“‘What the fuck does that mean?’ I ask him.
“‘If you win, you can take me out back and shoot me. If I win, I can do the same to you. Real stakes.’ And he leans forward, and I get the feeling this is what he wanted from the start.”
“You called?” Gyre said.
“Of course I called.” Kit snorted. “I’d been betting my life every time I went down into the tunnels. What’s one more time? But he starts flipping up the last draw, one card at a time, and none of them help me. When he gets to the last one, he asks me if I want to keep going. I look him in the eye and tell him I do. He grins at me.
“And then he gets up and walks away. Leaves a whole stack of thalers on the table.” She flicked the firelighter again, another cloud of sparks shimmering in the darkness. “I looked at his cards. He had me cold. I guess he found out what he wanted to know.”
“Did you ever see him again?”
Kit nodded in the dying light. “I tracked him down, obviously. Told him if he’d folded, then he owed me his life. He thought that was funny. But he taught me … a few things.” She shook her head as the last of the sparks died. “That’s another story, too.”
“Is he still alive?”
“As far as I know,” Kit said. “But now it’s my turn.”
“What do you want to know?”
“The obvious,” she said. When he didn’t answer for a moment, she heaved a sigh. “What happened to your eye, idiot.”
“My eye?” Gyre’s scar itched under the mask. “What about it?”
“I saw you at the Smoking Wreckage, remember? You don’t have to play dumb.”
“Right.” He tapped one finger on the blank silver eye just above his empty socket. “Okay.”
“Well?”
He cleared his throat. “I was eight years old. My parents were vulpi farmers—”
“If it turns out you lost it in a farming accident or something, I get another story.”
“Relax,” Gyre said with a slight smile. It quickly faded as the memory played itself out in his mind. “My sister was five. Maya. She was fearless, smart. You would have liked her. But she was always getting sick, and doctors were no help.”
“Did she die?”
“For someone who wanted a story, you’re not a very good listener.”
“I told you,” Kit said. “Clock’s ticking. Get on with it.”
“One day in the summer, a centarch turned up at our door. His name was Va’aht Thousandcuts, and he told my parents he was here to take Maya away to the Order. She was getting sick because she had the potential to be a centarch herself.”
“I’ve never heard of that.”
“Me either. But who were we to talk back to the Twilight Order? My parents were just going to let him take her, but I didn’t want to. So when Va’aht wasn’t looking, I jammed my knife in his leg. I thought I might be able to grab Maya and run, I guess.”
“I take it it didn’t work.”
“Of course not. My parents were screaming, but Va’aht wouldn’t listen. He took my eye as punishment.” The scar gave a dull throb. “Then he took my sister, too. I never saw her again.”
There was another pause.
“You hate them, don’t you?” Kit asked after a while.
“I hate them,” Gyre said. His voice was surprisingly calm.
“So that’s why you work with Yora? To hurt the Order?”
“It’s … more than that.” Gyre drew his knees against his chest. “I hurt them, but it’s not enough. It’s not just about me. The Order is …” He shook his head in the darkness. This was the part that he had a hard time expressing. “They’re the past. The Chosen ruled over humanity for who knows how many centuries, and then when they were dying they built this thing to keep us on the path they wanted.”
“The Order defends the Republic against plaguespawn and dhakim,” Kit said mildly.
“Because they’re the ones with the power,” Gyre said. “They decide what’s sanctioned arcana and what’s dhak. They tell us what power we’re allowed to have. And just coincidentally, anything that might be able to challenge them, to do without them, isn’t allowed.” He swallowed. “Maybe we needed them once, after the war and the Plague. But now …”
“So you want to go to the Tomb,” Kit said.
“The ghouls challenged the Chosen,” Gyre said. “If there’s anything left in the world that can stand up to the Order, that’s where it’ll be.”
He shifted awkwardly. He hadn’t meant to be so honest, to tip his hand. But he felt like, of all the people he’d talked to, Kit might truly understand. Something drove her there, didn’t it?
“I worry,” Kit said, “that you’re going to be disappointed.”
“I don’t care,” Gyre said. “I have to get there. I have to try.”
“So you can rescue your sister?”
“I’m not stupid,” Gyre muttered. “If the Order saved her, then she’s been living with them since she was five years old. They’ve had plenty of time to get their hooks into her. By now I’m sure she’s as bad as Va’aht.” He took a deep breath. “Nothing’s going to fix my family. I just don’t want them to break anyone else’s.”
There was another long pause, then a shuffling of cloth. After a moment, Gyre felt Kit’s hand, her fingers twining through his. She gave him a comforting squeeze.
“It’s a good story,” she said. Once again, she was close enough that her breath tickled his cheek.
“Sorry,” Gyre said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Tell the truth?”
He smiled faintly. “Something like that.”
“It’s not something you should regret.” She pulled away. “I’m going to check if those sentries are still waiting for us.”
Gyre nodded, pointlessly. Kit’s footsteps padded away, vanishing quickly into the shadows and stillness.
*
It felt like an eternity before they left the tunnels.
Kit had come back to report that the Legionary was still in place, so they settled in for another round of waiting. This time, she’d volunteered a story about traveling with a scavenger band who’d had their mounts and packs stolen, which turned extremely bawdy very quickly. Gyre was laughing by the time she narrated her triumphant return to town, naked but swaggering, her embarrassed companions scuttling along in her wake.
“Is any of that true?” he said when she was finished.
“Some of it. Probably,” Kit said. “The good parts.”
Topping that would have been difficult, but fortunately they were interrupted by the sound of the Auxies moving out in a storm of shouted orders and recriminations. They waited a few minutes after silence fell, then crept along quietly just in case someone was playing games with them. But the soldiers had really gone. They must not like sitting around these tunnels any more than we do.
“Chalk one up for plan B,” he muttered to himself as they climbed out of the depths.
“Hmm?” Kit said, leaning on his shoulder from behind.