Cast In Secret (29 page)

“And you invited her into your… garden because you do not fear her?”

Evanton’s face was about as friendly as stone – a great slab of it, falling forward to crush someone. But if it lacked any friendliness, he didn’t order Tiamaris to leave. “I invited her, as you put it, because I am now too old to do what must be done – if I could ever have done it.”

“Wait – what are you talking about? What must be done?”

He stared at the surface of his tea, as if he could read something in his own reflection. “You must find the reliquary,” he said at last.

But Kaylin was still troubling over the words he and Tiamaris had exchanged. “You let me in. But you didn’t let them in.”

“No.”

“Which means they had to let themselves in.”

“Obviously.”

“How?”

He was silent again, and it went on for a while. At last he said, “I am old, Kaylin. I was not old when I took possession of this store. I was also not the first person to come to the man who owned it. I was merely the last. He could find no better at the time.”

“What happened to the others?”

Evanton said nothing. Loudly.

“So… whoever did come here…
could
come here.”

“Yes.”

“And that’s significant.”

“Of course.”

She was thinking ahead of herself, and trying not to stumble over the thoughts. “Whoever it was, they didn’t come alone. And… whoever came with them didn’t mean for them to stay.”

He nodded.

“Would they know, Evanton?”

“Before they came? No, Kaylin. I highly doubt that. They must have suspected, but the knowledge could only be gained for certain when they were in the… garden. But once they were here? Yes. I think they would know.”

She looked up at him, her eyes narrowing. “The girl.”

“The girl?”

“In the water. The girl who spoke my name.”

Evanton nodded quietly. “She could touch anything here, I think, with safety.”

“And she took the reliquary.”

“That is my belief.”

“But – ”

“Find her, and you will find it.”

“And what else will I find?”

“I don’t know, Kaylin. I would go myself, but at
this
time, I cannot leave.”

“Evanton, do you think she killed that couple?”

His face was pale. “She has no guide, no tutor,” he said at last. “And she may not have the power required.
I do not know
. But it is possible, Kaylin.”

“If she killed them – ”

“Yes.”

Kaylin said, rising, “We should go.”

Evanton nodded, not pointing out that she hadn’t touched her tea. Well, hadn’t drunk any of it.

“But I don’t understand. How, in this entire city, could someone find the one person who could come here at all? How would he
know
what to take? How would he even – ”

“These are all good questions,” Evanton replied. “Their answers are beyond me. Let me say this – there is likely to be more than one person in the Empire to whom these doors would not be locked. He would only have to find
one
.”

“But he’d have to know
what
he was looking for!”

“Indeed.”

“And only the Barrani and the Dragons seem to even have a clue what you’ve got hidden here. Hells, I’ve
seen
it, and I still don’t.”

“That,” Tiamaris said drily, “would be the
other
reason it would be safe to allow you entry here.”

She didn’t kick him, but it took effort. He rose, and Evanton rose, as well, bent by age and worry. He led them to the door of his shuttered store and unlocked it – although she hadn’t remembered him locking the door when they’d come in.

“When you find the girl,” Evanton said quietly, “and if she still lives – and, Kaylin, I think there is a very high chance that she does not – you will find the guardian you seek for what you carry.”

“And if she’s dead?”

“You will carry it for some time yet.” He paused, and then added, “I am old, Kaylin. It was an act a hundred years ago. It is not an act now. I hear the voices that the Oracles hear. I fear for the loss of the city.

“And I fear, as well, that my time is passing. That what has stood here for millennia will not stand at the end of two weeks. There is a power here that you cannot conceive of, and I ask only that you think of that power in the wrong hands.”

If, she thought bitterly, I can’t conceive of it, how the hells can I imagine it in the wrong hands? But Evanton was as smart, in this case, as he thought he was – because she could, and she didn’t much like what she came up with.

“How many more drownings,” she whispered, half to herself.

Tiamaris stepped firmly and heavily on her foot, and then all but dragged her out of the shop.

