Cast in Honor (Chronicles of Elantra, #11)(79)

“Why? Because he’ll have to be polite to everyone in the room?”

Bellusdeo grinned. “Maggaron is too earnest for Lannagaros’s taste; he begins to feel guilty if he teases him.”

“I’ll have to try that approach.”

“I don’t understand it myself—I find teasing Maggaron both amusing and irresistible.” Her smile faded. “I won’t insist on following you to the Keeper’s or Tiamaris.”

“Nightshade?”

“I am...uneasy. I can, however, deal with Lannagaros; it’s far better than having to speak with Arcanists.”

“It’s far better for you,” Teela countered, an entirely different smile coming to the fore. “If Tain and I go, any difficulties are entirely a matter for the Caste Court.”

“Meaning?”

“If anyone happens to die, it’s not murder, according to Imperial Law. If we have to drag any of you, on the other hand, things become messier.”

“That’s only assuming the Arcanist in question is actually Barrani,” Kaylin felt compelled to point out.

“Yes. You have problems with that assumption?”

“Not all Arcanists are Barrani, Teela.”

“No. But mortal Arcanists have seldom caused large-scale destruction and danger.”

“Hello? The last time—”

“Oh, hush. Don’t rain on the only possible bright spot in an increasingly dreary day, hmm? And try not to get yourself killed in our absence.”

“In general, your presence has caused me more trouble.”

*

Gilbert turned to Kattea, who was still seated, knees beneath her chin, against the wall. “What do you wish us to do?” he asked quietly.

“If you were a Hawk,” Kaylin told him, “we’d send you to keep an eye on the basement that contains the possible murder victims.” She frowned. “You haven’t seen the bodies, have you?”

“No. As Kattea has mentioned, I had some very small interaction with three men the night before the Hawks were summoned. If they are the same men who were disincorporated—”

“Killed,” Kattea corrected, although she still didn’t look up. “I told you—people don’t evaporate. Only water.”

“Ah. Yes. If they are the same men, I have not seen them since their deaths.”

Kaylin, who was watching Kattea—or what she could see of the girl, which at the moment was a bowed head, forearms and legs from the knees down—frowned. Kattea’s arms had tightened. In a quieter voice, which she hoped was somehow comforting, she said, “All of this is off-record. If for some reason you have, tell me now.”

“I have not.” Gilbert looked slightly bewildered. “What is off-record?”

Kattea snickered into her kneecaps.

“It means that I won’t mention it to anyone who would get angry about it. More or less.” Teela and Tain were gone; Bellusdeo was upstairs. That left Helen and Severn. “I was hoping to leave you and Kattea here. It’s safe. Helen won’t hurt you—but more important, she won’t let anything else hurt you, either.”

“Who would attempt to hurt me?”

“Someone apparently did, according to Kattea.”

Gilbert frowned. “There was some difficulty, but it was minor in nature.”

Kattea lifted her head then. She looked both outraged and—well, differently outraged. Gilbert’s obvious stupidity—because it was clear that Kattea considered him to be just about too stupid to live at the moment—cut through her fear of the future. “It was not minor.”

“What happened?” Kaylin addressed Kattea.

“People came to the house. They knocked. We ignored it.”

“When was this?”

“The night before you came back.”

“Before I healed Gilbert?”

“Before you won the bet, yes.”

“Fine. These men came after your neighbors were murdered?”

Kattea nodded. This nod was...off. Kaylin glanced at Severn; his face had become a mask. But he nodded; he noticed what she had.

Fair enough. Kaylin, at Kattea’s age, would never have answered a door at night. The only people who went out at night in Nightshade were fools—or worse, people powerful enough not to have to fear Ferals. “What time was it?”

Kattea shrugged. “It’d been dark for hours. No one you want to speak to comes that late at night.” She spoke this as if she were repeating something she’d heard in her childhood. A lot.

Kaylin resisted the urge to bend or otherwise diminish the difference in their height. “How many were there?”

“At least three.”

“Four,” Gilbert replied.

“I said at least.” She exhaled. “I only saw three.” She tightened her arms, lowered her chin, inhaled. Kaylin thought she would fall silent again, but no—this time, she was gathering her courage. “It was the same three. The three that you said were dead.”

*

Apparently, this was news to Gilbert; it certainly caught the attention of both remaining Hawks and Helen.

“I do not think—” Gilbert began.

“Yes, I know,” Kattea shot back. She stood. “Gilbert doesn’t—he doesn’t see people the same way we do.”