Free Cast In Fury by Michelle Sagara Page B

surface slowly breaking to reveal a face. A Leontine face.
    “The mirror’s not keyed,” Kaylin said, her voice losing heat as she struggled with her very inadequate memory. The woman was familiar. Not one of Marcus’s wives—she knew all of them on sight, having been to their home dozens of times before she was allowed to join the Hawks.
    “No,” Severn said thoughtfully. “But the message is. I can wait in the hall if you want the privacy.”
    “Don’t bother. It’ll save me the hassle of repeating what it says. I know her,” Kaylin said suddenly. “I saw her when I went to the Quarter for the midwives. Her name was Arlan. But it was supposed to be—”
    “Kaylin Neya,” the woman said, her voice so hushed Kaylin wasn’t surprised when the image in the mirror turned and looked over its shoulder furtively. “You came. You helped birth my son, Roshan Kaylarr. He has need of your aid, and there is no one else I can ask. I humbly beseech you, return to him.” She looked over her shoulder again. “I cannot speak freely. But come again this evening at the same hour you arrived in my den on your first visit. Come alone, if it is possible. Bring only people you can trust, if it is not. I must go.” She faced the mirror fully and said a phrase in Leontine before the mirror blanked.
    Severn looked at her. “What did she say?”
    “You don’t know?”
    “I didn’t understand all of the Leontine, no.”
    “But you
always
understand more than I do.”
    He raised a brow.
    “She said her throat was in my claws.”
    “That’s what it sounded like. What does it mean?”
    “She’s begging. More than begging. She’s promising that she’ll do anything—anything
at all
—that I ask of her in return for this favor. No, it’s more than that—she’s saying that if I don’t do this, she faces a fate worse than death. Yes, it’s a little over the top. They don’t use it much.” She closed her eyes. “Her son was the only cub in her litter, and he barely survived the birthing. If something’s gone wrong with him—”
    “She would have called you
now,
not at some unspecified hour.”
    “That’s what I’m thinking,” Kaylin replied, rearranging her hair thoughtfully. “I’m also thinking that it can’t be entirely coincidence that something’s wrong in the Quarter at this time. I went in to help with the baby—Leontines don’t usually call in the human midwives, but…it was an odd birth. None of her wives were present and she was alone. The entire place was empty. I left the midwives behind because it was the Leontine Quarter, and they allowed it—barely.”
    “She looks—and I admit I’m not an expert in Leontine physiology—young. Maybe she has no wives yet.”
    “Maybe. And maybe she got my name from Marcus the first time I visited, and maybe she can tell us something about what’s happening to him.”
    “Careful, Kaylin. You don’t want to start an intercourt incident.”
    “I never want to start an incident,” she replied, opening the door. “Then again, I never want to stand in the rain getting soaked either. Some things are just beyond my control.”
    As if in reply to this, he reached into his pouch and pulled out the heavy, golden bracer that she wore when she wasn’t with the midwives. Or, more accurately, when she wasn’t being called upon to use the strange magic that came with the marks on her arms, legs and back.
    “That’s why you came?” she asked, taking the bracer and clamping it firmly shut around her wrist.
    “That,” he replied, “and to make sure you get to work on time.”

    Clint was on duty. If she had the timing right, he’d flown to the Southern Stretch, slept and flown back, without much else in between. He didn’t look surprised to see her and, given she had been on time two days in a row, this said something. It wasn’t a good something, but it was something. He let them both in without a word, although he returned Severn’s nod as they