Cast In Flight. Michelle Sagara
were whole days when Kaylin regretted getting out of bed. She was torn, though. It was natural to hate and despise Arcanists; you practically lost your badge if you didn’t. She wanted to hate and despise something that wasn’t...her own people.
And that was one step too far. She struggled with it, and won, but only barely. On the other hand, barely still passed muster. “Sorry,” she told the older man. “I’m right out of humor for funny at the moment.”
“I can see that. There have historically been more Aerian Arcanists than there have been Imperial mages.”
“Why?”
“Because the Imperium, such as it is, is a largely human endeavor. The Aerians are not at home in halls that were not designed with wings in mind. They can—and do—work within them, but being a mage is not just, or even, office work. They dislike the cramped confines of both space and attitude.
“Arcanists are more racially diverse.”
“Most of them are Barrani!”
“Yes. Barrani have a general contempt for anyone who happens to be mortal. They are not Aerians; they are mortals, as far as the Barrani are concerned. But as is the case with the Barrani in other avenues of interaction, power—and money—speak. It is easier to feel at home in the Arcanum than in the Imperium. The Arcanum does not revere Imperial Law.”
“No kidding.” She exhaled. “Is there an Aerian Arcanist now?”
“What do you think?”
Kaylin’s Leontine, mixed liberally with borrowed words from two other languages, filled the small kitchen space.
* * *
“You are certain you saw whole wings?” Evanton asked when Kaylin at last stopped swearing and told him, in less colorful language, about the events of the day.
“Yes.”
“But only with the aid of your familiar?”
She nodded again. The familiar had taken off, landing, as he often did, on Grethan’s shoulders. Grethan had gone in search of food more suited to the small lizard than Kaylin’s cookies, or rather, what she thought of as her cookies. “I wonder why he likes Grethan so much?”
“Given your current mood, it emphasizes his intelligence,” Evanton replied.
“I thought maybe the wings were Shadow wings, somehow—but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The net, though—I’d bet all of last year’s pay that it was Shadow.”
Evanton was thinking. Loudly. “Might I ask you to do one thing the next time you’re with Sergeant Carafel?”
“You want me to look at her wings with the help of the familiar.”
“Yes. I think it might be instructive.”
Kaylin nodded glumly.
“If the wings somehow represent potential flight, it’s possible that Shadow is responsible for the actual flight.”
“But—how?”
“It is power, Kaylin.”
“It’s Shadow. Look, fire is powerful, but you can’t pour fire into wings and expect to take flight. You can probably expect to be cooked if you’re not careful, but that’s about it.”
“Shadow has always been the most flexible of the potential powers,” the Keeper replied, unruffled. “There is a reason that it has been studied; a reason that it has appeal. Shadow is, at base, transformative.”
“Yes—but I’m not sure you can control the transformation, and for the most part the transformation, all differences aside, is from alive to dead.”
“For mortals, yes.”
Evanton was mortal. In theory. Or he’d been born mortal. But he’d lived a long damn time, and if he looked ancient to Kaylin, he hadn’t aged at all in the years—admittedly few—she’d known him. “How do you know what Shadow does?”
His brows gathered in the what a stupid question look he usually threw at poor Grethan. “I’ve been through several iterations of men—and women—who seek power. Any power. Most of those attempts don’t directly affect me, as Keeper. But some—as recent history has proven—have come close to destroying everything. I will allow that if the weapons the Aerians were utilizing were of Shadow, it is highly likely that Shadow was the ostensible bletsian granted those who could not naturally fly.” He rose. “It so happens I have something for you.”
“Lillias’s bletsian?”
Evanton nodded. “I ask you to wait here while I retrieve it from the garden.”
Kaylin nodded. And had another cookie.
When Evanton left, she turned to her partner. “An Aerian Arcanist. Any bets?”
“What are we betting on?”
“Which flight the Arcanist belongs to.”
“As long as you’re betting against dar Carafel, yes.”
Kaylin shrugged. “Shadow as simple power?”
“It’s Elani,” Severn replied.
“Meaning it’s a bill of goods we’re being sold?”
“We’re being asked to buy. But he’s probably not entirely wrong. I don’t understand how—or why—the Aerians had Shadow nets. The study of magic related to Shadow is illegal, even in the Arcanum.”
“The Arcanists don’t follow their own bloody rules. They’re certainly not going to follow the Emperor’s when they can avoid it.”
Severn, however, continued to stare at his hands, as if they vaguely displeased him. She could take a guess at why, but didn’t have to waste the mental energy. “Gilbert.”
Since this was more or less some part of what Kaylin had been thinking, she nodded, pensive now. “Gilbert’s the only Shadow I’ve ever met who wasn’t...”
He nodded, freeing her from the search for descriptive words. “Evanton’s not wrong. The first time you really spent time in the garden, it’s because an Arcanist—with an Imperial death sentence hanging over his head—tried to co-opt the Keeper’s powers in order to change the world.”
“To rule it.”
“To rule it by changing it. The heart of the elements weren’t the Arcanist’s concern. The power was. We have evidence—in the form of Leontines—that the powers of creation or transformation used there were, at the very least, susceptible to Shadow.”
“You think it’s more than just susceptible.”
“I think there’s a chance that the heart of the power is similar. The Towers were created to stand against Shadow—but the Shadows that have managed to breach a Tower knew what to look for, where to find it, what to do with it. They were trying to transform the Tower by rewriting the words at its core.” He was talking about Tara and Tiamaris indirectly.
Kaylin nodded slowly. “But what if the Shadows knew what to do because they’ve been at war with the Towers for so long? Bellusdeo understands Shadow better than any of us because she lost a world to it.”
Severn nodded, allowing the point. The problem was that Kaylin wasn’t certain she believed it. Because Shadows—or at least Gilbert—had words at their core. Whatever and wherever that core was.
“You remember the Fishmonger?” Severn asked quietly.
Kaylin flinched. There wasn’t a Hawk on the force who didn’t remember that case, and no Hawk who’d joined the force after the Fishmonger was caught who hadn’t