On the next block, they caught sight of a group of maybe a dozen men, trying to cut them off, and then stopping and cursing as the squad crossed into the Ilytian neighborhood.

Incredibly, they crossed through the Ilytian area with no trouble. Kip could only guess that the gangs here hadn’t heard about them yet.

They didn’t cross through the market, though. Kip hadn’t realized how formidable his own group looked: the guards whom he’d thought would be unhappy to see an armed gang were definitely unhappy to see Kip and his friends. So Cruxer turned them south again.

“Men following,” Lucia said. “Five or six of ’em. Seventy paces back.”

Kip looked, and immediately felt dumb for doing it. Now they knew he knew. Stupid!

“Kip? You know this neighborhood?” Cruxer asked.

“Sorry.”

“Anyone?” Cruxer asked. “If so, talk quick. I’m not feeling so great about this.”

“I’ve been here,” Aram said. “I think I can—Follow me.”

He led them for several blessedly uneventful blocks, and Kip started to think they might make it back without any more fights.

Then they rounded a corner. What had looked like it would lead to an open, wide street was gated and chained. There was only the narrow street they’d entered from, and one alley out of the wide space between houses. In the alley, there had to be twenty men. Aram swore.

“Anyone feel like dropping three spots?” Kip asked.

No one answered. That was a no. Not this close to the final test. They’d take a beating if they had to, but none of them was going to just give up.

Kip stepped forward. He braced his feet.

“Semicircle,” Cruxer said. “I got point. Kip, you stand on that rock, you should be able to keep drafting while we fight. The rest of us, don’t let anyone into the middle of our semicircle.”

They formed up as Kip gathered his will. The men in the alley were jogging forward now, constrained in the tight space. Kip didn’t know what he was going to do until he was already drafting the big green ball into his fist. It was stupid. If he’d had the practicum, there would be a hundred different things he could do that would work better—but he hadn’t. He knew how to do this. Fine. He was the ignorant boy from Tyrea who didn’t know any better. He’d show them.

The ball swelled bigger than his head and Kip threw his hands forward with a yell.

The green luxin ball shot out at chest level at great speed. For once, Kip didn’t fall on his butt from the recoil. In the confines of the alley, the men didn’t have anywhere to dodge. The ball glanced off a man in the front row and then ricocheted back and forth. Five or ten went down as the rest surged into the open space.

Kip extended his other hand, gathering the blue into a spear point, ready to shoot it through the men.

You can’t kill them! The blue rationality cut through the wildness, and Kip hesitated. He almost lost his concentration and the blue completely, but recovered. Pop, pop, pop! He shot little blue balls at the charging men, low, at their legs. One man tried to jump the projectile, got tripped in midair and landed on his face. Others took them in the knees, and the balls shattered, shooting glassine shrapnel through their clothing.

It was too much for simple street thugs. Even as they got into the range where Kip’s drafting would be useless and their own numbers would give them the victory, the charge faltered. The thugs fled, not even pausing to help their injured.

Kip hurriedly put on his green spectacles—stupid! He’d forgotten to put them on before the fight!—and drew in more green. He drafted another green ball into his hands and just held it there, trying to look threatening.

The injured pulled themselves to their feet and followed after their comrades, but down the alley in the dark half-light between buildings, Kip saw one thin figure standing alone, lifting something, peering around the wounded men staggering through the alley.

“Kip,” Lucia said, clapping him on the shoulder. She was grinning, impish, delighted. “You were amazing! That was the best—”

From the alley, the briefest flash, a puff of white smoke lit from behind as Lucia stepped into Kip’s line of sight.

Something warm splashed over Kip’s face, blotted out his vision. He lost the green. Lucia fell into him heavily, but even as she hit him—in that fraction of a second—he knew something was terribly wrong.

They fell together. Kip caught her and she lay in his arms, half of her neck torn out by the musket ball, her body not yet aware death was a foregone conclusion, pumping blood, blood, blood.

They didn’t move. Someone shrieked. For once, even Cruxer didn’t know what to do. Desperately, he pulled Lucia out of Kip’s arms and held her himself.

Within two minutes, the Blackguards arrived. Then it was orders, investigation, questions that Kip answered numbly. Blackguards armed with the thinnest description ran to see if they could apprehend the murderer. Kip stood, dazed. Someone had given him a towel and rubbed much of the blood off his face. He was still holding that bloody towel, limply, standing, not knowing what to do with himself.

He looked at Cruxer, still cradling Lucia’s body, weeping, and he knew that the boy had been in love with her.

Orholam have mercy.

Kip couldn’t stop thinking the stupidest thing: I didn’t even hear the shot. I didn’t even hear it.

Chapter 89

Karris thought she knew exactly where Gavin would be. If he wasn’t in his room, that meant he’d drafted a bonnet and jumped off the Prism’s Tower. He loved doing that. Show-off. And because no one had known he was fleeing, no one would have reported him leaving. They wouldn’t have known it was important.

She checked the library first, though, just in case she was wrong. She walked past the practicum rooms, where she heard boys’ voices, cursing as their drafting failed. She checked his personal training room below the tower. Then she headed up to the ground floor. She crossed the Lily’s Stem, going against the flow of people who came in every morning with the dawn to work in the seven towers of the Chromeria, and cut down-island. She knew the other Blackguards had already fanned out across both islands, looking for him. With war declared, none of them were happy to have their Prism off by himself with no guards. The big idiot.

Still, Karris felt curiously alive. She felt as if, for the first time in years, she had a future. Life felt possible now. Promising.

She made her way toward the east bay. The fishing boats were already out, though it was barely light. Men and women were pressing seaweed flat to dry in the sun. The tide was just coming in, and she saw several drunken sailors staggering back toward their ships, doubtless overindulging to fortify themselves for the weeks or months of privation they’d face on the sea.

A gang of galley slaves, chained at their wrists to a long pole, were walking together toward the same ships. They looked gaunt and dirty, with long stringy muscles and no fat. One coughed a deep, unhealthy rattle as they passed.

A scent in the air arrested Karris, and she couldn’t help but stop at a little storefront she hadn’t been to in years. They kept slowly simmering pots of kopi, and at this time of morning it was fresh and beautiful. Especially when you’d been up most of the night.

“Ah, my favorite Blackguard!” Jalal said. He was a round little butterball of Parian. Karris thought he’d had more teeth the last time she’d been here. “Watch Captain…” He snapped his fingers.