Cast In Fury

The carriage was waiting for them. The Swords had ensured that. They had also ensured that all of the wheels and fine gilding were still intact, although the Imperial Crest probably had a lot to do with the fact; not even the most drunken and wayward of idiots thought his life worth defacing an Imperial Crest. It wasn’t a mistake you could repeat.

“Please drive us to the Halls of Law,” Severn told the coachman.

“You’re not coming back to the Palace?”

“Not for the remainder of the day.” Day wasn’t quite the right word for the shade of pinkish purple the sky had gone. “We will report to you in the morning.”

“In the morning?” Rennick said.

“Yes.”

“When in the morning?” The playwright now looked uncomfortable.

“We report for duty, fully kitted out, at eight.”

“In the morning?”

Severn nodded, his expression deliberately bland.

“Well, you can report,” Rennick said. “But bring some cards, or whatever it is you do when you’re not doing anything else—I’m a bear at that time of the day.”

“A bear?” Kaylin asked, inserting herself into the conversation.

“A figure of speech. Mornings make me grouchy.”

“We didn’t arrive in the morning today,” she told him.

“Exactly. And your point is?”

“It probably speaks for itself.” She tried to imagine Rennick in a more foul temper, and gave up quickly. There were some things it was better not to know.

“I will be sleeping at that ungodly hour. I think you should see about arranging some sort of shift work.”

She imagined the face full of fur that was an angry Leontine. You did not mess up Marcus’s schedule without a pressing reason to do so—end of all life as we know it being one.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she murmured, staring out the carriage window as the city rolled past.

Severn shook her awake when they arrived. The front doors were manned by Aerians. Clint was still on duty, which was unusual, given the hour. She took a few minutes to find her feet, and tried not to imagine her bed.

They made their way to the front doors, and Kaylin stopped as Clint lowered his halberd. “Aren’t you off duty?” she asked.

“I pulled in a favor.”

“You pulled in a favor.”

“Yes.”

“So you could stay later, guarding a door that no one ever attacks, with a halberd that hasn’t seen real use in more than a decade.”

“Less than a year,” he replied. “But yes, I take your point. We were in the fiefs at the time.”

“Point returned. But why exactly did you pull in a favor to work a double shift when you’re on duty in the morning? Clint?” She didn’t like the expression on his face. At all. “I’ve had a long day,” she said, running her hands over eyes that felt like they were full of sand. “So I’m a bit slow.”

“Be quicker,” he told her, without smiling. “I thought you would come back a bit earlier. I knew you’d be back before tomorrow.”

“This—what’s happened, Clint?” She pulled a memory out of her exhaustion: a Sword offering her his sympathies. It seemed like he’d said it weeks ago.

“You won’t like it,” he said, leaving her in no doubt whatsoever that this was an understatement. “But it doesn’t matter whether or not you like it, do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“I’m serious, Kaylin. You get away with a lot when you’re dealing with Marcus, because he’s seen how much you’ve changed in seven years. He saw you at thirteen. He watched you struggle to become the Hawk that you are now. Part of him still thinks of you as if you’re thirteen years old, and that’s not likely to change.”

“And so?”

“Kaylin, please understand that this is important. All jokes about your punctuality aside, Marcus accepts you as you are. Not all of the older Hawks feel the same way, and not all of them have been won over.”

She stared at him dumbly and was surprised when he handed his polearm to the other guard, and caught her shoulders in both hands. His wings were high; he was worried. “I’m very fond of you,” he said, his gaze an unblinking shade of gray that was unlike any color she’d seen. “But I took my oaths, and I’m sworn to uphold them. I also need to eat, and feed my family.”

“Clint—what are you talking about? Why are you saying this?”

“Because the people you will now be dealing with will not be Old Ironjaw. And if you don’t deal carefully, you won’t be a Private. It’s as simple as that.”

“W-what happened?”

“There was an incident,” he continued carefully. “Involving the Leontine Quarter.”

“What happened, Clint?”

“We’re not entirely certain. Teela and Tain are trying to ferret out information, but any information we get is going to come to us when we’re off the payroll. Understand?”

She nodded, although she didn’t.

“Marcus has been stood down. He’s been relieved of duty.”

“On what grounds?”

“Kaylin—we don’t know what happened. But the case has been referred to the Caste Courts, not ours.”

“What case?”

“Someone died.”

“Pardon?”

“A Leontine from a prominent clan died. He was killed by another Leontine. That much, we do know.”

“How?”