Grimly, he drafted pontoons onto his skimmer and drafted yellow swords onto those, pointing downward into the water.

He skimmed in murderous circles at high speed, running over the swimming once-men, the sound of their glassine flesh being torn muted by the waters and his speed. Each death was announced by little more than a sound like a wagon wheel sliding off a particularly large cobblestone, sometimes accompanied by a rush of bubbles coming to the water’s surface, always by a blossoming of blood.

The Prism was a peerless warrior, and slaughter, too, is the necessary work of war. He was a tireless worker, circling, circling, like a buzzard. He circled until there was no more shrieking, until there was no more hatred, until crimson blood no longer sluiced from the pure yellow decks of his skimmer, until the full harvest of death was brought to hell’s gates.

Chapter 56

Aglaia Crassos found the visitor waiting in her parlor. He was fair, freckled, and bore a fringe of orangey-red hair combed over a knobby bald pate. He held a landed gentleman’s petasos in his hand, and wore a fitted coat in the new Ruthgari fashion. He looked like a solicitor or a banker, but broad across the shoulders. But then, who knew about these monkeys from Blood Forest?

“Welcome to my home, Master Sharp,” Aglaia said. “My man said you had some sort of proposal for me?”

“Indeed.” He helped himself to a seat and crossed his legs.

“I wouldn’t usually do business with a total stranger, but your references were sterling.”

“Mm. I went to a great deal of effort to extract those references.”

What an odd man. “Well then…” she said.

“Well then,” he said. He stared at her with unsettling eyes. She hadn’t noticed until now, but he had amber eyes. Not eyes dyed from a life as a drafter, simply the vanishingly rare true amber. “What is the worst deal you have ever accepted?” he asked. He was playing with a strand of pearls he wore under his shirt. Pearls, on a man? Was this a new fashion she hadn’t seen, or a quirk?

“Pardon me?” she asked.

“Worst deal.”

“How rude.”

“You have something Lord Andross Guile demands,” Master Sharp said.

“Pardon me?”

“The slave girl, Teia.”

“Who? What? I have no such—”

“Did you think you could keep your ownership secret? My dear, you are so far out of your depth, the shore isn’t in sight. You’re going to sign over her title, and the more quickly you do it, the less bad it will be for you.”

“You need to leave. Immediately,” Aglaia said. She wanted to spit in this monkey’s blithely smiling face. Andross Guile? She’d die first.

“The Red did tell me it might be like pulling teeth. How long should I give you to reconsider?”

Aglaia turned her back and strode toward the mantel where her slaves’ bell sat. She wasn’t even aware of Master Sharp moving, but suddenly he was holding her from behind, one arm around her ribs as if embracing her, but the hand a steel claw around her throat. His other hand stabbed behind her ear into a spot that eviscerated her with pain.

“I want you to know. I intend to enjoy this,” he whispered in her ear. His breath was sweet, minty. “You have very. Nice. Teeth.”

Then he released her. He was out the door before she even rang the slaves’ bell.

“Go after him,” she told the muscular young slave, Incaros, her new favorite. “Take Big Ros and Aklos. Beat that son of a bitch. Badly. Break bones. Go. Now!”

She ordered her chamberlain to call up more guards and then went up to her chambers. She tried to comfort herself with the thought that even now Incaros, Ros, and Aklos were beating the hell out of that bastard, but he’d shaken her. She was trembling, and furious that she’d been so frightened. She closed her door and rubbed a kerchief across her brow.

A fist smashed into her forehead and her head slapped into the wooden door she’d just closed, stunning her. She fell, and hands guided her down. The man straddled her, and when she tried to scream, he stuffed something thick and sharp and metallic into her mouth. He strapped it onto her face quickly, expertly.

The gag held her tongue down and blocked air from her mouth, so she started screaming through her nose, and he simply pinched her nose, holding her down with one hand by her throat.

His amber eyes smiled.

She stopped screaming and he lifted her to her feet, mostly by her throat, and moved her to a chair.

How had he gotten here? Climbed up the outside of the house and broken in through a window as soon as she’d thrown him out? That fast? And no one had seen it?

Furious, she thrashed. He punched her so hard in the stomach that her breath whooshed out of her and she unwittingly bit down on the gag. It was like a horse’s bit, but sharp, and it dug into her teeth and tongue cruelly. She had to keep her mouth open as widely as possible.

In moments, she was strapped to her own chair with broad leather straps.

Master Sharp stepped back, pushing his floppy fringe of red hair back over his head from where their wrestling had thrown it askew. His pearl necklace had come out of his shirt—and those weren’t pearls.

“You can scream,” he said quietly. “Anytime you want. But if you do, I’m going to punch you in the jaw. The gag you’re wearing has tiny chisels above each tooth. If I’ve measured your jaw properly, it should break each tooth, top and bottom, neatly into four pieces. It’s a bit of a rush job, so it may not be perfect. Sadly. And I’m afraid I won’t be able to do the extractions myself, so you’ll have that to look forward to with some other, less skilled hand on the pliers. But.” He shrugged, as if it couldn’t be helped. He said, “Bottom line of the ledger. If you make my life difficult, I will break your teeth. In order. Molars first. I’ve never had anyone make it to the incisors.” He breathed minty breath in her face. “But who knows? Maybe you’ll be the first.”

Chapter 57

Two days after their real-world testing, the scrubs had an elimination fight. Kip could only hope that some of the boys he would have to fight today might still have bruises enough to inhibit them from mopping the floor with his face.

But hope wasn’t enough. He lost twice, quickly. He walked out onto the testing field again, flexing the fingers of his left hand lightly. It still hurt like small animals were gnawing at every joint and sprinkling salt on the flesh in between courses, but it hurt less than the beating that was to come. He stared at the youth across from him. Come on, turtle-bear, come on.

The wheels had come up Red, and Unarmed. Red was lucky, very lucky. Kip had just been practicing it last night with Teia. He could finally, finally make a stable red—though that was all he could do. He’d only figured out two ways to use the sticky stuff. One was flammable goo, and setting opponents on fire was decidedly frowned on. The downside was that the boy across from him, Ferkudi, was a blue/green bichrome, currently two places above Kip. There were about fifty people gathered around the circle, watching closely. Between injuries and nervous sponsors, there were now only twenty-eight scrubs left.

Ferkudi was short and thick through the chest, but strong as a bull, and deceptively quick. Kip had watched him fight, and the boy was better at grappling than almost anyone else. The fights that Ferkudi had lost, he’d lost because his reach was short. On a good day, and with the colors he had, he’d be in the top three or four fighters. It was just bad luck that he was fighting for position fifteen right now.