“You have a Blackguard in your employ,” Teia said. “Why not have him get it for you?”

Master Sharp looked at her like she was stupid.

Oh. Because they didn’t want to expose him. Or her. The Blackguards would be the first people suspected—even though no one would want to suspect them, who else could steal something from the White’s very chambers?

The further implication was that whichever Blackguard was the Order’s man, he would be somewhere with a good alibi during this job. Perhaps it would be someone who was with the White right now. Regardless, it would also have to be someone who could have gotten into the White’s room quite recently in order to unlock the balcony door—which was kept locked at all times since the assassination attempt a few months ago. Between those two bits of information, surely Teia could limit the pool of possible traitors.

Later.

“What do the cloaks look like?” Teia asked.

Murder Sharp bared his too-white teeth at her. Maybe it was a grin. He showed her the inside of his cloak. It was a supple gray cloth, fine-woven. He flipped the cloak over and showed her the pocket at the neckline, gave her a glimpse of the golden choker inside. “One of them is burned at the hem. There should be two. We know the burned one is there. If you bring both, you will find great favor. If you bring only the burned one, they may still not trust you.”

“You’re telling me I could bring you a treasure as great as a shimmercloak and still not be trusted?” Teia demanded.

“The room’s Prudence twenty-seven. Get moving,” Master Sharp said. He scowled, as if he wished he hadn’t given away the part about the two cloaks. “Oh, and the trick with the paryl bubble is to support it with the gas itself. No hard points. If the gas is dense enough, you can hold an open connection to it, and without your eyes black orbs of night. My own master said that our ancient forebears could hold the cloud in formation around them without a shell even as they moved, even in wind, or while sprinting or fighting.”

That was impressive, but…”Why would that help?” Teia asked.

“The shimmercloaks help us lightsplitters attain invisibility. The mechanics of the cloaks are different, but the idea was based on something, you know.”

“You mean…?” Teia started. It was impossible.

“The ancient masters were called mist walkers for a reason. They didn’t need cloaks.”

Chapter 72

Think of it this way, T: you hate waiting. For some insane reason, like every soldier, you prefer the moments of terror to the monotony of boredom.

Teia remembered leading the Blackguard up the cliff path to the fort on Ruic Head. She’d led an assault by the best force in the entire world. Surely she could climb a ladder. She’d climbed up the side of the fort with enemies shooting cannons mere feet away. This would be easy.

To distract herself as she walked, she tried to support the paryl bubble with paryl gas alone. It worked, easily. If she left the bubble open at the bottom, a hands’ breadth above the ground, she could float along inside it and still breathe.

She rounded a corner and saw Kip coming out of the lift. She stopped suddenly and ducked backward so he wouldn’t see her. She forgot to push the bubble back as she did so it shattered when she moved back into it—but it shattered silently and invisibly. She waited. If Kip was coming her direction, she’d see him any second.

But he didn’t come. He must have been headed to the library.

She made it to the lift unseen. She went up to the floor named Prudence—the luxiats’ name for one of the upper floors—and made it unseen. There was no one in the hallways. She made it to room twenty-seven unseen.

The door was unlocked.

No one inside.

She checked the window. It was big enough. It opened easily, and the rope was hanging precisely where it was supposed to be. It was even knotted for easier climbing—which Teia appreciated greatly. She could make it up an unknotted rope, but with difficulty. Her upper-body strength wasn’t what she wished.

She checked the door behind her, secured the bag she was carrying with the climbing crescents, and prayed for about ten seconds. Don’t give yourself too much time. Too much thinking will stop you. You take long enough to prep your gear and gather your wits, but don’t take any time to gather your courage. Courage delayed is cowardice. Courage is action.

But I don’t want to die.

Move, T.

She grabbed the rope, tugged on it. It felt solid. Of course, it would. If they were trying to kill her, they—

They wouldn’t do it in the tower.

She was climbing before she knew what she was doing. Much better. She avoided looking down and worked her way up, knot to knot to knot. It was late afternoon, not exactly the time she would have picked. But this was when the White was out of her room, and Teia didn’t have any choice regardless. At least she was climbing in the shadowed side of the Prism’s Tower, so while the sun was descending, anyone looking her direction would be dazzled by the sun beyond her.

Thank Orholam it was a cold spring day with a chilling wind: hardly anyone would be outside.

The tricky part was always making the transitions, from rope to balcony this time. But Teia was a good climber. She hitched up a foot, swung the rope around it, locking the rope against one of its knots, and used that as a step. With that and both hands on the balcony rail, she vaulted into the balcony as if she did this every day.

It made her think about climbing the balconies at the Lucigari estate with the little girl she’d been bought to be a playmate for, Sarai. Easy.

She checked the door, and found it was unlocked, as it was supposed to be. She glanced inside. There was no one inside. It was a small, plain room, but this high in the tower, it must be the room of a favored slave. Or a room reserved for such, but empty now. Teia’s curiosity was hot, but she didn’t have time to poke around. She stepped back outside, closed the door gently, and examined the climb.

She wished she could use a grapnel, but she knew why she couldn’t. She would descend by the same rope, and that would mean leaving the grapnel behind as evidence. The whole point of this job was that the shimmercloak would simply disappear.

Mercifully, she had plenty of the climbing crescents. She wasn’t going to have to make it a stretch to reach each one. She scrubbed the wall with a sleeve in an area not too high above the balcony railing off to the right, peeled off the blue luxin cap, and stuck the crescent there. She snapped the blue luxin cap in her hand, and it dissolved into dust.

The next crescent went higher, up to the left. Left foot onto railing, right foot up onto the crescent, left hand reaching to the top one. And repeat. No hurry.

The climb wasn’t far, but Teia took her time. As she climbed, she angled to the left. If she fell now, she’d hit the balcony below. In two more steps, there would be nothing below her but the great yard far, far below.

The clouds were thickening and it was getting darker rapidly, exacerbated by being on the shadow side of the tower. Teia had a thought, and drafted the paryl gas. With it floating above her head but still connected to her will, she could use it as a torch.

So the ‘ancient masters’ hadn’t only been thinking of invisibility. Having the torch close, but above her instead of in her line of sight, made it much more useful.

The wind gusted hard and she lost the paryl. She clung to the crescents like a spider, pressing her body against the tower.