The Emperor's Wolves (Wolves of Elantra #1) - Michelle Sagara Page 0,80

he wanted to shout with something perilously close to joy. “Very good. I have not rescinded permission to continue with this aspect of the investigation, nor will I.

“You will not, however, be waiting in the office for Ybelline’s response. I believe Elluvian is about to continue his own investigations.” Helmat glanced at the mirror as it flashed twice. Rosen had sent a mirror message.

“In the Halls of Law there is a Tha’alani who is on staff in a more permanent fashion; he is an adjunct Hawk. I wish you to speak with him. He is Tha’alanari, and he is also something of an artist. He works in Missing Persons.

“Rosen has found the Records you desire. You may invoke them with the use of her name.”

At the boy’s expression, Helmat paused and considered his own youthful experience with mirrors. “Have you used a mirror before?”

“Rosen’s. She activated the mirror.”

“Very well. Rosen will teach you how to invoke Records while within the Halls of Law. Such invocations will not be effective if you attempt to do so from a personal mirror.” Which, clearly, the boy did not possess. “The Emperor will be pleased if this hunt is successfully concluded.”

Severn’s expression didn’t change. Helmat might as well have said, if it does not rain today. Had it been so long since Helmat himself had been such a youth? Helmat’s youth had been defined by unnecessary skirmishes in the warrens. Or perhaps by surviving them.

There, trust had a different meaning. Did he trust the members of his gang? Yes, in a fashion. He couldn’t trust them not to steal any money or items briefly in his possession; he couldn’t trust them to leave food at what passed for a table in the open streets. But he could trust them at his back, and when the knives came out, they were never pointed at Helmat. Or almost never.

He had called this office home for well over a decade, and the desk that now housed Severn for another decade—perhaps closer to two. He had risen through the subtle hierarchy of the Wolves, and had at last come to command them all; the lessons of his early childhood, replete with men of power and their abuse, had, in the end, served a useful purpose. He met with the Emperor. He met with the people in charge of the Imperial Service. He could, without difficulty, name all of the lords of the various caste courts, with the single exception of the Leontines, who were otherwise absent from the power plays that riddled courts, high and low, of any other race. Politics as it existed among the Leontines was brutal and ended in death. He didn’t have to struggle to understand the games they played: he knew them intimately and viscerally.

And he liked them the better for it.

Once, however, he had been a young man to whom the Emperor was almost mythical. A Dragon, yes—every child over the age of three knew that—but one so far above him that he was rendered irrelevant, as if he were the god of a religion Helmat did not follow.

And his opinion, like that of irrelevant gods, had meant nothing to Helmat, either.

He turned to his mirror. “Rosen.”

“Here, lord and master,” came her sarcastic response. She didn’t put the mirror into its visual mode; he couldn’t see her expression. He knew what it was, nonetheless.

“Private Handred has not yet had any experience with active mirrors or our Records. Show him how it’s done, or your research will have been wasted.”

Severn headed toward the door.

“Not you, En. I’m not finished with you.”

Elluvian did not offer sarcasm, as Rosen had done. That should have been a warning flag.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Rosen was waiting at her desk, looking harried. Her companions were large piles of paper, from which she clearly expected the opposite of fun.

Her gaze, when it met Severn’s, was as friendly as a thrown stone. He weathered it. The words that she spoke, however, changed the context of that ill temper. “None of us,” she said, “had much experience with mirrors when Elluvian brought us in. I should have remembered, but it feels like a lifetime ago. Or several.”

“You did remember the scarcity of food.”

“Which you considered more important.” Rosen had a dimple Severn hadn’t seen before. “So did I. But you’ll need to know how to use the mirrors. We send messages through the mirror network, and we access Records that way as well. Some of the Records won’t appear until you’ve finished your probation.