She came to a skidding halt in front of what remained of Marcus’s desk. It looked as if someone had taken a very large ax to the desktop. The papers that generally littered the desk in various piles had been removed. Or rather, they’d been cleaned up; one or two had clearly fallen beneath desks and hadn’t yet been retrieved.
Marcus had grown about three inches in every dimension, he was bristling so badly. Kaylin didn’t need to meet his eyes to know that they were red. She did need to be able to understand Leontine to catch his first words—which she would have heard even if she’d taken the time to plug both ears.
She exposed her throat instantly.
The office was almost silent, which was what generally happened in the presence of an enraged Leontine. Kaylin’s fists clenched; she managed not to close her eyes. Or move anything but her chin.
Marcus’s claws were fully extended when he reached for her throat.
Kattea screamed.
Marcus hunched and wheeled in the direction of that scream, snarling. Kaylin knew better than to grab Marcus when he was in this state, but she shouted—in Leontine—to get his attention.
He spun again, inhaled, exhaled and forced himself to speak Elantran. “Where...have...you...been?”
“Teela told you—”
“Teela told us that you were convalescing in a house on the Winding Path.”
Kaylin nodded. “I was.”
He growled. He turned and barked the word Records in the direction of his desk. Which no longer had a mirror on it. Caitlin’s quiet voice repeated his command, and as she hadn’t trashed her desk in worried fury, her mirror shivered to life.
Gilbert, however, shouted “No!”
Under other circumstances, a man with three eyes shouting in the office might have gone south, but Ybelline took the opportunity to intervene. She stepped in front of Gilbert before Marcus reached him, raising a hand in front of the Sergeant’s face.
Marcus came to a full stop before any part of his body connected with that hand. His breath was a growl—but he couldn’t, at the moment, help that. “Private. Explain yourself. Now.” He turned to face her.
Kaylin risked her life. She answered with a question. “What happened on the Winding Path?”
“I was about to make that clear. Who is this man—and what is he?”
“His name is Gilbert. It was his home I was convalescing in. If something’s happened to it, he wasn’t there—he’s been with me the entire morning. Marcus—what happened?”
Ybelline said, to Caitlin, “It is best that the mirror network not be utilized at the moment.”
Caitlin, noting Kattea, nodded; she did not look well pleased, which surprised Kaylin.
“Tell us why, Castelord,” Marcus said. His voice was much quieter, which was actually a bad sign in Leontines.
“There is some sort of magical difficulty in the city, and it is being in part driven by—and expressed through—the mirror network. I believe—Gilbert would be the expert, not I—that use of the mirrors increases the danger.”
Caitlin blanched.
So did Kaylin. “There’s no way to shut down the mirrors—not instantly, and not without at least using them once. Mirrors get used by almost everyone. Even people who can’t afford a private mirror use the public ones in the markets.”
“Private.”
“I don’t know, Marcus. Ybelline does. We’ve had mirrors malfunction before—you remember, the mirror greeted everyone by name in that cheery, cheery—”
He growled. “You’re certain?” It was Kaylin he asked.
She swallowed. Remembered how Ybelline had said they died. Nodded.
“Fine. Perenne!”
“Sir!” Perenne appeared from around a pillar—the one advantage to a junior desk was its distance from Marcus.
“Run upstairs to the Hawklord. Tell him what Private Neya just said.” He turned to her. Of course. “You had better be right.”
*
Marcus’s eyes dimmed to a reddish-orange; his fur settled into more or less normal height, except around the ears and possibly the back of his neck. Kaylin couldn’t see that, and didn’t try. He barked commands, and the office once again returned to a semblance of normal—but it was a shadowed normal; anxiety fluttered beneath the surface of every spoken word.
“Castelord,” Marcus said, bowing.
She smiled and inclined her chin, as if she hadn’t, minutes before, been confronted with raging, animalistic Leontine. She did not step entirely out of his way. Kattea came out from behind her. She was shaking, but she wasn’t cowering. Which was good, given Marcus’s state of mind.
“I’m Kattea Krevel,” she told him.
“Marcus Hassan,” Marcus replied. “Sergeant Marcus Hassan. We need to inform the Emperor—” He stopped. Growled. “Shojii!”
“Sir!”
“Tell the Swordlord and Wolflord what’s happened.”
“The Hawklord—”
“Now.”
“Yes, sir.”
Marcus turned back to Kattea. “Krevel. Krevel. Corporal Krevel? Are you related?”
Kaylin froze. Kattea didn’t. “Yes. I’m his—his cousin.”
“And this man is a friend of yours?”
“Yes.”
Marcus sniffed the air. Leontine sense of smell was acute, no surprises there.
“Marcus—the Winding Path?”