“Antonius is amazing. I got to spend a couple of weeks with him every time we’d swap off at the Chromeria.”

Kip had known the Malargos family had been required to send hostages to the Jaspers to enforce the end of the Blood Wars, and that Tisis had been one such hostage, but he hadn’t thought through the mechanics of alternating the hostages.

“Everyone loves him, but he’s… he’s a total idealist. Thinks the best of people, but follows authority dogmatically because he trusts that those in command are acting as he would act if he were in their place. I never wanted to tear down my sister by telling him not to trust her that way. I hoped that he would grow out of it on his own. More gently.”

So we’re fucked.

Kip considered it a moral victory that he didn’t say that aloud. That was good, because a moral victory was the only kind of victory he was going to get today. He said, “Allies don’t surround you to cut off every escape.”

“You convinced age-old enemies to join together yesterday,” Tisis said. “This shouldn’t be as hard as all that. Right?”

Her tone was light, but he could tell she was scared, too. If it came to it, would Kip’s outcasts attack Eirene Malargos’s people?

Would he?

If he did, even a win would embark Kip on a terrible course. The marriage with Tisis was supposed to make peace. That had been Andross Guile’s whole reason for arranging for Tisis to think the marriage was her own idea.

Apparently Eirene had figured out that Kip had more to lose from a clash of arms than she did. Or she simply didn’t believe that he would bring it to that—which might be true. Or perhaps she thought Tisis had been kidnapped and forced into this marriage.

A rowboat emerged from the mists. A standard-bearer held a green flag with the Malargos Bull mounted on Antonius’s personal sigil, a shield. So the young man saw himself as a shield for his aunt, Eirene Malargos, and his cousin, Tisis. A saver of damsels in distress. Wonderful.

Antonius Malargos didn’t look as if he’d come with wedding gifts. He did look young, with a lean build. He held a spear, and a pair of red spectacles sat high on his head. He was light-skinned and boyishly handsome, with blond ringlets.

His men rowed toward where Kip and his leaders stood apart. Cruxer stood behind Kip and to his left, bearing a flag of the Mighty—was that Kip’s personal seal now? It would have to do until they could come up with a flag for the Nightbringers. Tisis was at his right, and at his left stood Conn Arthur and Derwyn Aleph.

On seeing Tisis, Antonius’s face lit up. Gap toothed and wide mouthed, he had an infectious smile, and mere streaks of red through his irises.

“Sissy!” he said. Ignoring a sharp word from one of his men, he used the spear he held to vault off the boat and land ashore without soiling his fine boots. He rushed over and hugged her like a little boy, picking her up and spinning her around in a circle.

She smiled, too, eyes dancing.

Kip was suddenly glad that he knew Antonius was her cousin, because being jealous of someone who gave his wife joy would have been pretty shitty.

He put her down and stepped back, and clouds rolled over his open demeanor. “Or should I say Lady Guile now?” he asked.

“I am proudly both,” Tisis said. “But… if you’re going to call me Sissy, do you want me to call you… ahem?”

He winced playfully. “Maybe not in front of my men.”

Tisis said, “Then let me introduce you: Lord Antonius Malargos, my husband, Kip Guile. Kip, my cousin, Antonius.”

The Malargos men had come to bracket their commander once more, and in contrast to his open spirit and happy demeanor, they had the air of men ready for violence.

“Sissy?” Kip asked Tisis under his breath as Antonius introduced his lieutenants.

It was an artful introduction, though, personal rather than the full introduction with all of Kip’s newly claimed titles. That would have sounded more impressive, but also directed attention to whose title was biggest, and how these powers would interact with each other.

Kip would need to remember to praise Tisis for that, later. If they had a later.

How the hell had Eirene Malargos gotten word that they would be here?

“I’ve had less kind nicknames,” Tisis murmured.

Introductions of his subordinates concluded, Antonius straightened his shoulders and cleared his throat. He looked pained. “My dearest cousin, Eirene has given me some very strict orders. I feel compelled to—”

“Where have you been?” Tisis asked. Smart. Never let an idealist frame your problem in black and white. “Things have changed very quickly, and your orders may well have been, um, outpaced by events.”

“Because you’ve come here on skimmers and I couldn’t possibly have heard something as recently as you?” Antonius asked.

“Yes. How’d you even know…”

“Our family has skimmers now, too. Not as big as those you have covered over there, but enough for a drafter and a messenger to travel quickly together. I was upriver, near the Floating City with Satrap Willow Bough. My orders are only a week old.”

In other words, almost as soon as Kip and his friends had blasted past Rath, Eirene had sent her hounds after them.

Shit.

“How did you get designs for the skimmers?” Kip asked.

“Commander Ironfist showed us how to build one. Former commander, I guess. As you said, events have been moving quickly.”

“Why would he give you such a secret?” Kip asked.

It was more thinking aloud than a question he expected answered, but Antonius said, “Eirene promised him all our intelligence on your location.”

“So he’s coming here?!” Kip asked.

Having Ironfist come to join them was the best news he could imagine.

“I… don’t know. Apparently he spoke with his sister the Nuqaba, who was our guest at the time. They had a spectacular fight. He disappeared after that, and she left the next day. I don’t know if they were together, or if they parted ways.”

Well, that went from good news to bad quickly. If Ironfist had been coming here, he should have made it already. Unless he’d been waylaid.

Ironfist was intimidating, but he’d also been traveling alone, in these woods, with no law to speak of and many, many talented archers.

What if he’d been killed by some idiot bandits?