Winsen loosed the arrow.

Teia put a hand to her mouth, certain she was going to see a child die. The arrow flew too fast for eyes to follow. She and Kip and Cruxer and Winsen, too, all looked to Buskin. He reached the corner and looked back—and suddenly hurtled to the ground sideways as the arrow ripped through his chest, lodged in whatever mail he was wearing, and flung him down.

It took them several minutes to cross the empty market and get to him. He was dead. No one lingered in the market or the streets. No one wanted to involve themselves in whatever private quarrel this was. Not today, not in the storm and the rain and the lightning that might slay good or bad.

Winsen finally unstrung his great yew bow when he saw that Buskin was dead. He didn’t seem moved in the least, other than being satisfied. Cruxer looked at him, disbelieving, and not just of the accuracy of his shot.

“What the hell, Winsen?” Kip asked. “There were nearly a hundred people here. How’d you even make that shot, with that many innocents in the way?”

Winsen looked at Cruxer, then at Teia, and finally at Kip. Teia had killed before, and it had left her shaken and weepy. She’d been stunned at first, sure, not able to understand or process what had happened exactly. The finality of it had sunk in immediately, so she was slow to judge those who seemed cold when they killed. It wasn’t the same for everyone. But Winsen’s eyes didn’t have that numb look in them that said he hadn’t processed the killing yet, that he was stunned. His eyes were clear. Buskin had been a bad man. He needed to be killed. Winsen had done it. What more was there to say or think about?

Winsen shrugged, puzzled. “I didn’t care if I missed.”

Chapter 66

“Why am I reporting to you rather than Commander Ironfist?” Kip asked Karris. He stood in the Prism’s quarters in the Blackguard’s informal posture, back straight, legs shoulder width apart, hands lightly clasped behind his back. Dressed in his inductee’s grays—which were loose and shapeless, standard-issue baggy rather than the tailored, formfitting luxin-infused clothing full Blackguards earned upon taking final vows—he looked martial. Karris noted the change.

Kip’s eyes were no longer simply the striking blue he’d been born with. Green ringed each pupil, many tiny flecks of blue served to subtly brighten his irises, red bloomed like stars or fires, and a close inspection revealed hints of every other color there, too. She would have reprimanded him for burning through his life so quickly if it weren’t so hypocritical. He was still stout, maybe always would be, but the baby fat was almost gone from his face, and when he stood here with determination and mild pique at doing something that didn’t make sense to him, he hearkened back unmistakably to a young Gavin Guile.

Moreover, his question was a good one, and it deserved better than the lie Karris had prepared. “Commander Ironfist is a bit busy these days. I’ll debrief you and pass on the relevant details to the commander and the White. Though I no longer serve in an official capacity, it is war, and we all serve where we’re needed.”

Kip looked stung. “Not even this is important enough for a direct report? The betrayal of two Blackguards, and their deaths?”

“We’re in a civil war. Betrayal is commonplace. Do you know how many Blackguards we’ve lost in the sweeps this month?”

“Six,” Kip said.

She stopped. “That’s right.” Kip seemed oblivious at times, as caught up in his own world as sixteen-year-olds get. But maybe he was more aware than she’d credited.

“Tell me everything,” she said.

And he did. It wasn’t as good of a report as she’d expect from a full Blackguard, but for one unpracticed and ignorant of the expectations for such a report, it was excellent.

“Again,” she said.

He told it again, this time clearer, with fewer oh-I-forgot-to-say’s. But then he stopped and rubbed his forehead. “I wasn’t going to … It doesn’t help anyone, but…”

“I expect your reports to be fully honest, Breaker,” she said.

“I didn’t understand it at the time, and then things happened so fast it kind of got buried, but right before the first arrow took out Lytos, I heard him say, ‘Fuck it, I can’t do this.’”

A chill invaded Karris’s bones. “And you took that to mean what?”

“I didn’t take it to mean anything. All hell broke loose right then, but looking back, I think he had second thoughts right at the end. I think he was drawing his knife to attack Buskin, not me.”

Lytos. Orholam have mercy. Karris had been holding off her own memories of the big eunuch. He’d been a practical joker with an infectious laugh, constantly short-sheeting the newly sworn Blackguards, putting fire balm in their underclothes, dropping live scorpions in young Blackguards’ boots (though he sealed the scorpions’ stingers in solid luxin first—he wasn’t malicious, just a prankster).

That Lytos might come through and do the right thing at the last second broke her heart for some reason even more than the abstract thought that he might have been deceived or blackmailed into betraying them.

And then to be killed before he could prove his fidelity. Oh, Lytos.

No wonder Kip hadn’t told his friends: By the way, one of the men you killed? He was on our side.

“As he lay there, he said something about a luxiat,” Kip said. “But it wasn’t clear. He died before he could tell me.”

His voice was level as he said it, but something in his tone reminded her suddenly that as much as this boy looked like a soldier, stood like a soldier, reported like a soldier, he was also still a boy. “I’m sorry, Kip,” she said.

“Am I right, not to tell them, I mean?” Kip asked brusquely. He didn’t want her softness and understanding now. “The commander says we’re not afraid of the truth, that that’s what makes Blackguards different. Am I serving my team by holding this back, or betraying them by not trusting them to handle it?”

“Who took the shot that killed Lytos?” she asked. She knew from his report.

“Winsen,” Kip said, puzzled.

“Then what do you think?” she asked.

His brow furrowed. “Winsen’s … different. It doesn’t seem to bother him, killing, I mean.”

“There are some few like that,” she said. “I think if you told Winsen that he would say Lytos shouldn’t have been there in the first place. That Lytos put himself in the line of fire, that he gave your team no choice. I think Lytos would agree, don’t you?”

“It’s just that simple for some people?” Kip asked.

“Some people are what they appear.”

“Not enough,” he said. He looked angry—at her. Just the misplaced emotions of youth, or something more particular? Then Kip said, “When did you know you loved my father?”

It was someone tearing the bandages off a wound. “Pardon?” she asked.

He didn’t repeat the question.

“That is a very personal question,” she said.

“Not really,” he said.

Part of her wanted to slap him for countering her so insolently, but in the next moment she knew that it was really that she wanted to slap Dazen for keeping so many secrets. Now to keep the secrets of that man who might well be dead, she was going to have to lie, too. “There was a dance. The Luxlords’ Ball. I danced with both him and his brother. I think I fell in love with him then.”