Cast In Secret

“By achild?”

“You might wish to fill the corporal in on what you saw,” Evanton told her.

“It’s not necessary,” Severn replied, before Kaylin could. “I have a good idea of what she saw.”

“Oh?”

“She gets a particular look when she’s dealing with children in distress.” He paused and then said, voice devoid of all texture and all emotion, “Kaylin has always had a weakness for children. Even when she was, by all legal standards, a child herself.

“And that’s not a look she gets when the child is happy or looks well treated,” he added softly. “Then, she’s only wistful.”

Evanton nodded as if everything Severn had said confirmed what he already knew. “Very well. You make a good team,” he told them both. “He’s much better for you than those two Barrani slouchers.”

Kaylin sidestepped the question in the old man’s words. Remembered the brief touch of Severn’s palms on her cheeks. But that was personal. This was worse.

“What will the manner of death be?”

“That, I cannot tell you. It is very, very seldom that I invite visitors into the elementarium, and with cause. You felt compelled to touch nothing and take nothing, because that room had nothing to offer you.”

“I felt compelled—”

“Yes, but not to take, Kaylin. Not to acquire. And I cannot yet tell you why the water chose to show you the girl. I can only tell you that what you saw was in some fashion true.”

“She called me by name.”

He spun so fast she almost tripped over him and sent them both flying—which in his case would probably have broken every bone in his frail body. She managed to catch herself on the wall.

“By name?” he asked, one brow melding with his receding hairline.

She nodded.

“Ah, girl,” he said, with a shake of the head. He turned away again. “If I had found you first—”

“What does it mean?”

“I cannot say for certain,” he replied. “But this much, I can guess—she touched the heart of the elemental water, and woke some of its slumbering intent. It wants you to find her, Kaylin.”

“And that’s a bad thing.”

“It may well be,” Evanton replied. “But if I told you—if I could honestly tell you—that it would mean the end of the Empire itself were you to pursue it, you’d pursue it anyway.

“Water is canny that way. It sees into the deeps that we hide.” But he turned away as he spoke.

“Evanton—”

“Old man—”

He stopped as Severn and Kaylin’s words collided, but did not look back. “If you’re about to accuse me of knowing more than I’ve told you, stand in line and take a number,” he said in a voice so dry a little spark would have set it on fire. “I’m a very busy man. Do come and visit again.”

“Kaylin—”

Kaylin lifted a hand and swatted her name aside.

“You’re going to crack the road if you don’t stop walking like that.”

“Severn, I don’t have a sense of humor about—”

“Almost anything? Fair enough. I’ve been accused of that.”

She stopped walking. Although his stride was easily the longer of the two, she’d been making him work to keep up. Not that it showed. Much.

Since her entrance into the ranks of the Barrani High Court, Kaylin had grown more aware of Severn; of where he was, how close he was, or how far. It was as if—as if something bound them, something gossamer like spider’s web, but finer, and ultimately stronger. She had given him her name—if it was her name—and he had accepted it.

But he had never used it. When she shut him out, he accepted the distance.

It’s not my name,he had told her quietly,it’s yours. If I understand Barrani names at all.

I’m not Barrani.

You’re not human. Not completely. But you’re still Kaylin.

Could you? Could you use it?

He’d been quiet for a long time; she could still remember the texture of that silence, the way he’d stared at her face for a moment, and then turned away almost wearily. What do you want me to say, Kaylin?

She hadn’t answered. She wasn’t certain.

“We have to find her,” she told him, her voice quieter now.

“I know. Any idea where to start?”

Missing Persons was a zoo. Almost literally. Although the offices that fronted the public square in the Halls were slightly better equipped and more severe than the interior offices in which Kaylin spent much—too damn much—of her day, they were in no way quieter.

For one, they were full of people who would never—with any luck—wear a uniform that granted them any kind of Imperial authority. For two, the people who milled about, either shouting at each other, pacing, crying or shouting at the officers who looked appropriately harried, were by no means all human; although here, as throughout most sectors of Elantra, humans outnumbered the others by quite a large margin. For three, many of the visitors were either four times Kaylin’s age, or less than half of it. Kaylin recognized a smattering of at least four languages, and some of what was said was, in the words of Caitlin, “colorful.”

Impatience was the order of the day.

Missing Persons was, in theory, the responsibility of the Hawks. Depending, of course, upon who exactly was missing. Some missing persons had left a small trail of death and destruction in their wake, and these investigations were often—begrudgingly—handed over to the Wolves, the smallest of the three forces who called the Halls of Law home.

The staffing of the office, however, was the purview of the Hawklord. Or his senior officers. None of whom, Kaylin thought with a grimace, were ever on the floors here.

She herself was seldom here, and of all duties the Hawks considered their own, this was her least favorite. She was not always the most patient of people—and people who were desperate enough to come to the Halls seeking word of their missing, and possibly dead, kin required patience at the very least.

She was also not quite graceful enough to forgive other people their impatience. But at least she was aware of hers.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the vagabond.”

And, if she were entirely truthful, there were other reasons for hating this place. Grinding her teeth into what she hoped would pass for a smile, she faced the worst of them squarely.