“Aras!” Teia said.

Ben-hadad said, “Teia, you said you didn’t want to hurt people for a living.” He seemed to take Teia’s secrecy about trying out as a personal betrayal.

“I don’t!” Teia said, defensive.

“Then, what? When I argue for you joining the Blackguard, what they do is garbage and idiocy, but Kip comes along and—”

“That has nothing to do with anything! Not all of us are bichromes, Ben. You might even be a poly. You can go wherever you want, do whatever you want. You’re going to be powerful enough that no one will care who your parents are. I don’t even have a real color.”

“Your color is just as real as anyone’s. People just don’t recognize it yet, Teia, we’ve talked—”

Teia shot back, “If no one recognizes it, no one’s going to recruit me for it either. Maybe in five years more people will think like you do, but for now I’ve got no other options. It’s all I’m good for. Don’t you understand? I tried to find another sponsor. I failed, and my mistress ordered me to try out for the Blackguard.”

“I didn’t know your mistress ordered it. I’m sorry,” Ben-hadad said.

She’ll make it in, Kip thought, but he said nothing. He was the one who’d unwittingly revealed the secret. He was just hoping that by being quiet he might avoid further wrath.

“And you, partner, thanks a lot,” Teia said.

Chapter 20

Kip finished his breakfast, still feeling hungry. Teia got up and went over to the lists on the wall. She left her bowl and spoon and glass on the table, as it seemed that most everyone did.

Ben-hadad and Tiziri got up and left, too, heading in different directions. Only Kip and Aras were still sitting at the table. The gangly boy was a slow eater. The apple of his throat was distractingly large, making him look like a large, kind vulture.

“Are we supposed to do anything with our bowls?” Kip asked.

“Huh?” Aras had been looking over at some girls. Pretty, in the same plain uniforms as everyone else, but with jewelry at their wrists and throats. Rich girls. Out of reach, but not out of the reach of dreams, from Aras’s distant look. “Bowls? What?”

“Are we supposed to put away our bowls?” Kip asked. Back home, no one would tolerate a fifteen-year-old shirking washing up.

“Slaves do it. You should go. First shift starts soon.” Aras went back to staring at the girls.

Leaving the table felt like abandoning safety to go back and play in the fields of the wolves. But there was no putting it off. Kip stood and headed toward the wall of lists. He passed by some older discipulae just coming to eat. A boy and a girl walked by, their arms down at their sides, eyes intent with concentration, their food held on blue trays that they each were drafting. Each raised their hands slowly as they walked, trying to adjust the open luxin without spilling their food and drink. Then they sealed their trays, almost simultaneously.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” the boy was repeating. He’d sealed the luxin badly, and even as he reached the table, his tray disintegrated, dropping his bowl and glass, both of which shattered.

“One for the girls!” his opponent said, setting down her perfect tray easily.

The boy swore under his breath as some other boys, clearly his friends, groaned. A magister piped up, “You’re cleaning that yourself, Gerrad. No slaves.”

Teia intercepted Kip before he got to the lists. “We’ve got mirror duty, blue tower.”

“What?” Kip asked.

“You weren’t here for bearings week when they show us how things work. You don’t know anything,” Teia said. “So I switched chores with someone. I’ll be on your crew all week.”

“Really?” Kip said. It was a ray of normal piercing his black clouds of utter cluelessness.

He was about to thank her when she said, “No. Don’t.”

“I was going to—”

“I’m not doing it for you. Partners often have to share each other’s punishments. The punishments usually mean you miss class. So if you botch things, it hurts my chances to make it into the Blackguard.”

Great, something else to feel guilty about.

Teia walked him to one of the lifts, where they joined about fifty other students waiting. Teia’s hair wasn’t tied back today and now Kip felt foolish for mistaking her for a boy in the first place. Moron.

He wondered what Liv was doing now. He wondered if she was even still alive. Stupid worry. She was probably murdering people by now. Kip had stood there, on the eve of the Battle of Garriston. He’d heard all of the Color Prince’s lies and known them for what they were: smears and half-truths. High-minded talk used to cloak cowardice.

Magic was hard. It made you a master of the world for a decade or two, and then it mastered you. Drafters went crazy. When vastly powerful people go crazy, they endanger everyone. Killing them wasn’t nice, but it was necessary.

The Color Prince said, “We won’t murder our parents who have served for years!” He meant, “I don’t want to die when it’s my turn. I want all the privileges we’re afforded because of our gifts, but I don’t want to pay the price.” Kip could see that, and Kip was a moron. Why hadn’t Liv?

After a few minutes, Kip and Teia were able to get on the lift with twenty other students.

“We’re lucky,” Teia said. “The mirrors are boring, but when you have to spend all morning on the counterweights and then you go to Blackguard tryouts and you can barely lift your arms? That’s awful.”

“Thanks, tell me about it,” another student said. Kip thought he recognized the boy from the Blackguard class. His name was Ferkudi, maybe? “I’ve got the counterweights all week!”

“We’ll trade you,” Teia said.

“You will?!”

“No,” Teia said. The students laughed.

The lift stopped about halfway up the tower, and almost all the students spilled out to cross the walkways. Kip and Teia went with them. The six outer towers of the Chromeria were connected to the central tower by a series of spindly walkways hanging high up in the air. Kip had crossed one of these bridges before. He knew that they were safe.

After all, the Chromeria wouldn’t put drafters at risk, right?

Kip swallowed and followed. The blue tower was finished with blue luxin cut into facets so that the whole surface gleamed in the sun like a million sapphires. It would have been breathtaking, if Kip had any breath.

“Don’t like heights, huh?” Teia asked after they got across.

“Not my favorite,” Kip admitted.

“This might not be that much fun, then.”

Kip forced a weak smile.

“You have a bad experience or something?” Teia asked. “With heights?”

“Fat assassin lady tried to throw me off the yellow tower,” Kip said.

She looked at him, dubious. “Look, if you don’t like heights, that’s fine. You don’t have to make fun. I was just making conversation.”

Kip opened his mouth. No, he wasn’t going to win this one.

Had they ever figured out who wanted him dead?

If so, no one had ever told him. Which reminded him of his Blackguard escort—there still wasn’t one. It gave Kip the feeling—again—of being tangentially involved in Big Things. Someone tried to kill him; no one explained why. He got a Blackguard escort; the Blackguard escort got taken away, and no one figured to clue Kip in.