Cast in Chaos. Michelle Sagara
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mirror rippled, losing her reflection—and gaining, sadly, a sticky, wet palm print, which, given the cost of the mirror, was going to cause ructions—and Caitlin’s face swam into view, solidifying after a few seconds. Her usually calm expression stiffened instantly, and her eyes widened.
“No, no—it’s fine, Caitlin. The blood’s not mine.” Realizing that this would not, in fact, calm the office mother down, she added, “We’re having a bit of trouble down on Lattimar road, near Gorran, and we need Swords out here. Now. Can you get Marcus?”
The image froze on silence. When it began to move again, Caitlin said, “You’re not the only place that’s having trouble, dear.” At least she looked less shocked about the blood. Her image froze again. Kaylin waited until it started moving and said, “How large an area is this rain falling in?”
“A large one, dear. Sergeant Kassan is here.”
Ironjaw’s eyes were orange, and he was bristling. He was not, however, angry at Kaylin, and even if he were, she was well out of reach. “You said you were at Lattimar and Gorran?”
She nodded. “It was at Lattimar and Gorran that the rain went…strange, sir.”
“Get your butt back outside and see whether or not there’s a clear line of so-called strange.”
“People are running around screaming in total panic.”
Eyebrows rose; the tufts of Leontine ears were standing on end. “The Swords are already out in the streets, Private. It’s covered. Now get out there and get me some useful information.”
There was a clear line of so-called strange, a point at which blood gave way to water. It wasn’t instant, but the blur between the two could be seen both on the ground and in the air itself. They had followed Lattimar past Gorran, heading toward the wall, and when they found the five yards of blur, Kaylin actually muttered what she hoped sounded like thanks to any possible deity who might be eavesdropping.
It was wet, and the rain was cold; the blood-rain wasn’t, but in this case, Kaylin was willing to settle for cold. While the rain lasted, Kaylin and Severn followed its line, and marked the streets where clear water gave way to red fluid. Neither of them had the means to take more than a very small sample of this altered rain, if you didn’t count what could be wrung out of their clothing.
They didn’t manage to trace the periphery of the area, which seemed to be roughly circular in shape, before the rain petered out. It was perhaps the only time she could think of that she cursed lack of rain—and in two languages, at that. But they’d circled a large enough part of the city, sans carriage, before they made their way back to the Halls.
There were guards at the doors, which wasn’t unusual—even in the midnight hours, these doors were manned. But these guards had clearly not only seen the effects of the rain; they’d also been standing in it. They didn’t even lift a brow at the reddened mess that was Kaylin’s clothing. Nor did they engage in anything like small talk; they were silent in that grim, worried way, and they waved both Hawks through the unlocked doors.
The Aerie was as crowded as it was during training maneuvers, and Kaylin glimpsed familiar wings in the artificial light that radiated down from the heights. Aerian shadows looked a lot like giant fish against the stone floors, and she watched them—briefly—before Severn tapped her shoulder.
“Sorry,” she told him, as she picked up her walking speed.
The office was not, as one would expect at this time of the day, empty. But the foul temper the orders from on high had caused had dissipated the way it always did when there was a distinct and obvious emergency. If people weren’t thrilled to be there—and judging from some expressions, they weren’t—they were awake and focused.
They were all also, almost to a man—and one shockingly matted Leontine—in various shades of red. Patches of dried blood lay across the office floor, making a visible track between desks and mirrors; it looked as if Marcus had gone berserk.
“Private!”
Speaking of berserk… Kaylin headed straight to the Sergeant’s desk, and stood at attention, which was hard because he looked like a drowned cat. But huge. “Reporting in, Sir.”
“Well?”
“We have some street coordinates. We gathered the information we could before the rain stopped.”
He turned and shouted at the mirror closest to his desk, not that it mattered much; all of the office mirrors were alive. The window, sadly, was also alive, and it reminded people that it was time to leave, that they had to clock out, that they had to check the duty roster before they left, and that they should be careful in case of rain. Kaylin stared at it.
“Every ten minutes,” Marcus growled. “And it has special commentary on the hour.” He added, “Map, center city, low detail.” The mirror rippled, as it often did, and the image that had occupied it before his curt command receded until it was part of a larger network of lines.
“Special commentary?” She walked over to the mirror, looked at her hands, and let them drop to the side.
“It has,” he continued, ignoring the interruption, “stopped attempting to correct ‘obscene’ language.” He gestured to the mirror, stepping out from behind his desk to do so.
Since even Mallory had never attempted to rein in what was politely referred to as local color, Kaylin grimaced. She hated to think that something could be more uptight than Mallory. “I’ll wash up,” she told him.
“Don’t bother. No one else has.” To drive this point home, he ran a claw lightly over the mirror’s surface. It stopped at the intersection of Lattimar and Gorran. “You mirrored from here.”
“A bit down the road, but yes, that was the general area.”
Severn stepped up to the mirror, to the left of their Sergeant. “Magnify. Center Lattimar and Gorran.” The mirror obeyed, and Kaylin found herself holding her breath as the buildings came into view. But they didn’t leap out of the mirror’s surface, and they didn’t turn into something monstrous or strange, which was good because she needed to exhale.
Severn pinpointed the boundary—and the boundary’s width. The point just beneath his finger began to glow; gold for the outer bounds, bright pink for the inner. When she snorted, he said, “I don’t choose the colors.”
Marcus growled, which was tired Leontine for Shut the Hell Up. Since it was aimed at Kaylin, Severn continued to call cross streets. The map would blur and shift, he’d add two points, and then repeat the process. When he was done, he called “Map” again, and this time the line of dots—in gold and pink—formed a pattern. To emphasize this, a line, in each color, ran between the points, terminating at the start and the finish of their trek.
It was a third of a circle, give or take some math.
Marcus actually purred. If you had very little experience with Leontines, it sounded a lot like growling. “Good work,” he said. He barked an order, and the map began to extrapolate, from their coordinates, the perimeter of these two circles; the theoretical portions were in slightly dimmed colors, which in the case of the pink, was a distinct improvement.
“Good work, Private Neya, Corporal Handred.” He turned and then bellowed at the rest of the office. “No, don’t crowd around this mirror. Use the ones closest. Teela, Tain—you were out on the eastern edge. If what we’ve got is inaccurate, mark it. The same goes for the rest of you.” He turned to her and added, “What did Lord Sanabalis say about your report?”
Kaylin froze. “We were on our way to the Palace when it started to rain blood, Sir.”
“And you didn’t head there before you reported in.”
“No, sir. You said—”
“I know what I said, Private.” He growled. Because Kaylin did have experience with Leontines she couldn’t tell herself it was a purr. But