normal variety of high. The hall was well lit. Too well lit. It implied sunlight, with no obvious windows to let it through.
The doors were rectangular in shape, which pretty much described doors throughout the city, with a few notable exceptions. But these doors had carvings as ornamentation. They looked like very rough impressions of people, at first glance; they reminded her of the mud figures Marrin’s children made, but with a lot less dirt.
They were, however, part of the door itself; they hadn’t been carved and nailed or glued in place. And if they were simple—and they were—there was a bold certainty to the shapes that implied expertise, rather than the exuberant playfulness of overconfident foundlings.
She frowned and glanced at Severn.
He nodded. “The figure on the door farthest down on the left has what might be wings.”
“And on the far right,” Teela added, “I think I can make out the hint of pointy ears. These are more like silhouettes given solid shape than actual carvings.”
“Are we meant to enter the door appropriate for our race?” Bellusdeo asked. She didn’t sound particularly pleased by the prospect.
Kaylin wasn’t, either. If the body of the previous tenant hadn’t been obviously mortal, she’d—she’d...do what? Storm out of the manor in a huff?
“I think this is supposed to be us,” Mandoran pointed out. He’d stopped at the first door on the right, in front of the raised outline of someone tall and slender. There were no distinguishing physical characteristics in silhouette, because hair was apparently not included. Kaylin had never seen a bald Barrani.
“You can open it if you want,” she told Mandoran.
Teela cleared her throat.
“Fine.” Kaylin crossed the hall and reached for the large, brass handle that would—in a normal building—be used to open the door. “I’ll open it.”
The small dragon yawned and stretched a wing across Kaylin’s face. He didn’t leave it in front of her eyes, so he didn’t mean for her to look through it. “You could be a little more helpful.” Yawn. Squawk.
“I believe he’s attempting to tell you that there’s nothing to fear,” Mandoran suggested. He’d come to stand by Kaylin’s side, his long, slender hands clasped loosely behind his back.
“You were joking about giving me your name, weren’t you?” she asked, as she depressed the upper part of the handle.
“No.”
“Mandoran—”
“You’ve already seen my name.” His tone was uncharacteristically serious. “You’ve carried it. You’ve spoken it.”
“I haven’t.”
“You have. You’ve only spoken it once, but Kaylin, I heard you. Had I not heard your voice, I could not have come back. You already know my name.”
“I don’t.” The door clicked. “If I did, you could speak to me the way you speak to the rest of your kin.”
“Yes. I cannot; I’ve tried. We have all tried. It’s strange. We’ve discussed it,” he added. “Sedarias decided that you were not enough of a threat that we need be too concerned.”
She pushed the door open, fully aware of what the need for concern probably entailed, given they were all Barrani.
“Teela,” Teela added, “was quite definitive on the subject.” She paused as she looked through the open door, and the pause became silence. “This was the Barrani door?” she asked, when no one stepped in to fill it.
“The only two distinct doors were the Leontine and the Aerian doors.”
“There is also one that heavily implies Tha’alani,” Severn added. “But yes—there is very little to differentiate the Dragons, the Barrani and the humans.”
“The differentiation appears to be on the interior,” Teela told him, moving through the doorway so that Severn could see the room. “And I would guess that this was, indeed, the Barrani room.”
* * *
The interior reminded Kaylin almost instantly of the rooms in the High Halls—or in the interior of the Hallionne. The ceilings were high, but rounded at the corners; the floors were a warm, unstained wood. There were rugs, yes, but they didn’t demand immediate attention; the plants did that. The door opened into a hall; it was small, but not narrow. There was no rug at the front to keep the usual bits of tracked in dirt in one easy-to-clean place—but dirt avoided the Barrani, as if it were smart enough not to piss them off.
There was a mirror to the left of the open door; trailing ivy grew around its frame, as if it were a window. Mandoran had frozen for a second in the doorway, which made it hard for anyone who wasn’t preternaturally graceful to move past him. He shook himself and entered, pausing at the mirror to touch the frame and to rearrange some of the leaves.