“It is a small wonder to me,” he told her, as he walked briskly away from the small Elani Street shop, “that you’ve been allowed to enter that place more than once.”

“Why?”

“You do
not
understand the burden of the Keeper.”

She rolled her eyes. “No. I don’t. I understand the burden of the Hawks, and that’s enough for me. Besides, it’s not like he’s explained – ”

“He shouldn’t need to explain. I cannot believe – ” He slowed down, shortening his stride. His steps were still thunderously heavy, though. “He is respected, Kaylin, by the Dragon Court. He is not entirely trusted – he stands outside of our Laws, and our ability to enforce those Laws. When the earth devoured the cities that stood before this one was begun, his garden remained. Do you understand?”

“No. But I understand that the Barrani and the Dragons understand it.” She paused for a long moment. “Do you want to explain?”

“No. But I will say this, since you’ve seen it – the Dragon you rescued from death, the Dragon you freed – it was his fate to guard
less
than the Keeper now guards.”

“He failed.”

“Yes.” Tiamaris now mimed a leisurely pace, which Kaylin could easily match.

“And Evanton is failing.”

He stopped walking and closed his eyes. “Yes,” he said softly. “The Keeper is failing. It is his failure that caused the death of the couple in the merchants’ quarter. It is his failure that may see the deaths of every living being in the city, and if, indeed, he has failed completely, not even his shop will in the end withstand what is to come.”

“But
what the hell is to come?
”

“I do not know myself. Water, certainly. We must find this child of whom you both spoke, and I must speak with the Dragon Court.”

“In that order?”

He hesitated. “It is far worse than we feared,” he told her at last. “And it is also exactly what we feared. No, I do not need to report immediately.”

Severn was waiting when they returned. He was waiting in that kind of grim silence that keeps everyone else at a safe distance. Sadly, Kaylin had never mastered the art of grim silence. Grim words, yes. But not silence. Where she went, the office trailed.

She went directly to Severn.

Severn looked up without surprise at Tiamaris, and nodded his greeting. He also handed Kaylin her bracer. It had kept the habit of returning to Severn, no matter where she let it drop. She held out her wrist like a penitent child, and he snapped it securely shut around said wrist.

“You heard,” he said.

She nodded. “We went to talk to Evanton.”

“And he had useful information?”

“Not exactly.”

Severn, knowing her better than anyone, waited.

“The reliquary that was stolen,” she said at last, putting a few extra syllables into the ones that she was hesitantly speaking.

“Yes?”

“He thinks – no, he’s certain – that it’s behind the deaths. What did Red say?”

“Death was caused by drowning in both cases. Bruising was self-inflicted.”

“Did he say what kind of water?”

“Yes. Sea water.”

“Tiamaris doesn’t think it’s possible that a mage caused those deaths.”

“I concur. Possibly an Arcanist, but the Arcanum is not being particularly helpful.”

“Is it ever?”

“No.” He stared at her for a moment, then he shrugged his shoulders in one elegant motion and covered his face with his hands. When he lowered them, he looked exhausted, but the grim anger was – for the moment – leashed. She frowned. She had just noticed that he was wearing black. All black. Not even a Hawk adorned his shirt.

“What’s with the mourning?”

He raised a brow at Tiamaris, who had, until this moment, said nothing.

Tiamaris shrugged. “Have you had a chance to access the records?”

Severn nodded quietly. “The information was not complete, but there was information in the records that I hadn’t seen before.”

Kaylin frowned for a moment. She hated coming in on conversations in the middle, but really hated it when she’d actually been there at the start, and still couldn’t follow it. “Donalan Idis?” She hazarded a guess.

Severn nodded.

She looked at his clothing again. “You’ve spoken to the Wolflord.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

“You’re a Hawk – ”

“I am a Hawk, yes. But the Halls of Law
are
the Halls, Kaylin, and we are in theory working toward the same goals.”

“Not the Shadows.”

Severn said very little.

“Severn, do you understand what Evanton does?”

It was Severn’s turn to look slightly confused. “I understand,” he said after a moment, “what he feels he is doing, yes.”

