As Kaylin left the dining room and headed toward the grandly lit front doors, there was another surprise waiting for her. The wide, curving stairs had a person on them. Bellusdeo.
Kaylin almost didn’t recognize her. Gone was the fancy court dress that marked so much of her life in public; she was wearing pants and a tunic. The shirt beneath the tunic was beige, and if the cloth was a much more expensive weave than Kaylin could afford, it wasn’t immediately obvious. Her hair had been pulled up off her shoulders; she wore no obvious jewelry.
“Do I have something unpleasant on my face?” Bellusdeo asked, her eyes a steady bronze.
Kaylin remembered to close her mouth. “No—it just feels like it’s been so long since I’ve seen it.”
“And absence has made your heart grow fonder?”
Kaylin blinked.
“It’s a mortal phrase, I believe.”
“Mortal covers a lot of cultural territory.”
“True. I admit that I don’t completely understand the usage. I’m using it incorrectly?”
“I wouldn’t say that, exactly. Are you coming with me to the office?”
“I’m not dressed like this for Diamart’s abominable, condescending lessons, no.” Her smile deepened in exactly the wrong way. “When he is recovered enough that apoplexy won’t kill him, I think I will be, though.”
The small dragon, having resumed his ownership of Kaylin’s shoulder, snickered.
“Get it out of your system now,” Kaylin told him. “I’d like to be taken seriously by the rest of the Hawks once we get to work.”
He hissed laughter.
*
“You’re going to find the office a lot quieter,” Kaylin told Bellusdeo as they walked.
“Why?”
“We lost four Barrani Hawks and a dozen Aerians; the Swords lost at least that many men and women. The office is still functioning; the duty roster is still being filled in all divisions that require one. It’s not that no one dies in the line of duty—they do. But this is the first time we’ve lost Barrani.”
“Is it the first time the Barrani have been injured?”
“What? No, of course not. Barrani arrogance doesn’t lend itself to caution. But nothing we run into on a regular walking beat is capable of taking down a Barrani.” Kaylin exhaled. “But we lost four in the battle with the ancestor. Four. We don’t get a lot of Barrani applying for the force. They’re culturally willing to swear to protect the city—but the ‘serve’ part of our oath really gets stuck in their throats.”
Bellusdeo chuckled. “Some things never change.”
“No. The Barrani weren’t given funerals that the rank and file in the Halls could attend. The Aerians were—but half of the Aerian funeral service takes place in the air or in the Aerie, and not all of us could get there or participate in those. Grammayre asked the Aerie if they could hold the parts that take place inside the Aerie somewhere the wingless could reach, and they agreed.” Most of them, anyway. One or two Aerians, raw with grief and anger at the loss, wanted their beloved departed to have nothing to do with the office that had indirectly ended their lives.
Kaylin hoped that the respect and grief of the Halls of Law would at least make them understand that their loss was felt, and felt keenly; that the lives of the lost had been respected and valued. She wasn’t certain, though. Funerals hadn’t been part of her childhood. A gathering of the living around the dead had usually had more to do with desperation than respect or comfort.
“Why do you think they serve?”
“The Barrani probably do it because they’re bored.”
Bellusdeo nodded. As an immortal, her thoughts on boredom resembled the Barrani opinion with which Kaylin was so familiar.
“The rest of us?” Kaylin shrugged. “I can’t speak for the others. But me? I wanted to be involved with something I could respect. I wanted—and maybe this is stupid—to be the good guy or the hero.”
“And now? I take it from your self-deprecating tone that you think the desire was naive.”
“A little. When I first met the Hawklord, I didn’t feel naive. I felt that everyone else was—I mean, everyone who lived on this side of the Ablayne’s bridge. Because they’d had it so easy. I still think that sometimes.” She shrugged again. “I wanted to be part of something bigger than me, in the end. I like the sense that we’re working on something together. That if justice and the law isn’t perfect, it’s better than the alternative. Someone is always going to be at the top. That’s just a law of power.
“But if the law can sometimes be used to protect those who don’t have that power, it’s better than nothing. Do you think I’m stupid?”