“He hasn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the Barrani contingent has been in charge of his safety; it has been made perfectly clear that if he does not survive his captivity, it will reflect very, very poorly on us.”
“You’re not in charge of that detail.”
“Not technically, no.”
“But—”
“I’ll talk to the prisoner. Marcus says you can go ahead and investigate.”
“You haven’t asked him.”
“Fine. You want a bristling Leontine filling your mirror, you can have him.”
Marcus did say yes, eventually. There was a whole lot of Leontine that happened between his first appearance and his permission, most of which was not repeatable, almost literally.
“This is not the day to be in the office,” Kaylin said when the mirror image once again receded and she was staring at her own face. Shedidlook hungover. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 21
Kaylin didn’t break the window—or the door. Given the day, it wasn’t even tempting. Margot’s outer doors weren’t warded. They were locked the old-fashioned way.
The windows on the side of the building weren’t barred; they were magically protected. Ugh. Severn took out his chained weapons and managed to open the window without breaking the glass.
“It’s not just spinning the chains that offers protection from magic?” she asked as he worked.
“No. It’s more reliable that way, but no.” He offered her both of his hands; she stepped into them with her left foot and worked her way into the building, feeling oddly like the criminal she had once been. She then headed to lift the impressive bars that had made the front doors impassable.
* * *
Margot had enough money that it wasn’t just the windows that were rotten with magic. The interior doors were warded, as well. Some of the clutter of decorative kibble was warded, but not in the way the doors were; Kaylin’s skin was tingling, but it hadn’t reached the rubbed-raw pain pitch yet.
The small dragon was alert. He muttered to himself while standing upright on her left shoulder; she wasn’t surprised when he lifted one of his wings and smacked it against her eyes.
“You and I are going to have to learn how to communicate,” she told him. “You can’t smack me every time you want me to do something. Well, okay, youcan, obviously—but I don’t like it.”
He snorted, rolling his eyes.
Severn headed up the stairs as Kaylin looked at Margot’s accumulation of personal treasures. The obviously expensive ones were up front; they would be. Margot was a peacock. She wanted her customers to know that she was valued, was considered valuable, by powerful—or at least rich—clients, and this was the unsubtle way of making it clear.
And it was also, Kaylin thought, frowning, an easy way into a home that was otherwise surprisingly secure. “I see it,” she told the familiar. She was looking directly at a small statue. It appeared to be made of gold, with rubies for eyes, and wings that seemed vaguely demonic. It resembled what Aerians might have been if they’d been born with bat wings.
Kaylin didn’t have Barrani or Dragon memory. She had no idea if this was new. But seen through the familiar’s translucent wings, gold leaf had been laid across obsidian that moved and roiled even as she watched it. She fished about in her pockets, but came up empty: no gloves.
So she borrowed one of Margot’s tablecloths, wrapped it around her hand and lifted the offending statue. “This is Shadow magic.”
The familiar squawked.
“It’s not attacking me; it’s not attempting to take over anything—but this is Shadow magic. I’d bet next month’s pay on it.”
There was a loud crash from up the stairs; Kaylin wheeled, the statue still clenched in one cloth-covered hand. She took the steps two at a time, bouncing off the wall in the bend of those stairs to give herself more momentum.
When she reached the landing, she slowed. Severn’s back was toward her, and he was armed—he’d pulled both of the blades, but the chain itself was not at all useful for indoor fighting in close quarters. Glass shards were scattered across the carpet runner and the wooden floors to either side, and as Kaylin approached, she saw an almost unrecognizable Margot in the hall.
“She threw something?”
