“Feel free to speculate on my identity, but realize that the closer you get to the truth, the more likely you are to get me killed. There’s no benefit to—”

“I already told you the benefit.”

“This is not an argument,” Karris said sharply.

Even as she said it, she could remember her dearly departed father saying those very words to her when she was a girl. Clearly, it is an argument, young Karris had snapped back. All her defiances had been petty, back then.

Teia’s chin floated up. “I am not a slave,” she said.

“No one is saying—”

“But I was one. And let me tell you, slaves know how to obey an order without actually accomplishing anything. People like you think that slaves are stupid. Slaves are smart enough to use that belief against their masters. ‘So sorry I did what you said, and not what you meant, Mistress, I’m just a dumb slave.’ Treat me like I’m stupid, and you’ll get stupid out of me.”

The red in Karris reared up, and she nearly lost it. She was the commanding officer. She would be obeyed. But then for an instant, she tried to imagine the White shouting at a subordinate.

Of course, the White was the White. There was an institutional power in addition to the woman’s personal presence. When you answered her, you were addressing all the weight of the Chromeria. But still.

How large could the pool of possibilities of who had been Teia’s handler previously be? Because the key wasn’t someone who was smart and ambitious and willful—in the upper echelons of the Chromeria, that ruled out practically no one—the key was that the person had to be able to report to the White. The White’s infirmity had confined her to her own floor in recent months.

So it had to be someone with easy access to her floor. Who had that access? The Colors … but most of them have their own agendas, and they’d have spies tracking them, too, because they’re already so important. Who else? The Blackguards.

Orholam have mercy. A Blackguard? Of course, and it would have to be someone who could juggle watch schedules so that he or she could report to the White immediately if there were an emergency that demanded it. That meant one of the watch captains, as she herself had been.

Blademan was too straightforward to manage spies. Beryl was a gossip and had been since her youth. Tempus was possible. Loved his books, good administrator. But he never got out. He was always either on duty or in his office. Blunt was too dumb. Not that he was stupid, but you had be very, very bright to handle all of this. Unless he faked that?

No, not Blunt.

So, none of them. Her breath escaped. Unless … Commander Ironfist? The man was always working, always going places and meeting with people. Karris had always thought of him as a man who kept his own counsel, but one could just as easily label him secretive, even reclusive.

But he seemed like he would stand out too much. Too famous, too recognizable. On the other hand, his official duties had him rubbing shoulders with everyone, high and low. If he checked in with the kitchens, no one would be surprised. If he talked with room slaves, no one would bat an eyelash. If he spoke with a Color, or with that Color’s personal guards …

He was the perfect spy. His position gave him enough access, and was so obviously impossible, that he could hide in plain sight. Teia’s handler was Commander Ironfist.

“Marissia,” Teia said, apparently unable to bear the silence.

Karris couldn’t find breath.

“Because when slaves aren’t invisible, they must be beautiful. And when a slave is beautiful, she can only be good for one thing, right?” Teia said, the acid in her tone spraying all over Karris’s face, and burning, burning.

Anyone but her. Anyone else.

“Funny. She trusted me with her identity,” Teia said. “But to you, I’m just a former slave.”

Karris had fought when wounded. Had fought with that sick feeling that something was terribly wrong, but you couldn’t stop to gauge how wrong it was. Stopping to judge meant death. It was the same here. Fight on, fight on, turn your eyes to the task.

Teia was a good girl. Defiant, but every Blackguard had steel in them. Study her, figure how to use her best, and don’t let her get under your skin—either to anger or to love.

You’ve got to keep your distance, Karris. What’s the most likely outcome here?

That she disappears at some point, and is simply gone. That’s what the Order does. We’re going against them where they’re strongest. They practically invented spycraft.

“At some point,” Karris said, as if the storm had washed past her without leaving a trace, “they’ll want you to steal a shimmercloak.”

“What?” Teia asked. She’d wanted a fight, Karris could tell. Without it, Teia was like a ship becalmed.

“The White’s been studying the shimmercloaks. You need to be a lightsplitter to use them. We thought light splitting was a gift only given to Prisms. We were wrong. But more to the point in your case, a lightsplitter without a shimmercloak is useless. None of their current Shadows—if there is indeed more than one—is going to give you theirs, are they? So if the Order can use you to steal a shimmercloak for them, then even if you’re a spy and they have to kill you eventually, they still come out ahead. If they distrust you, you’ll be getting that assignment soon.”

Teia slumped in her seat. She knew a death sentence when she heard it.

“You have to understand, Teia. The Order are masters of subterfuge. They’re very, very good at finding and killing spies.”

Teia turned and looked at the curtain between them. Her eyes were dead. “You expect me to fail. That’s why you can’t let me know who you are.”

“Odds are.”

There was only bitterness and resignation in Teia’s voice. The sound of a soldier sent to die, who thinks his death won’t even accomplish anything. “So what do I do? Feed that perception that I’m a clueless young girl?”

Pretending to be stupid enough that she couldn’t be used by their enemies, but still smart enough that the Order would trust her? It would be a difficult line to tread. Impossible for one so young.

Suddenly, Karris remembered what it was like to have her future taken out of her own hands and decided by her elders, to be thought beneath consideration. She’d hated it, railed against it, and finally, she’d left a wake of destruction rebelling against it. She was still paying the price of that rebellion, and still dodging the cost of it—the son she’d abandoned, the damnation she felt.

With an uncertain hand, Karris pulled open the curtain. Teia looked up, jaw clenched. Scared. Karris unsnapped the voice-modifying choker. She took off the mail cowl and aventail. “So,” she said. “Now we’re in this together.”

Tears welled up in Teia’s eyes. “I hoped it would be you,” she said.

Chapter 51

Tremblefist was grinning. Kip could hardly believe his eyes, but the morose giant was grinning.

All the squads were crowded into the Prism’s training room, and every last young man and woman was agape, barely blinking for fear of missing a critical moment. Tremblefist was faced off against his brother Ironfist. Both wore training armor of leather imbued with luxin that would burst with spectacular yellow light if struck, to declare a solid hit. They wore steel helms with bars woven like wicker, thick leather gauntlets, and they bore bamboo swords.