The lump in his throat grew huge, his eyes filled with tears. Gavin turned to go. “Wait! Father, wait!”

Kip froze, as did Gavin, outlined in the door. The last time Kip had used the word he was being a snot, and things hadn’t gone well.

And then it got worse, as Kip suddenly realized Gavin had meant “son” like “young man.” Kip wished he could go jump back into the water for the sharks. “I’m so sorry,” he said, “I didn’t—”

“No!” Gavin cut him off with a hand. “Whatever else you did, you proved yourself a Guile today, Kip.”

Kip licked his lips. “Did Karris… I saw her hit you. Was that because of me?”

Gavin laughed gently. “Kip, a woman is the mystery you’ll never stop investigating.”

Kip paused. “Is that a yes?”

“Karris hit me because I needed hitting.”

That didn’t really help.

“Get some sleep… son,” Gavin said. He paused, as if he was tasting the word. “We’re done with that ‘nephew’ nonsense. The world will know you’re my son. And to hell with the consequences.” A little reckless grin. And then he was gone.

Kip didn’t sleep. He propped his back against one blue wall and pulled out the dagger. The blade was a dazzling strange white metal with a spiraling core of black threaded from point to hilt. There was little ornamentation except for seven clear, perfect diamonds on the hilt. Well, six diamonds and maybe a sapphire. Kip didn’t really know his jewels, but six stones were clear as glass but brilliantly refractive. The seventh matched the others in size and clarity, but it glowed a brilliant, magical blue. Kip sheathed the dagger.

How did my mother get such a thing? How did she not pawn it for haze?

Kip opened the rosewood box to put the dagger away, and with his bandaged left hand he fumbled it, dropping it upside down in his lap. He turned it over and saw that the silk lining was loose, not attached to the box itself but to a frame that filled the box. He pulled on the frame, lifting it out. Underneath was a thin compartment that held extra laces that matched the color of the sheath to tie it to different sizes of belt. It wasn’t a secret compartment, but obviously Zymun hadn’t noticed it, nor had King Garadul, because there was a note there.

With trepidation, glancing at the door to make sure no one was passing, Kip read the note, written in his mother’s hard, deliberate strokes: “Kip, go to the Chromeria and kill the man who raped me and took away everything I had. Don’t listen to his lies. Swear you won’t fail me. If you ever loved me, if you’ve ever wanted to do anything good in this world, use this dagger to kill your father. Kill Gavin Guile.”

Kip felt locked up, paralyzed. Someone was lying to him, betraying him. Kip felt those deep, sucking pools of rage stirring. It had to be his mother. Addict. Whore. Liar. Kip’s mother would lie for haze: she would abandon Kip in a closet. Gavin had been hard on him, but he’d never lied to him. He never would. Never. He was Kip’s family. The first Kip had ever had.

But his mother had kept the dagger, and even the box. She could have sold either for a mountain of haze. She would have thought of them every time the madness of craving had been on her. If this was more important to her than haze, why would she lie?

Kip shivered, feeling like he was being ripped out of his moorings. He didn’t know the truth. But he would. He swore it.

He folded the note and saw a quick scribble on the back he’d missed before, written looser and faster than the rest, but undeniably in his mother’s hand: “I love you, Kip. I always have.” She’d never said those words. Not once. Not in his whole life.

He threw the note away like it was a serpent. Pushed his face into the blankets so no one could hear. And bawled.

Chapter 94

Dazen was crawling through darkness. This was death, but life lay beyond, somewhere. The floor was sharp, cutting his hands and knees cruelly. He’d sucked up as much red luxin as he could before he’d left the blue cell, and if he hadn’t been fevered, he would have kept a flame alive, but his thoughts were still sluggish, stupid. All he could do was hold on to his anger, and the red had helped him do that at first.

I will have my vengeance, he thought, but it was passionless. There was only the pain in his hands and knees and the crawling. He refused to stop. This tunnel had curved and curved again, but it couldn’t go on forever. Soon, he would sleep, and either die or wake stronger. Strong enough to gather his strength and bring down Gavin. He laughed weakly and kept crawling.

Damn this sharp rock. What had his brother done? Carved his prison out of pure hellstone?

Son of a bitch, that was exactly what Gavin had done. Spent a fortune simply to cut Dazen up. The hateful bastard. But Dazen wasn’t so easy to stop. He kept crawling. Freedom would not be denied him so easily.

Still, obsidian was so rare that lining an entire tunnel with the stuff would have cost more than the Guile family made in a year. Why would Gavin have done such a thing? The magic properties of the stuff meant that with pure darkness and a direct connection—such as through blood or an open cut—it could drain the luxin out of a drafter. No wonder the red luxin wasn’t helping Dazen feel hatred anymore. It had all been drained away.

Something niggled at Dazen’s mind. The bends in the tunnel, maybe that was it. The tunnels had bent so that no blue light would spill from the blue cell into the tunnel. Thus the tunnel would be totally dark. So the obsidian would work.

Damn Gavin to the evernight. He’s not stopping me. I don’t care if I’m a bloody wreck. I’m getting out of here.

Part of Dazen was telling him to stop, to think. That blue, rational part of him. But he couldn’t stop. If he didn’t keep moving, he’d never get anywhere. He was so sick, so fevered that if he stopped he might never move again. Gavin wanted to paralyze him.

No. No no no. Dazen pushed on. The floor here felt different. Not obsidian. He’d gotten past it. He crawled farther. He could swear there was a glow ahead of him. Dear Orholam, there was—

The floor dropped out from under him, swinging open on hidden hinges. Dazen tumbled down, rolling over and over, unable to stop himself, down a chute that snapped shut behind him. He rolled over, bathed in green light.

Green?

An entire, round chamber, with green walls like trees. A hole up top for water and food and air, and a hole in the bottom for waste. Dazen looked desperately at his skin for the red luxin. It was gone. All gone, all sucked up by the obsidian tunnel.

Dazen started laughing stupidly, desperately, madly. A green prison, after the blue prison. He laughed until he was sobbing. There wasn’t one prison. There weren’t two. He knew it now. He had no doubt. There were seven prisons. One for every color, and in sixteen years, he had only escaped the first.

He laughed and sobbed. In one luminous green wall, the dead man laughed with him. At him.

Chapter 95

“Not bad for a defeat,” said Corvan Danavis, coming into Gavin’s cabin.

Gavin sat up, blinking the sleep from his eyes. His “quick nap” after talking to Kip had left him wooly. But he’d drafted so much over the past week, it was no wonder he felt off. He said, “We lost a city, three-quarters of the Blackguard, and hundreds if not thousands of soldiers. My natural son—whom I just acknowledged—publicly murdered a rightful satrap, which will make the other satraps worry I’m trying to rule the world again. We have thousands of refugees that we have to put Orholam knows where; there’s some pagan army in charge of Garriston; and I’ve built them a damn near unassailable wall, which will now protect my enemies. Oh, and your daughter has joined our foes. If that’s not bad for a defeat, I’m not really sure what is.”