Shit! He’d been looking for a fire for the message; that’s what it was. And he hadn’t found any lanterns outside, because it was so near to Sun Day it was both light outside and still quite warm. Thus, the tavern.
And now the note was gone. Argh! Teia’d failed again.
Desperate now not to lose him, she was falling in behind Atevia when she caught something out of the corner of her eye. It struck her as out of place, for some reason.
She stopped. Looked.
Just the tavern door opening. Swinging shut now, actually. Nothing.
She turned back to Atevia, but then stopped. Nothing?
Who’d stepped out of the tavern?
She scanned the busy street, but there was no one close.
A chill shot down her back. Sinking backward, backward, she widened her eyes all the way to paryl.
And saw it: the whisper of the color-filtering edge of a paryl bubble. The Shadow inside was invisible, and if she hadn’t looked in just the right place, she wouldn’t have seen it.
The Shadow—was it Murder Sharp himself?—turned and moved the opposite way down the street.
Teia was frozen between them. It might not be Sharp. There were other Shadows. If she followed this person and it wasn’t Sharp—
But then she saw the shape dip toward an alley and pause. A moment later, the paryl dropped and Murder Sharp appeared, settling his hood around his shoulders as if he were just another pedestrian emerging from the alley. He continued on his way, heading away from Teia and Atevia.
He must have been in charge of delivering the notes to summon the priests and then making sure they destroyed them afterward. Only Murder Sharp would be trusted with the priests’ identities.
Teia’s heart thudded. This was her chance!
But already Atevia was disappearing around a corner, fifty paces away. Sharp might be headed to the next priest, or he might be headed to the Old Man’s secret office, or he might be headed home for a nap or even out to a tavern for all Teia knew. If she ran, she could kill him before he knew she was there and then . . . maybe Atevia would still be easy to find. Maybe he wasn’t on his way to the meeting right now.
Or maybe this was a trap. How close must Teia have come to Murder Sharp when he’d been planting the note? They might have brushed shoulders, only saved by the fact that neither had been actively drawing in more paryl and that they both had to keep their gazes cast down most of the time, only stealing glimpses of the world lest their eyes be seen floating in the air.
If she’d gone into that tavern, she’d have surely bumped into him. Literally.
Holy shit.
But that didn’t matter now. Focus, Teia!
Murder Sharp was the greatest danger to her by far . . . but Atevia was the key to her mission. He might not go to the meeting right this moment, but if he did, she would fail Karris, she’d fail every slave she’d murdered to get here, and she’d fail every person those pagan priests tonight would order killed in the future.
But letting Sharp go was like ignoring the loaded gun pointed at her head.
Am I a shield, or an assassin?
Teia clenched her fists so hard her knuckles popped—then ran after Atevia.
Chapter 73
“Clear the hall,” Andross said loudly, before anyone else could react. “This isn’t a matter for open court.”
“Summon the Spectrum,” Karris said to Trainer Fisk—except he wasn’t a trainer any longer; the man who’d once helped cheaters try to keep Kip out of the Blackguard was now wearing a commander’s band on his Blackguard blacks.
Commander Fisk? The Chromeria really is in trouble.
Already giving hand signs to the Blackguards at the door too fast for Kip to follow, Fisk then said, “Same orders as before, regarding . . .” He looked at Kip. “Ahem. The other young Lord Guile?”
“Yes!” Andross said, though Commander Fisk had been speaking to Karris. “For God’s sake, don’t let him in here, not for any reason.”
Commander Fisk shot a glance at Karris, but obeyed. Clearly, he preferred to get his orders from her, though he was technically under both the promachos and the White.
Kip recognized two of the Blackguards as being from his own cohort, Tana and a light-skinned Abornean named Rivvyn Shmuel, who was as broad as his smile. They looked so, so young. The other two were so old they’d obviously been called out of retirement. Both had pretended not to recognize him, either from a misplaced sense that Blackguards shouldn’t acknowledge anyone—sometimes the young were overzealous—or they’d believed that he and the Mighty had abandoned the Blackguard, and were shunning him.
Tana and one of the old Blackguards went outside the door. That still left Grinwoody here, which irked Kip. He’d never liked the wizened old legalist from the first moments they’d met. And if Andross seemed healthier than ever, Grinwoody had sunk further in on himself, curling up in his age like a dead spider.
“Tell me everything,” Andross ordered.
“ ‘Us,’ ” Karris corrected.
Andross rolled his eyes. “Well, no one’s thrown you out, daughter, so you’re certainly permitted to listen in.”
She smiled pleasantly while her knuckles went white on the arm of her chair. “How have you been, Kip?” she asked. “You do look so well. Married life appears to be agreeing with you.”
“More than ‘agreeing.’ Tisis is an unalloyed blessing. The best thing in my life.”
“Oh, I’m so happy to hear that!” Karris said. And if she started a new conversation to irk Andross, now she seemed truly involved in it. “It is so hard to find the right partner in this life, and seeing that you’ve done so brings me greater joy than you can know.”
“Are you very much done?” Andross asked.
“Indeed!” Kip said as if answering Andross, but then said, “. . . High Lady White. And I’ve felt for some time now, grandfather, that I needed to thank you in person.”
“What?” Andross asked.
“I’d not have married Tisis if not for you. You proved your wisdom and insight are beyond my comprehension. I was . . . quite dismissive of Tisis at first and would never have courted her. I wouldn’t have guessed what an ideal partner and powerful ally she would be for me. You showed your superior insight and wisdom, and truly blessed me by arranging it.”
Andross scowled, as if uncertain if Kip was mocking him or giving him a real compliment—which he actually was. If you wanted to compliment Andross Guile, Kip guessed, you should do it early in a conversation, before he did something to infuriate you—which he surely would. “Why are you talking about this now? Is she pregnant yet?”
“No,” Kip said. And there it was. He was already mad.
“Then lay off the camp followers and get to plowing your own field, boy. You need lessons? A long, fatherly talk?”
Though he’d thought that his time in Blood Forest would have cured him of any shyness, Kip felt himself flushing hot.
Grinwoody spoke to Andross, none too quietly. “Perhaps the young lord suffers from a malady of the intimate sort? Spilling his seed before he reaches the fields? Softness rather than steel in the plow? I could suggest a physicker who might help.”
“I’m sure you’re quite expert in maladies of the intimate sort, calun,” Kip said to Grinwoody. “But I’ve been quite satisfied in those matters, as has my wife, thank you.”