Unhurriedly, she drew a pistol from her belt and put it to the back of his head.

It was over that fast. Against Cruxer. Teia looked over at Kip. He had the same wide-eyed look she did.

Then Karris tucked her pistol away and got up. The class started breathing again. Karris made it seem so effortless. She hadn’t even gotten dirt on her knees.

“It’s one of those tricks that works well against those who’ve never seen it,” Karris said. “It’s instinctive. You go for the eyes, and your target will open his hands to fend off the strike. A quick fingerlock, and you can drop him. From there, you’ve got all the leverage you need. Less weight and less strength just means you need to be smarter.”

“Nicely done, Watch Captain. I haven’t seen that one in years. I’m afraid it would have worked even on me,” Trainer Fisk said.

“Mm, maybe,” Karris said. She smiled. “Although I’m not too eager to reenact our last fight.”

He shrugged. “Extenuating circumstances,” he said. “You were tired. Not many people trade five fight tokens.”

“Can I take one of your students for the afternoon?” Karris asked. “I’ve got some private training to brush up on.”

“But of course.”

Karris looked around the room. Then, finally, she pointed at Teia. “You, you’ll do.”

For some reason, Teia was sure that she hadn’t been picked randomly. But that night, Karris just trained. She said nothing except to give instructions about how to hold the kick bags or which exercises she wanted Teia to do with her.

“Excuse me, Watch Captain,” Teia said finally. “But why are you training with me? I can’t hold a candle to a lot of the fighters you work with every day.”

Karris said, “Sometimes it’s good to fight people who don’t know what they’re doing. It reminds you how most of your opponents in real life flail. It’s less predictable.”

Oh. Well then.

Neither of them said anything else.

Chapter 76

Gavin had almost forgotten the visceral effect his father had on people. Andross Guile had sequestered himself by degrees starting almost a decade ago. Most men would be diminished by their absence. Andross had grown in people’s minds, in their dread. He’d become the bloated spider at the center of the web. And now, returning, weak, near blind, somehow he was still a titan. He was old. Drafters never got old. Becoming old meant you’d done the impossible. The casual destructions of age—the sagging translucent skin, the liver spots, the frailty—these had become badges of honor, proof of godlike will, self-discipline, power.

With the assistance of his lapdog slave Grinwoody, Andross Guile sat. He ignored the greetings of the other Colors and lifted his chin as if staring in the direction of the White, who alone seemed unmoved.

Well, if Andross Guile’s presence swayed everyone else in the room against Gavin’s proposal, at least it swayed the White toward it. But though her instinct would be to oppose anything Andross wanted, she wouldn’t let that override her concern for what was right, what was best for the Seven Satrapies and the Chromeria. Even she couldn’t be counted on.

Trying not to let how utterly furious he was show on his face, Gavin looked at his father. The bastard sat there, basking in his own excellence. The rules didn’t apply to Andross Guile. He was above them. The world bent to his will. Ridiculous.

Gavin chuckled.

“Is something funny, Lord Prism?” Tisis Malargos asked.

“Just had a small personal revelation.” He smiled indulgently, and didn’t tell her more, just to infuriate her. You’re playing with the big guns now, Tisis, are you sure you’re ready?

“And that is?” she asked, insincerity oozing down her chin.

“Why you don’t like me. Which isn’t the reason you shouldn’t like me.”

“Perhaps we should get started,” the White said quickly. Ever the peacekeeper, if not always a peacemaker. “Andross, it is so good to see you. It’s been too long. Would you like to lead the invocation?”

“No,” the old man said. He didn’t elaborate, excuse, or apologize.

The White tented her fingers. Waited a long moment.

Klytos Blue couldn’t handle the tension. “I—I would be happy to—”

“Are you feeling unwell, Andross? Too feeble for a prayer?” the White asked.

Gavin saw where that was going. Implied weakness, implied unfitness to remain on the Spectrum. It was unusually blunt for the White, who preferred a gentler hand. But she also didn’t suffer rudeness.

Andross cocked his head, as if admitting a point scored by his opponent. “Of course not,” he rasped. “My voice is no longer a thing of beauty. The ravages of many years in Orholam’s service. I thought perhaps the mellifluous tones of Tisis Green’s voice might be more uplifting for us all.”

“Orholam judges the hearts of men, not their voices,” the White said. “He hears any prayer lifted to him in humility.”

So my father might as well save his breath.

Gavin let his bemusement show on his face. His father, his eyes shuttered even beneath his blacked-out spectacles, was literally playing blind. Taking on the whole Spectrum, without being able to see anyone’s facial expressions? Balls.

Perhaps it was handicap enough to help Gavin.

But his father’s words actually cast doubt into Gavin’s mind. Why would Andross point to the new Green? Of course she was young and beautiful, and she did have a pretty voice, all things that Andross did appreciate, Gavin knew. But by singling her out, Andross suggested that Tisis was his.

Gavin had assumed she was. But why would Andross need to point it out to everyone, unless perhaps she wasn’t? Or wasn’t fully.

The tightness around Tisis’s eyes, above her phony smile, told Gavin his father was pushing it. Greens hated to be bound, hated to be controlled. Careful, father. I might just pull that jewel away from you. Despite everything.

Relaxing his eyes into sub-red, Gavin looked at each member of the Spectrum in turn, doing his best to be subtle about it. In sub-red, the nuances of a person’s facial expressions couldn’t be seen: that spectrum of light was too fuzzy for fine details. What he could see was the temperature of each person’s skin. It varied from woman to woman, of course, depending on their natural temperature and how close their blood vessels were to the surface of the skin, but if you could establish and remember a baseline for each person—and Gavin had very carefully done that over the years for everyone here except Tisis—you could tell when someone was feeling unusual stress. As their heart pounded faster, even if they were able to control more overt signs like swallowing, fidgeting, or clenching their jaws, they would glow hotter in sub-red.

Of course, a person could be nervous for dozens of reasons, and their temperature could be affected by any number of factors from drinking a glass of wine to wearing heavy clothes, but every once in a while it would give him a clue that nothing else would. With this group, he needed every advantage.

Andross Guile prayed. “Father of Lights, we humbly beseech you attend our supplication.” Andross despised prayer, Gavin knew. He could do what he had to do, of course. He knew all the rituals backward and forward, and in front of the common folk was capable of all apparent sincerity. Here, among those he could almost consider peers, he had more trouble hiding his contempt. To him, the entire religion was a con, but a con on which all their power rested. Thus the faux-archaisms, delivered deadpan enough that one couldn’t quite be sure if he was devout and old, or mocking them all: “Prostrate before you, we fall, O Lord. May our pretensions wither in the heat of your glory, may our presumptions fade in the light of your truth. May you bestow upon us clarity in counsel, obscurity in obfuscation, ocular acuity in action. Thus, in our wretchedness do we implore. May our young defer to old and our old defer to the grave. May our labors flower in your sight, with peace and truth and long-suffering.”