“But it’s that flexibility that allows the difference in the way Mandoran views you and the way Annarion does.”
“He’s expecting too much from his brother.”
“Of course. But, kitling, would you rather he expected too little?”
* * *
She had no answer to that. Breakfast finished; the Moran escort formed up: Bellusdeo, Teela, Tain, Kaylin. Severn didn’t show up at the front door. The familiar lounged, as he usually did, across Kaylin’s shoulders.
Only when they were at the halfway point between Helen and the Halls of Law did she answer Teela’s question. “...I think so.”
“You would rather he had lower expectations?”
She nodded, pensive. “It’s the expectations that are killing him. Helen says he’s very unhappy. I know Nightshade’s unhappy as well, but in some ways I kind of feel like he’s earned some of that. IlikeAnnarion. I hate to see him so miserable.”
The usual rejoinder failed to emerge, and Kaylin remembered that Mandoran was stuck in a wall in the basement somewhere.
* * *
Four city blocks from the Halls of Law, the familiar suddenly stiffened. He sat bolt upright, and this time, he spread a transparent wing across Kaylin’s eyes.
“Moran!”
Moran moved instantly. She also tried to lift her wings, and failed with the injured one. It didn’t matter. Kaylin threw her arms around the Aerian’s waist.
Teela drew her sword, and Bellusdeo looked up. The Dragon said, “I’m running out of inexpensive clothing, and Idon’twant to work at the Halls in full court regalia.”
“Can you see them?”
The Dragon shook her head. “How many?”
“Three, I think. They’re all Aerians, but...but they look funny.”
“Funny how?”
Kaylin cursed in Leontine. The three looked down on the city streets, and their formation—and they had been flying in formation—changed. “You know those nets you dropped?” she asked Moran.
“Yes. I need to breathe,” she added.
“They’re flying with something that looks like those nets. You can’t see them?”
Bellusdeo growled. In Leontine. She said something sharp, harsh and syllabic without speaking actual language. The hair on Kaylin’s arms and neck stood on end. Magic.
“They’renotthose nets,” Bellusdeo said. “We’ve got torun.”
“What are they?”
“Shadow,” the Dragon said.
* * *
It was impossible to run while looking up. It was impossible to run while holding on to someone’s waist, if that someone wasn’t under the age of two. Kaylin shifted her grip on Moran, holding her hand rather than her torso. She made it a block before she realized that the net itself had elongated as the Aerians had moved. That kind of precision flight-in-place was difficult. Whoever the three were, they were damn good.
She could see that Clint was on the door with Tanner; she could see that the doors were open.
And she could see that the net itself was going to fall regardless. Bellusdeo had said it was Shadow, somehow. It didn’t seem to be sentient, or at least it didn’t seem to be the type of Shadow that would consume the Aerians holding it.
But those Aerians, she saw now, were wearing some of that Shadow across their arms and chests, as if it were armor.
