Kaylin hesitated. Everyone noticed. To Helen, she said, “I think she means Gilbert.”
“She does, although she was not aware of his name. And yes, Lady, Gilbert was a guest, but only briefly.”
“Did you understand his thoughts?”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
“All that I could hear, yes. There were some things that he could not explain to Kaylin—but I could not explain them, either. Nor do I think they were relevant.”
“And could you explain them to Annarion or Mandoran?”
That was the heart of the question that the Consort had come to ask. Helen did not reply. Not directly. But after a moment, she said, “You might ask Spike.”
* * *
Kaylin had forgotten about Spike. To be fair to herself, Spike had only been in residence for a few days, and the time had been extremely stressful. The cause of the stress—if one didn’t count the cohort, and as they were guests, Kaylin was trying hard not to—sat at the open-air table, beneath an early evening sky.
“Who is...Spike?” the Consort asked.
Bellusdeo exhaled a small amount of smoke—which caused an immediate ripple to pass through the cohort and the two Barrani guards. The Consort, however, didn’t appear to notice. “You forgot about Spike,” the gold Dragon said in Elantran.
“I was kind of busy,” Kaylin replied. “Helen, where is Spike?”
“He is... I’m not sure what the correct Elantran word would be. Meditating? Studying? He is, however, in his room. His room is not in the regular hallway, which would not be entirely comfortable for him. Should I ask him to join us?”
“You already have the familiar,” the Consort said before Kaylin could answer. “And were we to assess danger—to any of us—by competence or ability, I would venture to say that the familiar is the largest threat your home currently contains.”
The little egotist sat up on Kaylin’s shoulder and all but preened.
“If Helen is willing to allow Spike to live here as a guest, I assume that she is confident that she can keep all of the rest of your guests safe. Regardless, I confess I am curious. Who is Spike? Or perhaps the better question would be, what is Spike?”
“Yes,” Kaylin said to Helen. “If he’s willing to join us.”
“He will be willing to join you,” Helen replied. “You offered him your blood and he has used it to form an attachment.”
“That isn’t, for the record, what ‘form an attachment’ usually means,” Teela told Kaylin’s house.
“No?”
“No.”
“I believe he will concern himself in matters of both information and Kaylin’s safety; I believe that he worries that she will not be safe. I am unable to see how this differs from other attachments.”
“Is Spike a he?” Kaylin asked.
“I don’t believe Spike understands the nature of gender. If you would prefer, I can call Spike ‘she.’” Helen’s eyes went to obsidian, the pupils spreading to cover the entirety of her eyes. “Spike asks what ‘he’ or ‘she’ means.”
“Never mind. I’m not touching that one. Will Spike speak with us? I think it might be easier in the long run. Umm, and can you apologize for me?”
“For what?”
“For forgetting him.”
* * *
“Spike,” Kaylin said to the Consort, “is a Shadow.”
Bellusdeo snorted more smoke.
“He came from Ravellon.”
Every person in the room who didn’t know about Spike stiffened, except the Consort.
“He was taken out of Ravellon by a Barrani lord; he could not leave the containment himself.”
The Consort was now as stiff as the Arkon, and both of their eyes indicated worry: blue and orange. For some reason, Kaylin disliked orange in the Arkon’s eyes, although she saw it so often in Bellusdeo’s it might as well have been gold. Small and squawky shifted position on her shoulder, sitting up straight on the left one, although his tail wrapped around the back of her neck and dangled over the right one.
“A Barrani lord—you imply he is a member of the High Court by use of title—walked into Ravellon and left with a Shadow?”
Kaylin nodded. “I’m sorry—I meant to tell you, but later, when I could make more sense of it.” Or, more precisely, identify that lord.
“And instead you spent your time trying to cancel dinner.”
Kaylin was certain she was now red to the tops of her ears. “You know why,” she replied, trying not to sound defensive.
The Consort, however, nodded. “Yes.”
“For our part,” Sedarias said, “we take no offense, given our very recent history.” She failed to look at Terrano. Terrano said nothing. “And we were somewhat alarmed at Lord Kaylin’s choice to retreat when we learned of your offer.”
“She is not what we are,” the Consort replied. “In her two decades of life, she has not seen enough betrayal—or Barrani alliances—to understand when, and where, things become personal. She considers you family to people she has accepted as friends—but friends incur responsibility as well as affection.”
“That is possibly why the Barrani themselves have so few of them.”
The Consort inclined her head. “Even so.” Her eyes, however, remained blue. “You do not seem surprised at the mention of this Spike.”
“No. We encountered him in our time in the West March—or rather, the time that overlapped with Lord Kaylin’s unintentional visit. Given the events of that time, I confess that Bellusdeo seemed the far greater threat.”
This caused the Consort’s eyes to lighten. It also caused Bellusdeo’s eyes to lose their red tinge. “I believe the Dragons would consider Shadow to be the greater threat, especially Bellusdeo.”
“We were not given the leisure to discuss what constituted the greater threat. At the time, the answer would have been our own kin.”
