“What?”
“What do I get when you fail?”
“Dinner.”
“Helen will feed me anyway.”
“Not if I ask her not to.”
“Helen?” Mandoran said, raising his voice. “Will you starve me if Kaylin demands it?”
Helen failed to answer, and Mandoran chuckled.
“Don’t disturb your brother,” Helen then said.
“Nothing I could possibly do would make him any worse.”
Kaylin, in the hallway, waited for another minute; the door opened. Mandoran was tugging his left arm into the empty sleeve of a jacket. He did not otherwise look rumpled. Or unshaven. Or sleep deprived. She opened her mouth.
“We have a deal. No Annarion. No Teela.”
“Fine. Can I ask about Tain?”
“Boring old nursemaid.”
“He is not!”
“Is too.” Mandoran held up a hand. “Have you ever had to live with him?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, you’ll soon see what I mean. I’m beginning to understand the phrase misery loves company.” He grinned.
“Barrani don’t have that one?”
“No. But it’s oddly useful. If someone makes us miserable, we generally feel justified in attempting to end their lives.”
“Annarion makes you miserable all the time, according to you.”
His grin deepened. “Exactly. So. Misery and company. And—no Annarion, remember? Annarion’s situation is far, far simpler than—” His Elantran segued into expressive Leontine. “Apparently,” he said, “I’m not allowed to talk to you about this.”
“According to who?” She guessed Teela.
“Sedarias.” Apparently, she guessed wrong.
“Sedarias is the one with the complicated situation?”
“Not the only one. Look, I told you I was an orphan, right?”
“You lied.”
“Very good! I admit I despaired—” He stopped again. “Someone told you.”
“Yes.”
“Then I take it back. You spent your formative years—not my phrase, don’t make that face—in the fiefs.”
“Yes.”
“You must have lied, and you must have at least been decent enough at it to survive.”
“I was never good at lying.”
“What did you do instead?”
Kaylin shrugged. “Groveled in abject fear.”
“I would think lying would be easier.” He flicked something invisible off his sleeve. “Clearly you’ve never been lazy enough. Food?”
Kaylin made a face. “Helen?”
“Yes, dear,” the disembodied house replied.
“At what point does someone stop being a guest?”
“I imagine the moment you ask them to leave.”
Mandoran laughed at Kaylin’s expressive, but silent, response.
“Fine. I guess we’re feeding him.”
*
His good mood did not last through an early breakfast. It didn’t last through the start of breakfast. While he enjoyed teasing Kaylin—his words, as she had ruder ones to describe it—he couldn’t entirely forget the predicament his cohort were in.
“What did you want to know about the great boring nursemaid?”
“Nothing. I did want to know about Tain.”
“I’ve pretty much described everything you need to know. I cannot believe you’re inviting him to stay with the rest of us. I can’t believe he’d even consider it. He’s not particularly fond of us.” Mandoran’s grin reappeared. “He’s a protective, jealous bastard. Well, not bastard, not exactly—but he’s not from a great line.”
“Unlike the rest of you?”
“Unlike Teela. He hadn’t met the rest of us when he started associating with her. Were it not for my name—for all of our names—and the history associated with those names, he would have assumed that I was his social equal. That’s not good,” he added, in case this wasn’t clear.
There were days when she liked Mandoran; he was accessible in a way the Barrani generally weren’t. And then there were days like these. Mandoran didn’t appear to notice the difference.
“Look, don’t get defensive. He’s stodgy and boring because he’s too damn cautious. We might as well be the unawakened, waiting helplessly in the arms of our parents for the gift of our name.” He hesitated, and then his shoulders drooped toward the tabletop. “He’s been good for Teela. She doesn’t have his name—he’s never offered, and she’s not stupid enough to ask—but she might as well.”
“He’s her partner.”
“The only person who thinks being a Hawk is more significant than being a Lord of the High Court is you.”
Kaylin folded her arms and tilted her chair up on the back legs. It was either that or leap across the table to strangle him. “He’s her partner.”
“Fine, fine. The point is, he’s not one of us.”
“Technically, neither is Teela if it comes to that.”
“Teela is. She’s not as changed as we are. She doesn’t have trouble passing as normal—well, not now.”
“But she did.”
“Duh.”
“I think I prefer it when you speak High Barrani.”
“You probably prefer it when I don’t speak—but you did ask.”
“About Tain.”
“Tain’s been her ally for much longer than he’s been a Hawk. They didn’t just meet when they joined. Every Barrani Hawk in the Halls was vetted, one way or another, by Teela first.”
“And none of them are Lords of the Court.”
“Nope. But there’s no other Lord of the Court who would join the Hawks. If Teela weren’t Teela, she’d’ve suffered for it. But she’s never stayed strictly within the Court’s circumscribed social rules, and in the end, it would have been too much trouble to make her pay for straying outside of them. Her father was powerful, and her father is dead. So are most of the Lords who chose to ally themselves with him, in the beginning. But not all.
“The Barrani who haven’t taken the Test of Name—and passed it—are mostly invisible in the High Halls. They’re not considered significant. They can be servants—and we do have those—or guards; they can be soldiers, if war demands soldiery. But they can’t be anything else. If they have ambition or pretension, they take the Test. Tain didn’t.”
“So he’s considered insignificant.”
“Yes. She’s hoping to change his mind,” he added. “She’s never considered him insignificant, and I think she’s afraid she’ll lose him.” He winced. Kaylin couldn’t hear Teela, and was very grateful for that fact at this particular moment.
She didn’t know Tain as well as she knew Teela, but she knew him well enough by now. “He won’t listen.”
“That’s what I told her. Does she believe me? No, of course not. She might believe you.”
“I’m not stupid enough to try.”
*
Bellusdeo found Kaylin in the breakfast room three hours later. The Dragon, like Kaylin, preferred Kaylin’s work days to her days off, and probably for similar reasons. “What did Mandoran do this time?” she asked, drawing Kaylin’s attention from whatever it was she’d been looking at. Her hands, probably. Or the table. Helen had long since caused the plates to vanish, although technically cleaning up was Kaylin’s job.
“Nothing.”
“You’re worried.”
Kaylin nodded. “I was thinking of paying a visit to the High Halls.”
Bellusdeo wrinkled her nose. “Take Severn with you.”
“It’s not Hawk business. Not officially.”