While night air pushed hair out of her eyes, Kaylin’s second thoughts asserted themselves. Moran was larger than Kaylin, but not by a significant amount, and even Clint had complained about Kaylin’s weight when he was forced to carry it while flying, admittedly in a sort of good-humored way.
Moran was mortal. Moran was Aerian. Kaylin was living with aDragon, and while it was technically illegal for Dragons to assume their scaled, racial form without Imperial consent, Kaylin was fairly certain Bellusdeo would be forgiven if she happened to break that law. Her weight was entirely insignificant to a Dragon of Bellusdeo’s size, and Bellusdeo had the grace, maneuverability and speed of the much-smaller Aerians while she was on wing.
Bellusdeo had been the target of assassins in the past—but Bellusdeo was harder to kill than any of Kaylin’s other friends, and she included the Barrani in that number. Moran was staying with Kaylinbecauseit was safest. No assassins could reach her while Helen stood guard.
And Kaylin had allowed Moran to risk everything by flying her to Highpost, in the desperate hope she could arrive in time. She hadn’t stopped tothink. She hadn’t assessed the risk. She hadn’t made the smart decision—wake up the Dragon—because she was still, on some gut level, used to working solo.
And if anything happened to Moran because of her own panic and her own inability to think on the spot...she couldn’t finish the sentence, even internally.
Moran, however, seemed to have none of the fears that Kaylin did. And she didn’t seem to feel Kaylin’s weight at all. She flew like an arrow, but on a straighter trajectory, and her expression was a sergeant’s expression. She understood what the job was and she understood how to get it done; nothing else mattered at the moment.
The familiar was no longer slumped across Kaylin’s shoulder; he was seated, tail curled around Kaylin’s throat for balance. He chittered like an angry bird but wasn’t glaring at Kaylin while he did so; he didn’t appear to be glaring at Moran, either.
“Do you know any useful words?” she asked the familiar; her voice was not loud in the rush of wind that followed Moran’s flight.
He squawked.
Kaylin scanned the skies, but it was night, and late. The moon was not full, and the skies were cloudy enough that they flew by the pattern of streetlamps below their bodies. The darkness wouldn’t have been a problem for the Dragon, either.
Please, please, please, Kaylin prayed.If we get there in time, if Moran stays safe, I promise I willthinkbefore I rush into anything else. Please.
* * *
Moran knew the city. She knew it well. She didn’t ask for directions because she didn’t need them. That was good, because the directions Kaylin would have given involved feet on the ground and the layout of streets. Running, she didn’t have the option of ignoring the buildings in the way of the straightest path, although she’d leapt yards in haste any number of times in her career.
What would have taken at least half an hour at a brisk pace—Kaylin couldn’t sprint for half an hour, no matter how much training she put in—took vastly less time by air. But she couldn’t translate what her feet knew instinctively into the bird’s-eye equivalent. She was grateful that she didn’t need to. She would have had to give Bellusdeo directions.
Moran dropped her in front of the right house; it was a narrow, cramped space, a door with walls that extended to either side to encompass other doors, which opened into other homes. Moran knew it was the right house because it was the only one on the street that shed light; everyone in the immediate vicinity was sleeping.
Kaylin opened the door; it wasn’t locked. “Keira!” she shouted up the stairs. She didn’t bother to remove her boots; she did make certain Moran entered the cramped hall. The ceilings were low here—but low here was still better than the ceilings of her old apartment had been before the apartment had been reduced to rubble and splinters.
“Upstairs—thank god you’re here.”
Relief caused Kaylin’s shoulders to slump; the breath left her in a rush. But she caught it again and sprinted up the stairs, because “on time” was only barely a guarantee, and it could change at any minute. “I got a ride,” she said.
“Fine. Hurry.”
“The ride’s the best doctor the Halls of Law has.”
“Good. Tell your doctor that the father has passed out and I think he hit his head on something on the way down. She can see to him. We need you.”
* * *
The father had indeed hit something, as Keira had said, on the way down, and he wasn’t particularly lucid when he woke to the grim face of an Aerian sergeant; he thought the wings were hallucinations. Moran, however, didn’t look the angel that many religions seemed to favor; she was far too grim-faced for that. She was also annoyed. She considered the mother’s condition to be an act of fate, given relatively healthy pregnancy; she considered the father’s condition to be wilful stupidity.
Self-inflicted wounds were severely frowned upon in the Halls of Law, and the biggest frowns given were generally from the woman who had to deal with them. It made Kaylin, who was exhausted, want to cry sentimental tears.
The mother had lost alotof blood; Kaylin had arrived only barely in time to save her. The loss of blood had caused trouble for the baby as well, and in all, the bed more resembled the aftermath of a bloody slaughter than it did a place of rest. Keira moved the mother when Kaylin said it was safe to do so. She was a good decade older than Kaylin, which, to Marya’s eye, was young, but she was brisk and no-nonsense about anything she could actually affect.
“Have some tea,” she told Kaylin. It wasn’t a request. When Kaylin stared vacantly into the cup, Keira added, “You look terrible.”
“I look better than I feel.”
“Probably true. Have some tea.” She turned to Moran, extended a hand and said, “I’m Keira. Thanks for dealing with the father. Normally someone would help with that—”
“You were occupied.”
“He’ll be okay?”