“But did you know before you saw it?”

“No. But I’ve done some reading since then.”

“What? Where?”

“The library.”

She snorted. “Which library?”

“The Imperial Library.”

“You found out about it from
books?
”

“I spoke for some time with the Arkon,” he said quietly.

Even Tiamaris looked surprised. The surprise, however, faded. “You hunt Donalan Idis.”

Severn nodded. “The Wolves don’t like to fail,” he replied softly. “And Donalan Idis is one of three men we’ve failed to apprehend. He was considered dangerous when the writ was signed,” he added quietly. “Kaylin?”

She frowned. “I want to know.”

“You have to know. Come.” He left the desk he was standing in front of – it wasn’t his – and led her to the West Room. Tiamaris followed.

“Teela will join us shortly,” Severn told them both, as he placed his hand on the door-ward and waited for the door to open.

It did. The West Room, with its single table and its heavy chairs, waited in carpeted silence. They entered, and each took a seat.

Teela arrived five minutes later, and when she did, Kaylin winced. She was wearing, not the uniform of the Hawks, but rather the very expensive and exquisite gowns of the Barrani High Court; her hair was pinned about a thousand different ways above her very long nape. She looked taller than she usually did, and seemed infinitely more delicate.

And more dangerous.

She also looked a bit irritated, and when she sat, she uttered a very un-Barrani-like curse.

“We believe,” Severn told Kaylin quietly, as Teela rearranged the folds of her skirt, “that the two drowning victims were killed in the building they oversaw.”

“They were killed at home.”

“Not their own, no. But they had rooms within the complex.”

“You think they died in the rooms that the killer occupied?”

“Let us assume that there was a killer that can occupy normal rooms. If we can safely make that assumption, then yes, that is indeed what we assume.”

“But why?”

“It’s possible or even probable that they entered into the rooms in question – for reasons that are not clear – when the occupants were in the middle of something they did not wish made public. What that was, we can only guess.”

Kaylin frowned. “Do we
need
to speak High Barrani for a reason?”

And Teela laughed out loud. “No,” she said in Elantran. “It’s habit forming, and it’s a much easier language to say almost nothing useful in.”

Severn grimaced.

“Who was living in those rooms?”

“That would be the odd thing. According to the financial records which the daughters of the deceased gave us, no one.”

“According to the other tenants?”

“Ah. According to the other tenants, a widower and his daughter.”

Kaylin leaned forward. “When were they last seen?”

Severn hesitated. “People weren’t very clear on that. They were certain that an elderly man and his daughter lived there, but no one could say for certain when they were last seen.”

“Did they have any visitors?”

“Not frequently, but yes, although one of the neighbors thought the visitors were relatives.”

“How long were they living there?”

“Again, the neighbors are slightly unclear. If we average out their guesses, about six months.”

“None of the neighbors visited?”

“Not often. The daughter was shy. She was also, apparently, mute.”

“
Mute?
As in, couldn’t speak at all?”

Severn nodded. “They’re all shocked by the deaths,” he added quietly. “The couple wasn’t terribly friendly, but they were good landlords.”

“The occupants would have had to leave in a hurry,” Kaylin said. “How easy would it be to find another set of rooms?”

“Since they didn’t appear to be paying for the rooms they were in?”

“Good point. What did the mages say?” She
hated
to have to ask that question.

“They’re still combing the rooms and arguing a lot,” Teela chimed in.

“They’re mages.” Kaylin hesitated and then said, “Did you call in the Tha’alani?” She hated that question even more. “No.”

“Why?”

“Because the description of the man in question was the same no matter who we spoke to. I do not believe he went to the trouble of disguising his appearance – that of a frail, somewhat downcast middle-aged man. I believe that the man used magic to avoid paying rent, which means he had very little money. No mage in hiding would use magic if it were unnecessary. No one knew what he did for a living, if he did anything. But he is not the only widower in Elantra, and he is certainly not the only one with a child or two.”

“He’s probably the only one with two corpses in his living room.”