The Consort nodded again, grimmer now. It wasn’t that Kaylin hadn’t seen that expression on the Consort’s face before—she had. But on the Consort’s face, it somehow looked wrong to Kaylin, and possibly always would. She gave herself a mental kick. The Consort had been willing—was even now willing—to throw Ynpharion, or perhaps his companion guard, to the figurative wolves if Kaylin was unwilling to give her what she needed.
She was warmer and more welcoming than the Barrani she granted life, yes. But she was not mortal, not human; she was not a mother in the idealized sense of the word. Kaylin’s memory made a mother an ideal, a thing yearned for that was no longer possible to have.
She needed to stop that. One of her earliest lessons as a Hawk had been to “See what’s actually in front of you. Not what you’re afraid of. Not what you want to see. But what’s actually there.” With added Barrani words. She looked at Teela as memory poked her.
Teela was watching the Consort.
* * *
A series of clicks and loud, grinding whirs announced the presence of Spike. Emmerian, Ynpharion and the nameless Barrani guard stiffened, but while the Barrani hands slid to sword hilts, Emmerian’s reaction was largely contained to eyes that were almost blood red. Kaylin had seen that color before, but never in Emmerian’s eyes.
Kaylin stood immediately and held out her left hand. Spike—adorned with the jutting, sharp points that justified his name—flew lazily across the air and landed in her palm. She couldn’t close that hand without bleeding, and didn’t try.
“This,” she said to the Consort and the Arkon, “is Spike.”
“If you will forgive me?” the Arkon asked. The question made no sense until he opened his mouth. Since Kaylin only had one free hand—unless she wanted to jam Spike into her left ear—she caught native Dragon at full volume. Then again, Dragons only really had one volume.
The Barrani present had far too much dignity to even attempt to c
over their ears. So did Severn.
Spike clicked; the spikes that surrounded him depressed and shifted. He was answering the Arkon, and the Arkon’s expression—one of ferocious concentration—implied that the Arkon could, with effort, understand the response.
“Where,” the Arkon asked, his gaze not moving from the creature in Kaylin’s hand, “did you find him?”
“I told you—”
“Never mind. It was not an actual question. Do you understand what he is?”
“He’s better than portable Records.”
“Pardon?”
“He’s like Records, but less intrusive. If you can make clear what you want to see, he can show you the information he has—it takes longer than the mirrors we generally use, but it’s easier to examine.”
“I feel it is a benefit to you that you have no gods,” the Arkon replied. “Because gods in general are not fond of blasphemy.”
“You know what Spike is?”
“If my suspicions are correct,” he replied with no doubt about those suspicions in his tone, “he is an historian.”
“You don’t seem to be worried by the fact that he’s Shadow.”
“No.”
“Why?” Bellusdeo asked.
“Because he is clearly attached to Kaylin. How and why, I am as yet uncertain, but Kaylin is not at risk.”
“Because she’s at home?”
The Arkon shook his head. “Look at her marks.”
To Kaylin’s eye, the more visible marks remained determinedly black-gray, the color she associated with quiet.
Spike clicked a few more times, his visible body undergoing small, popping contortions as spikes protruded and retreated in something that looked almost like a pattern.
The Consort’s eyes remained blue, but she lifted them from Kaylin’s hand—and Spike—to Kaylin’s face. “Please. I look forward to your explanation.”
Kaylin almost punted the question to Severn, because Severn seemed to have recognized the Barrani lord in question. She didn’t. Instead, she said, “Spike, can you show the Lady the man who entered Ravellon and carried you out?”
“Yes,” Spike replied in perfect, if somewhat flat, Elantran.
Kaylin stepped away from the table as the air just above her plate began to thicken with silver-gray fog. “Maybe not at the table.”
“Helen has been teaching me,” Spike said, “about your furniture and how you view the world. It is enlightening, but extremely frustrating.”
“Yeah, I hear that a lot. Except not about furniture.”
Ynpharion.
Silence.
You must have seen Spike. We were in contact while I was in the West March.
The contact was very intermittent, Ynpharion replied, his words almost as flat as Spike’s. In Ynpharion’s case, that meant something.
Did you know?
She could feel his sudden frustration and disgust. No, he said, his internal voice acid. I’m stupid and unobservant.
After this is all over, you and I are going to have a long talk.
Wonderful. Might I remind you that you need to survive?
Right. She cleared her throat, but it wasn’t necessary; the Consort was no longer watching Kaylin. She wasn’t watching Spike, either. She was looking at the man, in his nondescript clothing, none of which was suitable for Court. He wore a hood, but the hood itself gathered around his neck; his face was exposed.
This time, when Spike began to build a setting around the man, it was clearer. Helen had obviously been successful in her attempts to teach him about normal perception—or at least normal for Elantrans.
“When did this occur?” the Consort asked.
Spike was silent.
“Please answer the Consort,” Kaylin told him.
“Apologies. Your concept of time is difficult and narrow. It is not my intent to remain silent.”
He began to speak in whirs, and after a lot of them, Helen said, “If I may translate, I believe this occurred before Kaylin’s visit to the West March.”
“By how much?”
