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been referred to the Caste Courts, not ours.”
    “What case?”
    “Someone died.”
    “Pardon?”
    “A Leontine from a prominent clan died. He was killed by another Leontine. That much, we do know.”
    “How?”
    “The death didn’t occur in the Leontine Quarter. However, none of the witnesses were harmed, and remanding all investigations involving that death to the Caste Courts is well within the dictates of the Law.”
    “But—”
    “Marcus was present at the scene of the crime.”
    “What do you mean, present?”
    Clint closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, they were clear, and his face had hardened into lines that Kaylin hated to see there. “He is currently in the custody of the Caste Court, awaiting a trial on murder charges.”

    For once, Kaylin had no words to offer. A million questions, yes, but they were jammed up in the tightness of her throat.
    “Corporal Handred?”
    “Here.”
    “You’ve been instructed to report for duty to the acting Sergeant.”
    “The acting Sergeant? Clint!”
    The Aerian to his left was an older man that Kaylin recognized. There wasn’t an Aerian on the force that she didn’t know by name, because there wasn’t an Aerian on the force who hadn’t been begged, pleaded with and cajoled by a much younger Kaylin. They could fly—they could carry her with them.
    “Breen?”
    Breen had clearly decided to let Clint absorb all the heat of this particular conversation, but his dusky skin, pale brown to Clint’s deep, warm darkness, looked a little on the green side.
    “To whom am I to report?” Severn asked.
    The hesitation was almost too much to bear. But when Clint finally spoke, it was worse.
    “Sergeant Mallory.”

CHAPTER 4
    Severn did not take Kaylin with him when he went to report for duty to the new acting Sergeant. He did not, in fact, report for duty immediately; instead, he grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her from the steps atop which the two Aerians stood. It took her about two minutes to realize that the dragging had a purpose: he was taking her home.
    And she was exhausted enough to let him.
    “I know what you’re thinking, Kaylin. Don’t.”
    “What am I thinking?”
    “That you should have been there.”
    She winced. But she’d always been obvious to Severn.
    “What you
were
doing affects an entire race. What we’ll be doing when we’re not dealing with the ugly fears of a mob will affect a much, much smaller group of people.”
    “The Hawks.”
    He nodded quietly.
    “Why did he ask for you?” She couldn’t bring herself to actually say Mallory’s name out loud.
    “I don’t know. I’ve met the man once.”
    “You ran interference for me when we went to Missing Persons.”
    Severn nodded. “But given his feelings about you—and he was quite clear on those—I imagine that he won’t find my role as a Hawk much more to his liking.”
    “He probably doesn’t know where you’re from.”
    “Then he hasn’t done his homework.”
    “Doesn’t seem likely.”
    “No, it doesn’t. I imagine that Mallory knows quite a bit about the Hawks at this point.” He stopped. She stared at the street, and he pushed her gently up the few steps to her own apartment door. She’d gotten a new key, and it worked, but it took her three tries to get the damn thing into the lock.
    “You’re tired,” he told her, when she cursed in Leontine. “Tired and Mallory are not going to be a pretty combination. Sleep it off. But understand that when you walk into the office in the morning, the rules will be different and everything will change. You wanted to be a Hawk,” he added. “Be one. Tomorrow.”
    “I want to talk to the Hawklord.”
    “Do that tomorrow as well.” He paused, and then added, “We couldn’t have talked to the Hawklord without speaking to Mallory first. I imagine he’s guarding the tower. Kaylin, he’s made it clear from the start, if I understand things correctly, that you should never have been a Hawk. Nothing