He was silent as he left the small hall for the room at the end of it; he passed the two open archways to either side. Kaylin glanced in; she wasn’t surprised to see two very large, very spacious rooms. One was definitively a bath—a bath very like Teela’s in the High Halls. But even here, there were flowers that floated on the surface of the water.
But the room at the end, which in theory should have been a bedroom, wasn’t; it was almost an enclosed balcony, and it opened to sun and breeze. It reminded Kaylin very much of the Warden’s perch, although she couldn’t exactly say why; the floors were not branches, and the whole platform didn’t appear to be part of a growing, living tree. There were chairs, a round, pedestal table, and beside it, a small font.
Teela glanced at Mandoran, who had walked to the edge of the enclosure and was now facing out—or down. He hadn’t said a word, or not a word that Kaylin could hear. But the balcony did open up to a city view—albeit a view of mostly the tall trees that lined the streets in this district. It was both peaceful and quiet. City quiet.
Annarion joined Kaylin, to her surprise. He drew her almost gently to one side as Bellusdeo and Maggaron joined Mandoran. Severn remained in the arch that separated the room from the short hall.
“You don’t recognize this room,” Annarion said.
“Should I?”
“No. But Mandoran does. Or rather, he recognizes the style. Teela will, as well.”
“But not you.”
“No, I was raised in a different environment, until I was chosen as one of the twelve.”
“This building is like the Hallionne,” Kaylin said, the last syllable trailing up as if it were a question.
“There must be some similarities. I don’t think the building is trying to segregate us into our respective races, though.”
Kaylin didn’t either, although she wasn’t certain why. “What do you think it’s trying to do?”
“I think it’s trying to figure out what our preferences actually are. I’m not sure I’m willing to enter the room with the Dragon symbol,” he added.
“Why?”
“I don’t like caves. They’re too enclosed.”
“Bellusdeo—and the entire Imperial Dragon Court—do not live in caves.”
“No. Not now. But Mandoran doesn’t live in a modest apartment like this one anymore, either.”
* * *
They retreated from the room after their inspection, some of which was magical. The magic was subtle, but present; Kaylin’s arms were tingling and achy. “Teela?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Find anything suspicious?”
The Barrani Hawk laughed.
“Okay, that was a stupid question. Find anything obviously dangerous?”
“No. There are no door wards. There does seem to be some rudimentary mirro
r network connection, but the mirror is currently inactive.” She hesitated and then added, “I like the rooms.”
“They’re too open for me. Especially the one at the end. I was kind of hoping to find a place with either real windows—”
“Out of your price range.”
“Or at least shutters that stay shut when it rains. Or at all. But other than that, I want about as much magic as my old place had.”
“Which is almost none.”
“Except for the mirror.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Annarion wasn’t wrong. Kaylin chose the next door, and she chose one of the figures that looked essentially human; it was stockier than the figure on the Barrani door, but had no distinguishing characteristics. Kaylin thought this unfair; if it was a Dragon room, a Dragon-form silhouette would have been helpful, and much harder to mistake for anything else.
The door opened into much dimmer, ambient light. The floor on the other side of the door frame wasn’t wood with a bit of carpet for protection. It was solid, flat stone. The stone itself was pristine; it might have been newly laid; it had none of the subtle wear that the stones that girded the Palace did.
It did not, however, suggest cave or cavern. Kaylin glanced at Bellusdeo. “Is this something that speaks to you?”
Bellusdeo was not Mandoran, but there were some similarities; she’d spent a chunk of her life as a sword. A literal sword. She was, on the other hand, more guarded than Mandoran. If she chose to let her emotions loose, she was usually angry and felt there was no advantage to be gained by hiding it.
The hall that led from this door was longer; it was made of right angles. It didn’t quite suggest dungeon to Kaylin; it almost suggested jail. The small dragon stirred and squawked.
“Is he complaining?” Kaylin asked Bellusdeo, as the Dragon leveled a less than amused expression at her left shoulder.
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