“Oh, hello, Teia,” Ben-hadad said.
He shoved hard against a spring-loaded pistol, resetting it. Then the other.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “First time I’ve actually gotten both of them to work when I wanted. And neither accidentally fired. That would’ve been unfortunate. Oh, this one lost its flint. Of course it did. Again. Could you lift me back up? Little awkward here. Quentin, you gonna just stand there?”
Quentin looked over at Teia helplessly as she shimmered back into visibility. Ben-hadad was not a heavy man, but Quentin was the very antithesis of muscular. He couldn’t lift him by himself.
Teia heaved Ben back to a sitting position.
He stood up and grinned. “Hey, look at me, huh?”
“. . . Yeah . . . I was . . .”
“And holy shit, little Teia, look at you,” Ben-hadad said. “Bet no one calls you ‘little Teia.’ ”
No one talks to me at all.
“No,” she said. “You’re back. You’re back?”
“We’re all back. Come to save the day.”
Was he joking? It wasn’t funny. “I’ll put on my damsel hat. Whaddaya call it?”
“A wimple?” Quentin asked. “Sorry. Don’t mind me. Not even here.”
“No, not to save you, Teia. Shit. We needed you to save us. Can’t think how many times we bitched about you being gone.”
“Yeah?” she asked. There was suddenly something raw in her throat. They were standing close, but neither had moved to embrace. She suddenly thought she was going to cry. “ ‘All of us,’ you said?”
“Yeah, Kip’s back too.”
“No, no, I meant, you’re all back? Everyone? Everyone made it?”
“Oh, oh yeah. We’re all right. Well, except Winsen, but then, he wasn’t all right when we started. In fact, we’ve been trying to arrange for him to take a few good blows to the head to see if it might straighten him out a bit.”
Teia smiled wanly.
“Nah,” Ben said. “Actually, even Win is less of a dick than he used to be. A little bit less. Most of the time.”
“Sometimes?”
“Yeah, only sometimes,” Ben-hadad admitted.
“But you’re okay? Really?”
“Yeah, I mean, I, I took the worst of it since we left.” He gestured to his knee with the contraption, hidden under those baggy pants. “Actually, I guess you saw me get this injury. But I can walk now. Even run when I can’t avoid it. Well, usually—just kind of broke my brace, but it’ll be good in no time.”
“Yeah?” she said.
“You been through the shit, huh?” Ben-hadad said, looking at her closely.
“Did Quentin tell . . . ?”
“No, no,” Ben-hadad said. And Teia saw that Ben wasn’t only more self-assured and more grown-up-looking than when he’d left, his brash intelligence had also been tempered by suffering.
“You been through it, too,” Teia said.
“A bit,” he said with a quick, sad smile. “But I had the Mighty. Even if one of them is Winsen.”
“Ha! I’d rather be alone,” Teia said. But the word ‘alone’ bounced off the walls, ricocheting into her chest.
Ben-hadad’s nose wrinkled. “No, you wouldn’t. Would you?”
“No,” Teia said, looking away. She couldn’t break down. Ben didn’t know what she’d done. Ben couldn’t offer her absolution. “So how is everyone?”
“Kip’s good,” Ben-hadad said.
“That’s not what I asked,” she said. “But since you brought him up, sure, let’s start there. How is he?” She thought her voice was admirably level. No hint that her heart was in her throat.
“Happily married.”
“I, I didn’ t—! I wasn’t asking—C’mon, Ben! Don’t be like that.”
“Teia, I know you. It’s fine. It’s what you wanted to know and I’m happy to tell you. You want to know about her?”
“No! No, not really, no.” She cursed. “Maybe a bit?”
“She’s one of the Mighty now. Has been for quite a while, I guess.”
“Oh.” She really did take my place in everything I loved, didn’t she?
“She can’t fight for shit. But she’s saved our lives probably more than any of us. That’s why we’re Mighty, right? Different strengths, all pulling to the same purpose.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s great.” For you. Thanks for reminding me what I don’t have, you clueless dick.
“We didn’t know you were supposedly gone or whatever, so Tisis thought I might see you on duty. She gave me something for you.”
“Why didn’t she bring it herself?” Teia asked, suspicious.
“The Order sent a team to kill Kip back in Blood Forest, so with them and all our other enemies, we decided our leaders shouldn’t all be in the same place. She’s staying as far from the Chromeria as she can while still being on Big Jasper.”
“They—what?!”
“Yeah, right, we’ve got a lot to catch up on. Can I just do this thing so Quentin can get back to telling you just how damned smart I am?”
“Language, please . . . ?” Quentin said, wincing.
Ben-hadad looked at him quizzically.
“He’s fine with any words except whatever dishonors Orholam or disrespects a listener,” Teia explained. “Or something like that.”
“It’s a bit more nuanced than—” Quentin started.
“Let it go,” Teia said. “Both of you. Ben? What are you talking about? What ‘thing’?”
“Here,” he said, digging into his pack. He pulled out a folded little cloth. “It was Tisis’s idea, but . . .” He unfolded it. It was a patch of the Mighty. “We all wanted you to know. You didn’t come with us, but no one stopped thinking of you as one of the Mighty, Teia. You’re one of us. Cruxer says you’ve been absent without leave for way too long. He’s said he’s gonna make you run until you piss blood or something? I dunno, some saying he got from his father. And he said ‘urinate,’ of course, not ‘piss.’ ”
She took the patch in trembling hands, and tears welled up in her eyes.
“Now, Quentin, tell her I’m brilliant!”
“None was gainsaying the claim,” Quentin said. “Though none were yet queuing to support it, either.”
Teia knew Quentin well enough now that she could tell he was teasing. But the flash of humor helped her push back the tears.
Maybe Quentin knew her a little bit, too.
“This is relevant, right?” she growled.
“A little,” Quentin said.
“A little?!” Ben-hadad protested.
Quentin said, “Our old monopodal friend here, it turns out, is rather adept at reading schematics, and knows a fair bit more of engineering history than I do, as well. It’s embarrassing really. I think I read straight past references to this very thing. It turns out that at the time of the Chromeria’s construction, there were several different units of measure in use, with certain professions preferring one and others another. There were conversion tables, but always with a margin of error.”