“Koios White Oak, unhappily back from the grave.”

“And you know what he is?” Andross asked.

Gavin stared at him blankly, not sure what his father was asking. “A polychrome? A man remade with incarnitive luxins?”

Andross sighed. “Are you playing dumb, or did you cut yourself so deeply?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Gavin said. This was not starting well.

Andross sighed. “I was hoping you might be useful, in this one thing at least.” He waited, apparently to see if he’d called Gavin’s bluff about being ignorant. Then, nonplussed, he said, “You are not the only man alive who can draft black luxin. Merely the only one on the Chromeria’s side.”

“Koios is a black drafter,” Gavin said as it dawned on him. Of course.

“He’s taken your old path to power. Except, of course, he doesn’t glean his powers from already dying drafters and wights.”

My old path to power? “So you think I’m the Black Prism, too?”

“Too?” Andross frowned. “You didn’t tell Karris about this.”

“No. Orholam, no. I didn’t even remember any of it then. I…” It cut him to think about her. It was impossible. Hopeless.

“Then who else calls you that?” Andross asked.

“Never mind that.” Telling his father about the dead men was a sure way to cut this conversation short. His father would think him mad in truth.

Andross looked amused to have this imprisoned wretch tell him what to do, but he let it go. “I more thought of you as a light-splitting black drafter. If you want a more grandiose title, I suppose the Black Prism fits.”

“Are you sure?” Gavin asked.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“About me. I don’t… I don’t remember any of that. I didn’t seek out people to kill them for their magic. It wasn’t like that. Was it?” Gavin said.

He thought he’d done all that to save people. That he’d put himself in harm’s way for the satrapies. That he’d been at least a little… good.

“You really have forgotten it all, haven’t you?” Andross said. “What’s the alternative? That you’re Lucidonius come again? You’re the Lightbringer?”

“Mother said I was a true Prism…”

“Your mother loved you very, very much. But you were her last child, and you were a blind spot for her.”

There was something odd in how he’d said that. Irony aside, though: Gavin was Felia Guile’s blind spot? Go to hell, father.

“Her last child?” Gavin asked.

A pause. Then Andross said, “Not witless, indeed. There is still some spark of you left in that shell, isn’t there? Well, I had planned to tell you eventually. No time like at your end, I suppose. Do you remember that prophecy? The day the Mirror Janus Borig told you that you would draft black luxin? She told me, ‘Of red cunning, the youngest son, cleaves father and father and father and son.’ You remember?”

“I remember.”

“There was this librarian. She had access to some documents we needed. With your mother’s permission, I seduced her. Naturally, I was careful. She shouldn’t have gotten pregnant. She swore she’d take the tea to abort it if necessary. She lied. Showed up in our camp pregnant and with demands. Your brother didn’t take it well. She fled.”

There were so many things wrong with what he’d just said that Gavin couldn’t even begin to parse them. Andross had cheated on mother? And what pathetic lie was this that she’d approved of it? She would never do that!

“What documents would be worth such a thing?”

“It doesn’t matter now.”

“You’re certain the girl wasn’t lying?”

“I presumed she was lying, of course. But over the course of time, I’ve become sure she wasn’t.”

Gavin was incredulous. “Are you telling me I have a brother out there?”

“When she sent you your note, she sent me one, too.”

“Sent me a note? I never got a note—You can’t mean—Lina?!”

Andross said, “She took the name Katalina Delauria when she fled, apparently. Lina. Kip isn’t your brother’s son. He’s mine.”

Out of all the things that should have leapt to Gavin’s mind, what he thought first was how odd it had been that when his mother had come to Garriston for her Freeing, she hadn’t tried to meet Kip. Hadn’t so much as inquired after her only grandson.

Because she knew. She knew Kip wasn’t her grandson. She knew he was Andross’s bastard, and she had no interest in having that rubbed in her face.

Dear Orholam. Kip.

The funny thing was, it didn’t really matter, did it?

Instead of being the boy’s uncle and pretending to be his father, he was actually his half brother, acting as his father.

If anything, that should make things easier, shouldn’t it? It wouldn’t be, ‘I’m not your father, and by the way, I killed your real father and took his place.’ Now it would be, ‘I’m your half brother.’ Full stop. Kip already knew that the Gavin who was still alive had killed his own brother. Without the weight of being the real Gavin’s own son, Kip would be freed of a son’s burden to avenge his dead father.

But then, it didn’t matter regardless. Gavin was here. He was going to die in this black cell.

“This doesn’t have to happen,” the dead man said.

“Are you going to tell Kip?” Gavin asked.

“Someday. Maybe. It’s a card I’ll keep for the right moment. Maybe if he gets too sanctimonious with me. It’ll be fun to see the look on his face.”

“Why’d you tell me?” Gavin asked.

“I thought you deserved to know. You seem fond of the boy. I wanted you to know I’ll look out for him.”

Gavin could tell that his father was drawing this to a close. Not just for now. Andross wouldn’t be coming back.

“Draft black,” the dead man hissed. “Kill him.”

“Look out for him?” Gavin said. “You’ve tried to kill him twice!”

“The assassin was when I still thought Lina was lying, and I was hoping to hide Kip’s existence from your mother. As for a second time—you’re counting when he attacked me on the ship after the Battle of Ru? He was trying to kill me, if you recall. I was only defending myself, and I was in the grip of red. Speaking of which, where’s the knife now?”