“Trying to pull the Shadow off him.”
“Your familiar just said—”
“If we’re going to take him in—”
“I’ll go with you,” the man said. “I’ll cooperate.” She couldn’t see his face clearly. Only his eyes were visible when the familiar’s wings were high—and they were too white in the ink of his skin. “I was hired—” He stopped speaking. He started to choke.
Kaylin leapt forward, but she was too slow; the familiar pushed off her shoulder. Before she could catch him or stop him, he exhaled. Silver, sparkling steam escaped his open mouth in a familiar, multi-colored cloud. “No!” she shouted.
He squawked.
The man drew breath to scream—and scream he did. She couldn’t see what was hurting him. She couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary at all with her own eyes. She reached down, opened the collar of his shirt, popping buttons in her haste to give him room to breathe, although she wasn’t certain it mattered.
But hedidbreathe. His glassy, wide eyes slowly narrowed. They remained open, but moving. His arms and his legs shuddered, his chest rose. He started to speak, stopped and began to choke again.
Kaylin pulled him up, grabbing his jacket to do so. The familiar circled him, hovering for a moment before he nodded and returned to Kaylin’s shoulders. They watched as the man continued to choke; Severn got behind him and aimed several blows at his back, between his shoulder blades. The man began to cough, and Kaylin instinctively moved out of the way as he spit out something dark and wet.
Something visible and familiar.
Margot hissed an exclamation.
The man was too busy regaining breath to do the same, but his eyes once again widened as a small, dark, opalescent pool began to eat its way through Margot’s most expensive rug. This Shadow was clearly visible to everyone who didn’t have a familiar.
Severn yanked the man to his feet.
* * *
Margot was incensed by the time she saw the Hawks to the door. “You couldn’t have done that at the Halls?” she demanded.
“He wouldn’t have survived the trip there,” Kaylin countered.
“And that’s my problem how? Do you know how much that rugcost?”
It hadn’t started out as a promising day. It wasn’t promising now—in many ways it had become infinitely more complicated. But Margot was furious, and that had to count for something; it was the bright silver lining on a very dark cloud.
Kaylin had done nothing wrong. Nothing petty. There was no guilt associated with this; there’d been no passive aggression at all. She took a moment to enjoy the feeling, because the rest of the day was going to be a nightmare.
“We’ll want a Records capture of that, as well,” she told the seer. She said it very quietly, on the other hand.
Margot, once she had stepped into the street—and was therefore in public—was far more composed than she had been one invective-filled sentence ago. “I am always happy,” she said with a smile that dripped venom, “to offer aid, where appropriate, to the Halls of Law. Give my regards to the Hawklord.”
Kaylin nodded. The only thing she had done before forcing the stranger to stand was rifle his pockets. She now carried the feather, the bracelet and the collar. Given their significance, she wanted them somewhere where magic couldn’t instantly incinerate them or destroy them—and at the moment, she was it. The familiar could protect them if they were on her person.
Severn said nothing; he secured the prisoner, who was ashen and shaking, all former poise and confidence gone with the ball of Shadow he’d thrown up.
* * *
Word had clearly arrived at the Halls by the time Kaylin reached them. Clint and Tanner were on the door, but they weren’t the only ones; there were four Swords, fourBarraniHawks, and a small handful of Aerians who were patrolling so tightly above the front doors it was difficult for them not to hit each other.
This did not make their newest prisoner much happier. He looked miserable enough that Kaylin quietly explained the Halls procedures where Shadow might be involved. Which did not make him any less terrified.
Teela and Tain were there. “Honestly, kitling,” Teela said. “Can you not leave the Halls on a regular patrol without tripping over something deadly?”
Since it was a rhetorical question, Kaylin didn’t answer.
“Mandoran is highly displeased,” the Barrani Hawk added.
Of course he was. “Tell him to get stuffed.”