Cast in Honor (Chronicles of Elantra, #11)(44)

The two exchanged a glance. “If I answer that, she’ll kill me. Or try.”

“She really will,” Teela added, looking even less amused, which, given her starting point, should have been impossible. “Go home. Annarion and Mandoran are not your responsibility—and before the words fall out of your mouth, neither am I.”

Tain grinned. Teela didn’t. Kaylin wouldn’t have gotten away with that expression, given Teela’s current mood—but she wasn’t Tain. She wanted to know their history, but told herself that having the knowledge didn’t really matter. Tain trusted Teela. Or maybe he just accepted her. There was no point in worrying about Teela—unless you wanted angry Teela.

Kaylin wasn’t Tain, but she understood that if she went into the fiefs with Annarion and Mandoran, Teela was going, too. She looked across the room to Severn, who had, as he so often did, remained neutral.

“I notice you’re making no attempt to ditch Severn,” Tain said.

Kaylin turned to stare at him. “He’s my partner.”

“So you want to leave a Barrani corporal and a Dragon Lord behind because it might be dangerous, but you haven’t even stopped to think about the hazards to a mortal.”

“He’s my partner, Tain.”

“Just checking. I’ll see you in the office tomorrow.”

*

Moran did not come back to the dining room, or any of the spaces Kaylin privately thought of as public, that night. Teela closeted herself with the two Barrani; Severn left, not quite dragging Tain out by the collar; and Bellusdeo went upstairs to talk with Maggaron. If Severn was Kaylin’s partner, Maggaron was—in as much as she had one—hers.

At this rate, they wouldn’t be investigating anything—they’d be launching a full-scale invasion. Small and squawky remained invisible. His negligible weight no longer adorned Kaylin’s shoulders, and he didn’t bite or chew her hair. She could hear him—silence was not in his character—but that was it. She was surprised to find that she missed him.

But Moran had chosen to stay at least one night.

Bellusdeo had not turned carpets—or Kaylin—to ash, and Mandoran hadn’t insulted Dragons once in her hearing. Some positive things had happened today. Kaylin mirrored the Imperial Palace—or tried to. The mirrors remained stubbornly reflective, and she remembered that Helen was still working on a “safe” connection—which meant, of course, that one didn’t exist yet.

She would arrange to speak with the Arkon tomorrow. She didn’t need to speak with Evanton again.

Anything else?

“I believe so, dear,” Helen, disembodied, said. “You have a visitor.”

“An emergency visitor?” Kaylin asked, thinking immediately of the midwives.

“You are likely to consider it an emergency, but no, dear. It’s only the Emperor.”

*

“You need to work on your Elantran,” Kaylin said, as she sprinted for the door. “Is Bellusdeo still awake?”

“She is in Maggaron’s room. Dragons,” she added, “don’t require sleep, as you may recall. You would like her to remain ignorant of the Emperor’s visit?”

“If that’s at all possible, yes” was Kaylin’s guilty reply.

“In general, I wouldn’t recommend it, given how sensitive she is about the Dragon Court—but I imagine you know best.”

Well, at least one of us does, Kaylin thought. She answered the door. The Emperor, absent guards or Imperial Library pages, waited on the steps. Although he wasn’t pacing—wasn’t, in fact, moving much at all—everything about his rigid, perfect posture implied impatience.

She opened her mouth to invite him in.

“It is a lovely evening,” he said, before she could speak—and even if he was here informally, she knew far better than to interrupt or speak over him. “Shall we walk?”

*

“I did not intend to arrive without warning,” he told her, as the house faded into the distance. “But the usual methods of communication do not appear to be available.”

Kaylin grimaced. “Sorry. For the mirrors to reach us, we apparently require some sort of connection, and Helen doesn’t trust it. We’re trying to come up with a secure workaround.”

“I...see.”

“Strange things have happened with the mirrors before,” Kaylin felt obliged to point out. “It’s not a groundless fear.”

“I had hoped to speak with you more frequently, but I seldom have the leisure to visit. There are some difficulties—perhaps you are aware of one of them.”

Since it wasn’t a question, Kaylin waited.

“The Aerian Caste Court has petitioned the Emperor for willful and flagrant mistreatment of one of its citizens.”

Kaylin stiffened.

“Ah. You are, indeed, aware.”

“I’m not aware of what was said.” Moran was not nearly as shaky a topic as Bellusdeo. She hoped.

“They wish to have the sergeant removed from her duties.”

“The sergeant doesn’t wish to be removed.”

“Ah. I am to speak with Lord Grammayre on the morrow. Is this what he will tell me?”

“I don’t know what he’ll tell you. But I know that Moran doesn’t want to abandon her duties.”