“Yes.” The Wolflord exhaled. “He was considered the most promising of the young Wolves; he was quick, clever, focused. There is always a danger when hunting Barrani, but none of us expected his death. Mellianne, as you have seen, has still not forgiven Elluvian for it. She believes that if Elluvian had desired it, Darrell would have survived.”
“Do you?”
“He is not the only Wolf we have lost in training.” The Wolflord rose from his desk, a signal that this meeting was over. “Not many of the Wolves retire in old age. We are Imperial Executioners—but it is seldom that those who have been condemned accept the Imperial edict with grace.”
Mellianne was sitting on the edge of Rosen’s desk when Severn left the Wolflord’s office. She didn’t look friendly, but Severn didn’t expect friendliness from strangers; her lack of welcome made him more comfortable, not less.
She pushed herself off the desk, and behind her back, Rosen rolled her eyes. She offered Severn no warning, but her expression—resigned, weary—made it clear that Mellianne was always prickly; there was no surprise in it.
“You always dress like that?” Mellianne asked, giving the clothing Elluvian had purchased a much more thorough once-over.
“Only at work.”
“What do you wear when you’re on your own time?”
“What you’re wearing.”
Rosen coughed. Mellianne turned instantly to look at the older woman, but Rosen didn’t seem intimidated by the expression Severn couldn’t see.
“Where do you call home, then?”
Home? It wasn’t a question the Wolflord had asked. Nor was it a question Elluvian or Rosen had asked. Severn shrugged. “I don’t.”
“You don’t have a home?”
“Not anymore.”
This seemed to give Mellianne pause. A pause, however, wasn’t a full stop. “You lost your family?”
And this was not something Severn wanted to discuss with a stranger. It wasn’t something he wanted to discuss with anyone. He offered a fief shrug instead of an answer; it was a closed door.
Mellianne didn’t appear to appreciate closed doors, and she didn’t let this one stop her. “You an orphan?”
He shut the windows as well. “Unless it’s relevant to my duties as a Wolf, I don’t see any point in discussing it.”
Her brows folded inward. “You understand what we do here, right?”
He nodded.
“Don’t give yourself airs. We’re assassins. We go where the Emperor tells us to go, and we kill who the Emperor tells us to kill.”
Severn’s nod was politer. She understood the difference between a fief shrug and a polite nod.
“Did you ask him what happened to Darrell?”
“You told me. He died.”
Her eyes narrowed into slightly curved slits. “I’m trying to be helpful here. I’m trying to give you a warning you’re obviously too good to need.” She followed this with street slang before she stalked away from Rosen’s desk, her hands in fists. Severn didn’t watch her leave; he’d turned to Rosen. He did hear a door slam.
“She wasn’t always like this,” Rosen said, when Severn said nothing. Rosen cared for Mellianne.
“Neither were you.”
“No—until recently, I wouldn’t have been at this desk or in this office; I’d’ve been given a mission. But I was never a Shadow Wolf,” she added. “Neither is Mellianne.”
“The difference?”
“We hunt, yes, but we don’t have permission to kill, except in self-defense. Most of us are good enough—or were—that it’s hard to sell self-defense as a cause. We find kidnappers. We find thieves if the theft is of a ‘sensitive nature.’ All of our work,” she added, “is of a sensitive nature. If it’s not, the work goes to the Hawks.