Cast in Honor (Chronicles of Elantra, #11)(77)

“Oh. I don’t like him.”

“Mandoran?”

“Is that his name?”

“It’s the polite version.”

“What’s the rude version?”

“Kitling,” Teela warned.

“It’s not a name,” Kaylin clarified. “Look, I won a bet, right?”

Kattea nodded.

“So, let me ask you some questions.”

“About the murders?”

“Got it in one.”

Kattea nodded. “We didn’t kill them,” she said.

“Did you see them alive at any point?”

Kattea’s voice was hesitant, wary. “...Yes.”

“They’re dead, Kattea. They can’t hurt you; they can’t take offense at anything you tell me now. Did Gilbert speak to them?”

Kattea nodded. “But only one time.”

“When?”

The girl’s eyes slid off Kaylin’s face, which was pretty much an answer. Kaylin asked anyway. “The night before they died?”

Kattea nodded again. “Gilbert doesn’t get angry. He was angry then. It was the first time I’d seen it.”

“How could you tell?”

“He—he hit one of them.” Kattea hesitated. “But not—but not with his hand. I think it was magic.” She spoke the single word with both reverence and a touch of fear. “They shouted. I think they tried to use magic, too.”

“Did Gilbert speak to all three of them?”

“Four.”

“Three.”

“There were four,” Kattea insisted. “I can count to four.”

Kaylin winced. “Sorry.”

Kattea exhaled. “Me, too. But—honest, there were four. It was the fourth guy Gilbert didn’t like. The fourth guy hit Gilbert.”

“Physically?”

Kattea nodded. “But...they were standing in the middle of the street, and the street wasn’t empty. So the other three didn’t stick around. They went into their own house.”

“Can you describe the fourth man?”

“No, but he was Barrani. He was Barrani and he was wearing a thing on his head. Not a crown, but—”

“A circlet? Was there a gem across his forehead?”

She nodded. “It was yellow, I think.”

“Teela—”

“On it,” Teela said. “You’re certain the circlet had a yellow stone? It wasn’t green or blue?”

“Or red?” Kaylin added.

“It was yellow or clear.”

Teela said something short and curt—in Leontine. “I surrender,” she said, to Kaylin.

“What did I do this time?”

“Nothing is ever simple, where you’re concerned.”

“I had nothing to do with this!”

“Yellow is bad?” Severn asked. Given Teela’s expression, Kaylin had decided against it.

“Diamond,” Tain said, “is bad.”

“So we’re hoping for yellow.”

“Yellow doesn’t exist—not if we’re assuming the involvement of Arcanists.” Tain looked at his partner. As far as Kaylin knew, Tain didn’t know Teela’s True Name, and Teela didn’t know his. But they’d worked together for as long as Kaylin had known them. When things got serious, words were superfluous.

“Kattea, how did you get to your house?”

“We walked.”

“Did you walk through the halls in your basement?”

Kattea nodded. She hesitated and then added, “Gilbert wanted to leave the fiefs. I told him it wasn’t safe, even at night. No one crosses the bridge. So we went back to the Castle.”

“You didn’t get here through the Castle.”

“No. But there’s a well—a dry well—behind it. Gilbert said it connects to the city.”

Kaylin started to tell her that Gilbert was wrong, and stopped. She had climbed down that well, using it as a back door into the Castle itself. What it connected to was water. Elemental water. The uneasiness in prominent display in Teela’s and Tain’s eyes took up residence in Kaylin’s mind, as well.

“Did you discover water at the bottom of the well?”

“Yes. And a boat.”

“...A boat.”

Kattea nodded.

“I didn’t get a boat when I had to climb down the well.”

“Complain later, kitling.”

Squawk.

“You used the boat?”

Kattea nodded. “There was a river, an underground river. We got into the boat, and the boat began to move. Gilbert spoke.” She took a deep, nervous breath and said, “The water answered.”

“What did the water say?”

Kattea’s brows furrowed. “You believe me?”

“I’ve spoken with the water beneath Castle Nightshade before. Yes, I believe you.” She wanted Gilbert and the familiar to shut up. Their voices quieted instantly. Kaylin immediately turned to make sure they were still there.

“I am sorry, dear,” Helen said. “When you think with such ferocity, I can’t quite tell if you mean for me to act or not.”