The Tafok Amagez were in chaos behind him. Several had been pushed off the wall. But as Ironfist drafted, his chest heaving from the exertion of Orholam-knew-what fighting he’d done to get through the crowd, Karris saw the Amagez with the long musket. He’d been at the far end, and he recovered first, lifting the musket with an ease and precision that told Karris this would be an easy shot for him.

He was too far away for Karris to hit with a drafted projectile. Karris was fast. Karris was accurate. But she wasn’t that fast or that accurate. She heard the shot, saw the sudden jerk and the smoke blossom from his musket—but he’d twitched off-aim at the last moment.

Karris realized that the musket she’d heard was behind her. Almost beneath her. The young marksman on the wall dropped his musket and tumbled down to the dock, dead.

And then the skimmer was picking up speed and Ironfist leapt aboard, and in less than a minute they were safely skimming down to the river, outrunning any order that could arrive to tell anyone to stop them.

Karris looked at Gavin, lying bloody on the deck, still holding the smoking musket he’d fired to save Ironfist’s life.

Gavin was grinning fiercely. Blood from his ruined left eye had trickled into his mouth, and it painted his teeth red. “Not quite useless. Not yet,” he said.

Then he passed out.

Chapter 87

A knock, and a familiar woman’s voice: “Kip?”

Kip didn’t know how long he stood in the darkness of his room. Did time even have meaning anymore? He thought perhaps that the darkness would bring back the black luxin card. He hadn’t seen the entirety of it.

But it didn’t come back. And he knew no way to call it forth consciously. There were so many things that he needed to think about and decide right now, this instant, immediately, that he was paralyzed. He couldn’t think about anything. His life was about to turn irrevocably, and he wanted to look at some card?

Granted, if he was right, and viewing—or living or remembering or whatever the hell it was that he did with the cards—was nearly instantaneous, then theoretically, he could live as many of them as he wanted, and not lose any time. But somehow he was pretty certain it didn’t work that way. If he could even figure out how to call one up, he felt like it might roast that tiny, underused pea between his ears.

The thought only served to remind him of his headache.

A knock on the door. Again. Wait, this was the second knock, wasn’t it?

He hit the light control, and his knees almost buckled as the light seared his eyes, burned like rock salt stomped into his open wound of a brain. He leaned against the doorframe, gasping, and opened the door.

“Kip? Are you all right?”

Oh hells. It wasn’t Teia. Why had he thought it was Teia?

Because Teia’s the only girl who ever talks to you on purpose.

It was Tisis. “Are you hungover?” Tisis asked.

I’m a giant, wakened from my bed by assassins. With a roar, I grab the man leaning over my bed and ram him so hard into the marble wall that his skull shatters, blood spraying. Sharp steel parts the muscles of my leg, deep, hot. I jump out of bed, but my head is aflame with a hangover, black spots dancing in front of my eyes.

There are four of them left, grubby, not professionals. The nearest stabs—deflected, albeit with blood. Armlock, his arm dislocated, fist up to his face so hard bones crack—dammit, both his face fractures, and my knuckles. I know better!

I bellow, and see the fear go through the other—

“No,” Kip said. “Bit, uhm, lightsick.”

Her face softened. “Takes a while to get used to drafting, huh? So easy to do too much at first. I got lightsick a few times myself, early on.” And despite the worry that perched on her shoulders like a cougar bearing down on its prey, she grinned. “Well, maybe more than a few times. Green, you know.”

She’s beautiful.

And I can have sex with her. As much as I want. Well, as much as she’ll allow. Which may not actually be that much, now that I think of it, but surely it would be more than zero times. Have to consummate the marriage at least.

Andross Guile had been wrong. If there was anything wrong with Kip’s libido, it was that he had too much. He just didn’t think satisfying it was a possibility anytime soon. It was a ‘someday, who knows when, don’t think about it, you’ll just get more depressed than you already usually are.’

But as bad as he wanted it, he didn’t want it to be bad. Forcing it from Teia back when she was a slave would have been wrong.

Not that forcing it from her now would be good—ugh, his brain was only working for one purpose now and that seemed to be to hurt as much as possible.

What if he went to bed with Tisis and when he took off his clothes, he disgusted her? What if she saw his fattiness and despised him? How could someone so beautiful, someone who could do so much better, bear to be with him?

Ah, so you’re not chaste. You’re just afraid.

“Kip, I know I said you had a week to decide about … you know, my proposal. That didn’t really happen how I’d ever imagined it, by the way, and I certainly—anyway. I know I said you had a week, but I need your answer sooner.”

“Sooner?”

“As in, now.” She winced apologetically. “I have to leave the Jaspers. I’m going to walk to the docks as soon as I leave you.”

“You don’t have any stuff. Clothes. I don’t know. Jewels, cosmetics? Whatever it is you have.” Kip felt stupider the more he said.

“My slaves have already smuggled it out to the ship. I’m technically the Chromeria’s hostage, so I’m forbidden to leave without permission. I can’t carry anything on me lest your grandfather’s spies figure out that I’m leaving.”

“Oh.” Obviously, a little late for that. Andross knew everything. He always knew everything. Damn him. Damn him to a thousand pits of fire.

Fire. Fire engulfs the woman, her skin curling, blood hissing as it boils—

Breathe. Breathe. Back in the now, stay here, Kip.

And Kip still hadn’t decided what to do. He should have been weighing the pros and cons in the last few days, when he might have had a chance to think without the total distraction of a beautiful woman standing right in front of him.

Kip the Lip. Use it to your advantage.

“You know,” Kip said. “I actually haven’t decided. I should have been weighing the pros and cons in the last few days, when I might have had a chance to think without the total distraction of a beautiful woman standing right here in front of me. You’re beautiful. You know you have an effect on men. Are you seducing me?”

“Pardon me?” she said, incredulous. “I mean, thank you, but what are you talking about?”

“Are you trying to seduce me?”

She looked suddenly awkward. “I thought you weren’t interested in women.”

“What?!”

“I asked around while I was procrastinating and trying to figure out how to talk to you, and no one could even remember you expressing interest in a girl. They said you had a room slave that you never bedded, so I thought you either didn’t have any interest at all either way or you liked boys. That’s why I, um, tried to appeal to your better nature. Believe me, if I’d thought it would be as easy as flashing some cleavage at you, I’d have done it in a second.”