With an inhuman cry, Kip took the rope, with all his loathing and fury and despair rising in him, totally overwhelming him, failure calling his name—and threw it out of the hole. He sank against the wall, burying his face in the rock, crying.

Colors flashed past once more, but the snakes and spiders didn’t go. They covered his body.

Still the oppressive darkness continued. Something heavy and hairy landed on his back. Little claws stabbed him through his shirt. A rat. Then one on his thigh. Another landed on his head, scratching him as it slid off his wet hair.

Kip froze. Fear like lightning flashed through his entire body. He was in a cupboard, helpless, starving, parched. He shivered uncontrollably.

His motion disrupted the nasties and something bit him. He yelped, humiliated, furious. He twisted. More prickly bites, stinging bites, savage bites covered his arm, his legs, his groin, his back. Kip thrashed, throwing himself against one wall and then the other, trying to crush the beasts. Rats were climbing up his body on every side, and they refused to let go. He was weeping. He was so ashamed. There was something about the spider. The spider he’d bitten.

It was too much. He couldn’t take it anymore. He was finished. Kip couldn’t stop himself. He reached for the rope. He was a failure, a shame, a fat, blubbering coward. A nothing.

He felt the rope pressed back into his hand. “Here you go, Tubby,” a satisfied voice whispered. The taste, Kip. The taste was wrong, a kind voice said.

What the woman had said didn’t quite register. They were all over him.

Kip pulled the rope. Failure.

A distant clang, high overhead. At once, the stinging ceased. Every slithering, crawling, clinging, stinging thing evaporated, disappeared. They weren’t real. They hadn’t been real rats. Kip should have known from the spider he’d bitten. Would have known, if he hadn’t been such a coward. That goo inside hadn’t been guts, it had been luxin. It was all illusions, fake fears. He’d been tricked.

He’d failed. As the platform rose, Kip’s brain—no longer fogged with terror—realized what the woman had called him: “Tubby.” It was what Ram used to call him. Kip died a little. He’d proved Ram right. Again.

As he emerged, though, the men and women were now dressed in festive robes of their own colors, dazzling sapphire blues, emerald greens, diamond yellows, ruby reds. They appeared jubilant.

“Congratulations, supplicant!” Mistress Varidos said, coming to join the circle.

Kip stared at her, dumbfounded.

“Four minutes and twelve seconds. You should be very proud. I’m sure your father will be.”

She was speaking some language Kip didn’t understand. Proud? He’d failed. He’d shamed himself, shamed his father. He’d given up. The rage and frustration that had been building up suddenly had nowhere to go, leaving him feeling stupid.

“I failed,” Kip said.

“Everybody fails!” the incredibly muscular superviolet said. “You did great! Four minutes twelve! I only lasted a minute six.”

“I don’t understand,” Kip said.

The nymphish yellow laughed. “That’s how the test is designed. We all failed.”

They surrounded him, men pounding him on the back, women touching his arms or shoulder, all congratulating him. It was a bit intoxicating to be so wholeheartedly welcomed by people who were so beautiful. Now that his brain was working again, he noticed that they hadn’t necessarily chosen men to represent the old gods and women for the goddesses. Was that because they’d come so far that it simply didn’t matter anymore, or was it deliberate disrespect?

“Is it true?” Kip asked Mistress Varidos, who had stood back some lest the jostling crowd knock her over. “Everyone fails?”

She smiled. “Almost everyone. It’s not to see if you can make it through the test, it’s to see what kind of a person you are. And fear widens your eyes. Those colors you saw flashing past were the real test. Those will tell us what you can draft. Are you ready to see your results?”

“Wait. ‘Almost everyone’? Who doesn’t fail?” Kip asked.

The jubilant men and women quieted.

The old woman said, “The only person in my lifetime who didn’t take the rope was…”

Gavin. Kip knew it. Of course. His father had been the one man who did what no one else could do, what no one else had ever done. Kip had failed him.

“Your uncle,” the mistress said.

My “uncle” Gavin, or my uncle Dazen?

Apparently registering his confusion, she said, “Your uncle Dazen Guile, who nearly destroyed our world. Good footsteps not to follow, hm?”

She was speaking that other language again. After all Kip had seen Gavin do, it was Gavin’s brother who’d passed?

“Four minutes is wonderful, Kip, but that’s just bragging rights. Are you ready to see your colors?”

Chapter 44

Liv dropped into a curtsey, glad for the excuse to break eye contact with the Prism. When she straightened, Gavin Guile was looking at her critically. Obviously she’d been right, not many women answered his summonses in their work clothes and no cosmetics.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a proper Tyrean curtsey,” the Prism said.

After your armies left, there weren’t many women left to curtsey. “How may I serve you, High Luxlord Prism?” Liv asked instead.

“Lord Prism is sufficient,” Gavin said.

“Thank you, Lord Prism.”

He was obviously weighing her, thinking. But thinking what? Whatever else that wretched woman Aglaia Crassos had done, she’d made Liv think of the Prism as Gavin Guile—a man, and a good-looking one at that. His eyes were—quite literally—the most entrancing eyes in the entire world.

Magister, Liv. Tutor. Lord. Luxlord. Noble. General. Twice as old as you. Way too old for you. Not a broad-shouldered, muscular man—just another magister. You can go to hell, Aglaia Crassos.

“Have you chosen who you want to be your magister in yellow?” he asked.

Thank you!

See, I’m a disciple. Purely academic. A child in comparison to him. Hopelessly young and ignorant. She pursed her lips. “Honestly, I’d like to study under Mistress Tawenza Goldeneyes.” She could barely believe she’d dared say it out loud. The woman only took three disciples a year—and she already had three. The three best yellow disciples in the Chromeria.

Gavin laughed. “That prickly she-bear? A bold choice. She’s the best, and she probably won’t hate you as much as you think she does for the first year. I’d have you send my compliments to her when I assign her a fourth student, but she’d doubtless take it out on you. Consider it done. How are your apartments?”

She paused. It was almost a personal question. No, he’s simply worried—no, not worried, he’s checking that his orders have been carried out. Generals do that sort of thing. “They’re better than anything I thought I’d ever have, Lord Prism. And the clothes? I used to have three dresses. Now I’ve got more than fifty and my worst is nicer than my old Sun Day best.” Wait, maybe clothes weren’t the best topic.

“And yet you decided to come in this,” Gavin said, noticing. Oops. His voice didn’t intone disapproval. If anything, there was a thin thread of amusement. But his face didn’t give her any expression to know if he was irritated. She should have listened to that slave, Marissia. It wouldn’t have killed her to freshen up a little. He glanced past her, and she followed his gaze, but the room was empty except for the two of them, and there were no unusual decorations on the walls, just the normal testing crystal.