Chapter 89
Teia didn’t wait at the door. Instead, she threw herself at Kip and gave him a fierce hug.
Oh no. As she froze in his arms, Kip wished for the first time that he was still as fat as he used to be. With his belly protruding, he might have had a chance. As it was, the difference in their heights meant their first point of contact was below Kip’s belt … and right in the middle of Teia’s stomach. There was no way to ignore it. She’d hugged Kip, and there was no way she couldn’t notice.
She stepped back and looked down, to confirm what didn’t need confirmation. Kip folded his hands in front of himself, which was pretty much closing the barn door after the cows were already out.
“Kip, what the hell?” she said. “Is that for—”
For you? Hey, they come on fast, but not that fast.
The words were out before Kip realized he’d said them aloud. Oh shit.
“Oh, you were—I’m so sorry!”
“No! I was—sometimes they just happen. You know, just out of nowhere. You know, to young men.”
Teia cocked her head, her lips pursed and one eyebrow lifted. She folded her arms, nonplussed. Not Kip’s best evasion ever.
Without turning her head, Teia swung the door shut behind her with a foot, exposing Tisis.
Teia’s expression went carefully blank. It did that when she was furious. “Constant as an oak, aren’t you, Kip?”
“I, I—this isn’t, this isn’t … this is probably exactly what it looks like.” Kip looked plaintively. “Teia—”
“I don’t care. I don’t have time for this. I need you. Right now.”
“Pardon?” Tisis said, coming out of the corner as if she’d simply been inspecting the drapes, haughty and put-upon, chin lifting.
Oh hells.
“Shut it, bauble, or eat fist,” Teia said. She didn’t turn her head, but her pupils flared as she looked at Kip—flared, in an instant, so wide that the irises were reduced to the tiniest rings, and then those pushed back so far that the whites of her eyes disappeared altogether. Her eyes became perfect black orbs. Kip knew she was gathering paryl, but with her set jaw and sneer, Teia’s suddenly inhuman eyes made Kip want to wet himself.
Tisis shut it. Teia ignored her, going straight to Kip’s bureau and rifling through it.
“Kip, you’re a great gushing shit sphincter, but I’ve got more important things to worry about. There’s—” She glanced distrustfully at Tisis, and stopped. She went back to digging and quickly pulled out Kip’s lens belt and tossed it to him. She looked at Kip. “You have any other weapons here? This may get ugly. The White’s in danger. I may be the only one who can save her.”
Tisis said, “I’m sure a color-blind drafter is exactly what the Blackguards need to do their—”
Teia pointed a finger at Tisis’s nose, getting right in the older girl’s face. “One more word, poppet. Give me the excuse. Breaker, now!”
The other thing? Oh, she meant the cards. Kip wedged his fingers behind his bureau and pulled it away from the wall. In the space underneath, he grabbed the card box.
Teia looked unimpressed. “I really need to show you better hiding places.”
Kip strapped on the lens holster. “Tisis,” he said, “go to the docks. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”
Teia turned and pointed. “Tisis, there are coin sticks on that rafter.”
“What?” Tisis said.
“Use green, moron! Knock them down with luxin and take them with you as you go. We can’t carry anything extra. Orholam’s balls you’re dumb.”
They left her standing there, fuming, and ran to the lift.
As they got in, Teia pulled out the gray cloak and fingered the twin black-and-white disks stitched on the back. “Kip, where’d you get this cloak?” she asked.
“I stole it from a god or a demon or something. Something bad.”
Teia looked at him, exasperated. “Asshole.”
“Teia, listen to me. I’m going to marry Tisis—”
“I don’t care. We need to talk about our strategy upstairs.”
“Teia! My grandfather has commanded—”
“So you are working for him. What was all this, part of a ruse?”
“What was all what? Ruse? What are you talking about? Teia, you of all people should understand!”
“Of all people? And why’s that?”
“You were a slave!”
“Oh, I’d forgotten about that. Perhaps you—”
“You should understand what it is to have to obey orders you—”
“—have forgotten that you’re free. Don’t you dare tell me you know what it’s like!”
“I’m doing it for the squad, Teia.”
“I could tell. Had your horn up for us, did you? Funny how the things you do for others end up benefiting you most of all. You’re a Guile, Kip. Through and through, and all Guiles are the same.”
Kip dropped his hands. She was past reason. And the lift was here.
They got on. Kip shifted the counterweights. He remembered it requiring more weight the last time he and Teia had taken the lift with just the two of them. Teia said, “An assassin of the Broken Eye took a contract from your grandfather to kill the White. He put a paryl trap around the White’s heart. She may already be dead. If she’s not, I’ll need to work on it. If we’re discovered, I need you and the squad to hold the door while I work. Oh, and we have to get past the Lightguards. Not a problem for me alone, but like I said, I may need you once we get in the room.”
Kip absorbed it in silence. “The squad?” he asked finally.
“Should be meeting us up there. At least some of them. I sent Marissia to find them.”
All Guiles are the same, huh? “Fine, I got a plan.”
