“One drop is supposed to be able to kill a dozen men. I’ll give you two. Then I’ll leave my drapes open. You’ll have pleasant poppy dreams all night, and when light flashes over the horizon with the dawn of Sun Day, you’ll die instantly.” He cleared his throat again. “It is as kind as I can be while I do what I must.”
“That . . . does sound very kind,” Teia said.
There was nothing else to say. She’d failed. This was the end for her.
Her heart pushed through the thickets of panic and found, suddenly, the barren plains of resignation. Her breath slid from her mouth like a bit falling from her teeth.
She felt strangely better. Death wasn’t the freedom she’d choose, but it was one kind of freedom.
Unless there was a hell.
She’d find out soon enough.
“Just the one tooth?” she asked, her voice level and scoured clean of fear.
With a slurping sound, he took out his dentures and set them aside. He began washing his hands in a basin, with soap. But even still, he never took his eyes off her for more than an instant. There would be no surprising him with paryl.
“Oh, I pride myself on my tidiness. I won’t deface you unnecessarily.” He dried his hands on a pretty, nicely folded cloth, unhurried. There was some element of ritual, of nearly erotic fixation, barely contained, in his voice. “I want you to know, Teia, I’ll think of you always when I wear them.”
“You’ll help my father?” she asked.
He put a blindfold over her head, but didn’t lower it over her eyes yet.
He stared at her in the half dark of the hidden chamber for a long moment. A last, guttering goodness flickered in his eyes. She hoped it was an assent.
“Open your mouth,” he commanded, filling a tiny silver spoon full of dark liquid. Behind him on his table sat shining tools: a jaw stretcher, pliers, more awful things. She’d not be able to see or speak once he got to work on her.
“Murder?” she said.
“Yes, Adrasteia?”
“Fuck you.”
He flashed a sudden grin, showing broken stubs of teeth beneath his gleaming, violet-shrapnel eyes. “They all say that.”
She opened her mouth and accepted the bitter drops.
Chapter 98
One day wasn’t nearly enough time to get ready, but through the triple miracles of preparation, competence, and the total focus of every human on the Jaspers, things were actually coming together. Kip had meetings with Tisis and the generals. Tisis would be managing Corvan Danavis’s scouts and intel, and the generals simply needed to hear Kip say to their faces that he really did want them to follow every order Corvan Danavis gave them. It was worth the half hour Kip spent recounting all of Danavis’s exploits and brilliance and showing Kip’s own absolute faith in the man. These generals would be repeating the stories to their own men and women. Plus, they needed to see that what Kip was doing was intimately tied to their success.
He spent all of two minutes with his wife that weren’t practical and tactical.
“Have you seen Ben-hadad?” Kip asked. “I could really, really use his big brain on this.”
“No,” Tisis said. “I haven’t seen Cruxer, either.”
Kip felt the cold hand of dread around his heart. They knew the Order was here. “What?” he said. “I assumed he was with you, making sure the new members of the Mighty were squared away.”
“I know, and I thought he’d be here. But none of the others have seen them, either. Ben I could imagine disappearing to work on something he thought was important and forgetting to tell anyone. But Cruxer? Kip, he was really upset about Ironfist’s betrayal . . . and then Ironfist shows up half dead . . .”
Ironfist hadn’t woken. It wasn’t certain that he would.
“Orholam have mercy,” Kip said. He swallowed.
“I’ll let you know the instant I hear anything,” Tisis said. He saw the agony in her eyes, but there was also a steel practicality there. They both had things to do, at opposite ends of the Jaspers. No matter what. Even if Cruxer was dead.
And she was right.
“Likewise,” Kip said.
They held each other then, forehead to forehead, all too aware that it might be the last time. Their parting kiss was both too much and too little by far. And then they went to their work again: he to the Chromeria, and she to set up scouts and signal-mirror communications lines.
Kip had to bust a few heads—one nearly literally, he’d bruised his knuckles—but he’d gotten control of all the Thousand Stars right around the time the White King’s fleet had arrived on the horizon.
Probably not coincidental that the last stubborn jackasses were convinced by that.
Then he got the missive.
“Downstairs. Now. Not a suggestion.—Promachos G.”
“Downstairs?” Kip asked the messenger. At least Andross hadn’t sent the message through that smug jackass, Grinwoody.
Ferkudi and Winsen accompanied him as he followed Andross Guile’s servant down the lifts, then through the small door that headed to the back docks. Hard-faced Blackguards stood at either side of the door, lips tight. They wouldn’t meet Kip’s eyes.
Oh no.
Kip’s neck went tight. He couldn’t draw a full breath.
His feet seemed to move independently of his will. He was being carried along by pure momentum and social expectation.
If he didn’t find out, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.
But he couldn’t stop himself. The world was closing in, vision narrowing even as the tunnel widened out.
More Blackguards. More stony faces. No, no, no.
He walked down the path toward the docks toward Andross, who stood impassive over . . . something.
A body, of course, Kip knew. Covered.
He saw Gill Greyling there, opposite Andross, on the other side of the body. Gill stood ramrod straight, face still, but his eyes streamed tears, and he swallowed as Kip came close. He backed away to make room for Kip.
The body had been covered by Blackguard cloaks. It was a sign of the tremendous respect they wouldn’t have given to one who wasn’t one of their own.
“Aside from laying their cloaks on him,” Andross said, “nothing’s been touched, in case you wanted to examine things for yourself. When you’re ready, I’ll tell you what we know.”
It had to be Andross here, didn’t it?
Kip squatted down beside the body and pulled back the cloak. He felt the same shock he’d felt before at seeing the dead, somehow never quite dulled, and this time sharper than ever: this face looked like a poor facsimile of Cruxer’s face. Cruxer was so much more handsome. Vibrant. Funny. Kind. His spirit had always suffused his flesh, made it continually more beautiful than . . . this cold visage.
And yet the cold visage was all that was left. He was lying on his side, and that side of his face had purpled from pooled blood.
“Sometime before midnight, I’d guess, from the bodies I’ve seen after battles,” a voice intruded. Winsen.
Kip nodded.
“I went after him,” Winsen said. “Like you told me to. Ran all over these damn islands. He didn’t take the news of Ironfist betraying the Chromeria well. He thought Ironfist was going to kill you.”