Kip had no idea what it meant, but something Corvan had said once made him react instinctively: ‘If your enemy wants it, deny it.’

Andross Guile, you asshole, tell me that I’ve got something of you in me. Your every victory, your every taunt, every time you turned a loss into a victory of another sort and soured the wine of winning to gall in my very mouth. Speak, O blood of Guile. Sing in me of the rage of the man skilled in all ways of contending. Sing of the blood of a beast and a god—

Blood.

Kip scrapes the blood from his wrist, feeling lightheaded. Only two images remain. He laughs, for the final two tattoos are the Lightbringer and the Turtle-Bear. But these two sit side by side in his wrist.

A choice. Kip has no doubt of it. There is only time to touch one. The image of the Lightbringer looks holy, a beam of light from heaven illuminating his face, washing out his features so it’s impossible to discern them.

Janus Borig asked for her brushes when she was dying. Asked for them, because she knew who the Lightbringer was. Had she started that card and never finished the face?

No. This tattoo isn’t unfinished.

What it is, or what it can be, is a trap. A trap for Kip—and now Kip’s trap.

Kip lifts his hand, bunches his fingers, using the periphery of his vision to see how Abaddon reacts. Fear that Kip will touch the Lightbringer. Good. Kip moves.

“No!” Abaddon shouts. “No!” He twists his cane and a blade flicks out from its heel. He stabs Kip’s arm in the tattoo of the Lightbringer. Power arcs through Abaddon’s cane, and the tattoo bursts apart like a popped soap bubble. Too easily, as if it had been waiting for it.

Kip flips sideways from the force of the blow, his other hand slapping at Abaddon’s face as he falls.

When he looks up, Abaddon looks confused. There’s a hole in the illusions hiding his face, his chin and beard plucked off entirely, the rest of the mask shimmering—and dissolving.

He is no man under that projected beauty. His head a locust’s head. His mouth mandibles, stretching and snapping sideways. His eyes monstrous, inhuman. The wings barely protruding from his back are the clacking wings of an insect god. And the moment he touches Kip, there’s a change in the air of the Great Library. Even Kip, bent and broken, can feel the power gathering, a kind of magic beyond mortal ken.

By touching Kip, he’s entered Kip’s time, his bubble of causality. And if there’s one thing fat kids understand, after getting beat down into a puddle of blubber and humiliation, it’s being overlooked and disregarded.

But blubber bounces back.

Shooting a look at something Kip couldn’t see, Abaddon roared, “What do I care for your rules?! I am I! I am the Day Star! I am of the firstborn, and I. Will. Not. Be Moved!” His turn swept the hem of his cloak toward Kip, almost brushing him with it.

If there’s one thing fat kids understand, it’s momentum.

With a roar, Kip leapt onto Abaddon’s back. Every Blackguard lesson forgotten, he was an animal, tearing at his prey. He was the fucking turtle-bear, ready to take punishment as long as he could give more punishment back. His weight nearly knocked Abaddon off his broken ankles, and Abaddon barely caught himself on his cane. Screaming, Kip scratched at his eyes, tore at his neck, and lunged for that precious pistol.

But the move was a feint. With only one hand free, Abaddon grabbed on to his precious pistol. Instead, Kip tore the cloak off his neck and kicked off. Abaddon fell.

His masks down, Abaddon was all snarling, shrieking insect. He drew the pistol from its holster smoothly, those great bulbous eyes unreadable.

At that moment, something seemed to resound through the entire library, a great pulse, a great weight settling—and Abaddon was ejected, utterly, instantly. Not physically, for he merely disappeared, but Kip had the very distinct impression that the psychic shock of it had to be tremendous.

It was like a child addressing a tidal wave, saying, I will not be moved—and before the words are out of his mouth, all is ocean, leaving no sign; not only no sign of the child, but no sign of his defiance, no sign that anything opposed the crushing sea in the least, no eddy, no swirl, no detritus, only simple, plain, indisputable nothingness.

From his back, exhausted, immobile, bloody, Kip looked up into those yawning foreign constellations. “So you are there,” he said. “Kind of take a subtle approach, don’t you?”

The cloak lay shimmering in Kip’s hand. He sat on the ground holding it, wondering what would have happened if Abaddon had shot him here. If he was practically dead anyway, what was the difference? Or was that creature lying about the whole dying-out-in-his-real-body thing? Something felt very wrong in Kip’s chest, so he thought not.

“Subtle? He’s using you.”

It was Rea Siluz. She was wearing a green-and-black jalabiya with the hood down around her neck, her halo of black hair fairly glowing. But perhaps that was just the effect of her smile. Kip thought for a moment about what she’d said, then grinned. “Rea. So, you’re some kind of librarian?” He stood, with difficulty.

She smiled again and shook her head. “Only when … time allows.”

“You’re what he is … or was, or … something?”

“I am not nearly what he was, but I am far more than he is. As are you. Evil is darkness. Darkness is the broken eye, the ever-blind unseeing. Darkness is less substantial than smoke, and even a dim mirror is brighter than the void.”

That seemed pretty deep, so naturally Kip said, “You’re not as flashy as he was.”

She laughed. “Kip, do you know how beautiful you are? You understand things with your heart. There’s a time to revel in and reveal glory earned and glory given. But vanity is show. In point of fact, I am quite well-known for my love of spectacle. Which is probably why I was drawn to you.”

“Me? I’m just a dim mirror. And I, I think I’m dying.” He thought suddenly, if you’re addressing some kind of celestial immortal, and she’s actually answering you, you should probably ask some really good questions: like about the cloak he was holding, or heck, if there really was a Lightbringer, and if so who …

He fell over. Too late. He thought that if he got through all the cards, there was supposed to be some way … out? Did he miss it? He tried to open his eyes to look for it. Nothing. Maybe they were open. Ah well. He was dead at last, but he didn’t mind.

Chapter 76

Kip was dead.

Teia staggered to her feet in disbelief. She felt like she’d been bludgeoned between the eyes with a brick. She felt like she was standing knee deep in the shallows of a mighty river, waters roaring through and past her. Kip lay like he’d been cast out of the current, his body sprawled, mind broken, spark extinguished.

Kip is dead.

It didn’t look right. Kip, as meat. Without his animating spirit, Kip was a brow hewn from granite, shoulders to shame draft horses, and staring eyes of many colors. This was a body; this wasn’t Kip.

Teia could hear nothing but the cataclysmic wind gusts of her own heart, pumping, pumping, as if blowing on a forest fire. Kip dead? It was impossible. And it was.

I didn’t hug him. Why didn’t I hug him? He staggered back from death’s door, and held me, and I didn’t hold him. I let him down. Why?

I’m not a slave. I’m not a slave. I tell myself that every day. Why?