“Which is?” Teia asked, as they started ascending.
Kip said nothing.
“Breaker, I’m serious. What’s the plan?”
Kip turned a contemptuous look on her, then looked away, dismissing her. He could practically feel the air chill. It wasn’t fair of him. Dammit. He should open that Lip and apologize immediately.
But he didn’t. And just as he was reconsidering, the lift stopped at an earlier level. Caelia Green stepped on with her distinctive swinging gait, followed by her Blackguards, men Kip didn’t know well. She looked up at Kip, then at Teia.
“I think it’s past time we get to know each other, Kip Guile,” she said. “I am Tyrea’s Color after all, and truth is, I don’t know my people all that well, and there are far too few Tyreans here at the Chromeria. You do consider yourself a Tyrean?”
“Of course,” Kip said. This? Now?
“Ah. Just didn’t know if you thought you’d outgrown that somehow,” she said. “We should talk.”
And then she got off at one of the upper levels. Kip and Teia continued on, but there was no way to apologize before they arrived at the top level of the Prism’s Tower.
The rest of the squad was standing there waiting for them in the reception area. All of them were wearing their grays. All of them were armed, but there was no tension in the air. They were curious why they’d been summoned.
“Hey, Breaker!” Ferkudi said. “What’s happening? What’s the game? Where’s Teia?”
Cruxer, though, saw the look on Kip’s face immediately. He stepped close. “The Guile room slave sent us here. Told us to be armed. Said that you and Teia would meet us. What’s—”
Kip glanced around. Teia was gone.
Oh, not gone. Just not visible. Keeping her presence secret. Fair enough.
“No time,” he said, walking past Cruxer.
Three Lightguards stood at the usual Blackguard post. They were standing side by side, fully blocking the hall. Ten paces behind them, the Blackguards waited, looking peeved about having been evicted, but clearly under orders not to do anything about it.
Kip stood up on tiptoe briefly as he walked toward the checkpoint to see which Blackguards were on duty. He squinted and drew his green spectacles smoothly from his hip case. “Gav Greyling? Is that you?”
Big Leo whispered behind him, “Boom.”
“Ayup!” Gavin Greyling said.
“What’s your orders?” Kip said, again bobbing up on tiptoe like a little kid to look past the Lightguards.
“Son, you’re going to have to hold up,” one of the Lightguards said.
“Not to interfere with the Lightguards. Not in any way,” Gav announced.
“Boom?” Ferkudi asked, confused.
“Son, I mean—”
“Oh,” Kip said to Gavin Greyling, “that’s—” He was close enough. Amateurs.
Forearm strike to the neck. Kip caught the man on the left so hard, right under his jawline, that the man was launched into the wall. Kip used the follow-through to build torsion through his core. He whipped back to smash his elbow into the noseguard of the middle guard’s helmet. The man hadn’t bothered to tie his chinstrap, so his noseguard became the metal vanguard of Kip’s attack. The man flopped into the third guard, already unconscious.
His collision knocked the spear from the third man’s grasp. The Lightguard went for a belt knife. It was a cross-body grab, and Kip blocked him from drawing it, first grabbing the man’s wrist, and then wrapping green luxin around the man’s wrist, hand, and belt, chaining them together.
The man tugged frantically, fighting his own belt. Kip was already grabbing him by the throat in one hand. He brought up his other fist and made thorny spikes sprout from it. But didn’t punch.
All the fight went out of the last Lightguard.
“Lie down and pretend to be unconscious,” Kip said.
The man nodded quickly, wide-eyed.
Kip let go of him, and the man knelt and awkwardly lowered himself onto the ground with only one hand.
“Oh!” Ferkudi exclaimed, getting it. “Boom!”
“Hanging hairies, Ferkudi,” Big Leo said, “sometimes I think you have got to be faking it.”
“Faking what?” Ferkudi asked.
“Hold the hall,” Kip told Cruxer.
“We got it,” Cruxer said.
The squad rapidly gathered the Lightguards’ weapons. The full Blackguards, Gavin Greyling and the shaven-headed Asif, were grinning at how Kip had dispatched the Lightguard, but they still barred the way.
“I’ve no doubt you’re going to pay for that, nunk, but it sure was fun to watch,” Gavin said.
“The White’s in danger,” Kip said. “Something only … something only I can see.”
And like that, the men were on alert. They went straight past the guards at the door. Kip stopped at the White’s door for a moment and looked back, as if pensive, to give Teia a chance to sneak in.
Winsen crouched over the third Lightguard. “Hey, friend,” he said. “No need to pretend.”
“Huh?” the guard asked, opening his eyes.
Winsen’s fist cracked across his jaw. The guard’s head bounced off the ground. Kip winced. Winsen saw him looking. He grinned, but there was always something a little cool about even his friendliness. He enjoyed this, and he liked Kip, but he didn’t quite like people the way other people did.
Kip nodded to him and went in.
“Hold the door,” Kip said to the Blackguards, “and please don’t look?”
They pursed their lips, but Gavin Greyling nodded. Kip pulled a curtain as he approached.