“According to Spike, very close to the same time.” Helen’s answer was hesitant. “Spike’s ‘very close’ could vary, in my opinion, by years.”
“But not by decades or centuries?”
“Perhaps the outside of a decade. Not centuries, however.”
“I believe it would have been more recent,” Sedarias said quietly. She did not look to, or otherwise implicate, Terrano. “And Spike said or implied that he—Spike—had been ordered to attend the man who came to collect him.”
“By who?”
“Someone or something in Ravellon. He doesn’t give it a name—and if he could, I wouldn’t suggest using it, regardless. You believe that this man is somehow implicated in the task you wish us to perform if you believe it will not destroy the High Halls.”
“You were always said to be the best of your kin,” the Consort replied, confirming Sedarias’s suspicion. “Do you know who this man is?”
“No. I do not believe he was alive—or at Court—when I was sent to the green, and my information since our return has been somewhat fractured.”
“You believe that this man’s breach of the fief barriers was recent. Perhaps this has something to do with the attempts of your comrade—” and here she definitely pinpointed Terrano “—to persuade Alsanis to release you all?”
“All prisoners with power will eventually be free,” Sedarias replied, no hint of repentance in her voice.
“Yes. I hold nothing done in pursuit of your own freedom against you. Nor do I expect that my attempt to...weight the import of the task I hope to set you in my own favor will be held against me.”
“We are not Lord Kaylin,” Sedarias replied. “Very well. The effort to create the gaps in Alsanis’s attention that would allow us to finally slip free were not the efforts of a day, a month or even a simple year. You know that we eventually approached Lord Iberrienne.”
“I know of the fate of Iberrienne. It is why my brother has acceded to my request not to cast him out of the Court. Alsanis cradles him, but feels that there is very little that might restore Iberrienne to...what he once was.”
Eddorian stiffened.
“It is not a threat,” the Consort said quietly. “Iberrienne is safe. But his acts broke many of our laws with regard to the one enemy that unites all of our peoples. Some of his kin have attempted to visit him while he resides within Alsanis,” she added.
Sedarias frowned. “They have not.”
“I misspeak,” the Consort replied. “They petitioned Alsanis for permission to visit. Their petitions were refused.”
Eddorian opened his mouth. Eddorian shut his mouth. It was clear from his expression—for one, he now had one—that he wanted to say something; it was clear from the tension of the cohort that the argument that was now taking place—in relative silence—was intense.
The silence stretched, Spike’s image of the Barrani lord momentarily forgotten.
Kaylin knew how to break that silence.
“Is that wise, dear?” Helen said softly. But not, apparently, silently.
Kaylin shrugged, a fief shrug. “All of this is going to have to come out, anyway. I think,” she continued, “that while the cohort’s interference in the High Court and its politics opened new doors to trouble, the potential for that trouble already existed. It’s just that now it has an outlet.”
The Consort turned to her. The whole cohort did.
“The cohort was aiming at the green, at the power of the regalia. They wanted to—” she stopped herself and corrected the direction the unfortunate sentence was taking “—be free. To do that, they were willing to throw away almost everything else.
“But they had allies. Some of those allies were mortals who want immortality—and why, I don’t u
nderstand. There isn’t a single story about the attempt to gain eternity, such as it is, that ever works out well for us—”
Teela coughed.
“Right. Sorry. They had mortal allies—probably because of the money. They had Arcanists as allies, because: Arcanists. For activities that had the potential to end a race—mine, in case you’ve forgotten—it seemed almost normal.
“I think some of Terrano’s allies weren’t Arcanists searching for power or mortals searching for immortality.”
The Consort was now utterly still; even the movement of breath had deserted her.
“I think some of those allies have already been somehow bound to the service of the creature beneath the High Halls and, even now, do its bidding.”
Chapter 10
It was Ynpharion who broke the silence—but only Kaylin’s. Everyone else appeared to be holding their breaths.
What are you doing? he demanded.
I don’t know how much of the West March you actually eavesdropped on. Eavespeeped? Is that a word? She really needed to become a better person. In a situation as grim as this one was becoming, enjoying Ynpharion’s outrage was just too petty. On the other hand, there didn’t seem to be a lot to enjoy in the immediate future, otherwise. But Spike’s arrival—from Ravellon, a place he can’t in theory leave, was a big red flag. The Barrani lord in question—and the Consort seemed to recognize him—entered Ravellon. He clearly entered through the fiefs, and it’s just possible he was allowed to do so. I’m certain he didn’t enter through Tiamaris or Nightshade, and Severn seems to think it was Candallar. It might have been Farlonne, which is rumored to be another Barrani fief.
She exhaled and, opening her mouth, repeated everything she had just said to Ynpharion.
“Why do you assume that the point of entry was defined by the race of the fieflord?” the Consort—quite reasonably—asked. “Not all of the people involved with the attempt to free the cohort were Barrani.”
Kaylin nodded. She’d had the same thoughts. “The Barrani lord in question seemed to be walking through Candallar streets. We know that the geography of both Ravellon and the borders between fiefs can vary greatly from moment to moment, but the fiefs themselves don’t. Spike?”
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