Teia was already standing at the foot of the White’s bed, her eyes black orbs in the low light of the room. It was dark outside, and Kip could see only pinpricks of light out her windows, the lamps of the rich people’s homes and the lamps of the rich people’s streets, tapering off into darkness on the poorer north side.
“I’m too late,” Teia said. “I can’t … It’s like he made this hoping I’d try to disrupt it. If I touch them, she’ll die. But if I don’t touch them, she’ll die anyway. It’s somehow starving her heart. Her heart is dying. But if she so much as coughs … Kip, what do I do?”
“Shhh, child,” the White said.
Kip started. He didn’t even know she was awake. Didn’t know she could wake. Two Blackguards had stayed, but others had fled to get help.
“Wake my room slave, Kip, and say nothing more for the moment. Adrasteia, get behind the curtain, please.”
Kip walked to the slave’s closet and knocked. No response. He opened the door, and saw the old woman, snoring in her chair. “Caleen,” he said. “Caleen!”
She snorted and opened her eyes, then followed him blearily. And slowly. Damn she was old. But by the time they got back, Teia had hidden.
The White said, “It’s my time, Bilhah. Summon High Luxiat Selene. Ask no one else to come in. I don’t wish my end to be all a clamor and panic.”
Bilhah shuffled out past the Blackguards, slowly.
When the door closed behind her, Teia came out from behind the curtain. She asked, “Why did I have to hide? I mean, why’d I have to hide from her?”
“So you wouldn’t have to kill her,” the White said. “She’s been reporting to Andross Guile for ten years now. She has a grandson she loves.”
“And Andross used it against her,” Kip said bitterly. He didn’t know why it was hard to believe his grandfather had hired an assassin—the old monster had done it before. But still. Kip had played games with Andross. Andross was even charming sometimes. And a murderer. Killing people like they were cards to be cleared from the play surface.
“Why didn’t you sell her?” Teia asked. “She betrayed you.”
“Hers was a sin of weakness, not one of malice. It tortures her, and I let it. That’s her punishment. And if one is to have a spy in one’s chambers, what better than one who is hard of hearing and a little slow? After I pass, you tell her I knew, and that I forgave her. But not until after I pass. I don’t want her weeping to be the last thing I hear.”
Not for the first time, Kip wondered at the White. Both uncommonly gracious and uncommonly hard.
“Wait, why would Andross knowing that Teia was here matter? She’s— Oh.”
If the Broken Eye found out Teia had tried to foil the murder of the White, they’d know she was betraying them. They might figure it out anyway.
The White said, “You have my permission to tell Kip everything, Teia. But I don’t release you from your mission.”
“Where’s everyone else?” Kip asked. “It’s not right we should be the only ones here.”
The White simply breathed for a few long moments, as if her previous speech had worn her out. “The Spectrum is meeting, appointing Zymun Prism-elect. All my friends? Off, away, obeying orders,” she said. “Dying is a task I can accomplish alone. Adrasteia, stop. That’s enough. If not this night, I’ll die tomorrow. They only snip a few days from my natural span, and I am not such a fool…” She got winded and couldn’t speak for a little bit. “Such a fool I cannot take certain advantages from knowing my own last day. Go now, go.”
They turned and went to the door, but she said, “Kip, not … not you.”
Teia pulled her hood closed and disappeared, and the White beckoned Kip closer. “Desk. Card. Take it. And one last puzzle for you, O blood of Guile: Not only Prisms fly.”
Kip went to her desk and found the Nine Kings card held between panes of glass. The White, much younger: Unbreakable. He tucked it in a pocket.
“Open the curtains,” the White said. “I would … look upon the light.”
Kip drew the curtains all the way open. It was gray out, not quite dawn. “Orholam shine upon you, High Lady,” he said.
She didn’t respond. The Blackguards, who’d overheard the last, came to stand at her side. Keeping one last watch. Tears were streaking down Gavin Greyling’s cheeks.
Kip stepped out into the hall. He couldn’t mourn now. He pushed it off. Had to think.
Almost dawn on Sun Day, and Zymun was going to be named Prism-elect? They’d do it at dawn, or even before, so he could perform the morning ceremonies. If Kip wanted to get out, he didn’t have much time.
The squad was waiting for him. “Let’s go!” Kip shouted. They were ready. They ran for the lifts. High Luxiat Selene, coming to give last rites in her many-colored robes of office, stepped to the side as they pounded past her. They piled into the lift and set the counterweights. Made it, thank Orholam.
Cruxer threw the lever, and they dropped—one level.
The lift jerked to a stop so hard it nearly knocked them all off their feet.
“What are you doing, Captain?” Ferkudi asked Cruxer.
Cruxer said, “It wasn’t me.” He flipped the lever back and forth to show them.
They were at the Spectrum’s level. Kip turned to see a smug Grinwoody. Apparently the lever in his hand was some kind of override. “Ah, hello, sirs,” he said. “Promachos Guile demands you come with me. Now.”
His triumphant grin told Kip just how much trouble they were in.