Because I don’t believe it. And despite all I feel for Kip—for all the Kips I know him as—I can’t love him if I’m still a slave. He was my master. If only for a time. If only in word. Kip could think of me any way he wanted to, but it didn’t matter, doesn’t matter, as long as I’m a slave in my own eyes.

My lenses are bad. My eyes, broken.

I hate being a slave, because I hate what it has made me, because it has changed me, and I can’t change back in a day. I can’t say yes to Kip, though all my soul longs for it, because I haven’t taken my freedom. Not yet.

Why do I want so much to be a Blackguard? Because they are the best slaves in the world, with the best masters, with rules that make sense, well rewarded, and well directed. But directed. Ordered. Always, always subordinate. And a part of me craves that.

Orholam, what would it be like, to be whole?

Teia blinked, hating and overcome with disappointment at who she’d become—and then she felt as if she were standing outside herself. For one heartbeat, she saw a vision of herself standing before her, as an adult. Only a couple years older, maybe, but she looked totally other. She stood tall—well, as tall as her slight frame could manage—but she stood free, there was joy in her eyes, pride in her stance, and mischief on her lips. And she was beautiful. Not the beauty of curves and men’s desire, a brighter beauty than that. She was a woman fully herself, a woman who had life, and had it in full.

And then the vision was gone. But Teia knew it was herself as she could be.

A tear tracked down her cheek.

I realize this now? Now?!

Kip shall not be dead.

Again, Teia seemed to be standing in that great river, nearly sweeping her off her feet. She had such a strong, sudden conviction that it was some titanic, immeasurable magic that she widened her eyes to paryl—and saw nothing, but she lost not her conviction that it was here, it was true. There was a magic she knew not.

Not yet.

Kip was dead, his eyes staring blankly into nothing.

Kip is dead; he’s left us all behind. I’ve learned from him, but too late.

Kip shall not be dead.

His hand was wet with blood from his torn knuckles.

Life is in the blood.

Paryl is the master color. Paryl makes us feel all. Barely knowing what she was doing, Teia drafted paryl from her hand to Kip’s blood. She could feel it, and then she plunged the magic into his blood, going after the receding luxin, the receding light, the receding life, like it was a rope trailing out of her reach.

As soon as her luxin passed the barrier of Kip’s skin, she gasped. The Chromeria didn’t even begin to teach Will magics until late in a discipula’s tenure because it was so dangerous, so prone to abuse. Kip had willjacked an opponent once, though, and it had been described to the Blackguard scrubs then. Luxin had no memory, and Will was where the technology of chromaturgy met the magic of the thing. Teia couldn’t draft any of the colors Kip had inside him, but with paryl using Will to interact with one color was the same as using will to interact with any color—so long as the luxin was open.

Kip’s entire body was awash in every color of luxin. From her training, Teia knew you wanted to stop the heart to kill a man. She didn’t know much more than that, though. Certainly, she was no healer.

She found Kip’s heart through his blood, and it was still. She grabbed all the luxin in and around his heart that she could feel. Without any control of each of those colors, it was like grabbing a handful of knots rather than plucking the appropriate threads.

She simply squeezed, hard.

Kip’s entire body jumped in her lap, and she almost lost hold of the magic.

Kip was dead.

What the hell am I doing? Orholam—

Again.

She did it, tears streaming down her face. His body leapt. It seemed a desecration.

Kip is dead. Dammit, leave him alone. Stop this, stop this!

Again.

She jerked so hard, she thought she tore something inside herself. This time, after his body leapt, he seemed to melt into her lap. He was dead. He was really dead.

Teia’s will drained away. All she’d done. It was for nothing. It was just desecrating his corpse. She should be ashamed.

“Orholam’s balls,” Kip said, pained. He moaned. His eyes flickered open, and focused on Teia after a moment. “Teia!” he said, surprised. “I’m here, right? I mean, I’m now? I mean…” His eyes lost focus for a moment, and he blinked, on the brink of passing out.

“Kip?” she asked. She brushed back his wiry hair. Her whole body felt full of light. Her eyes were full of tears, and the tears made the light streak and dance and glow and sing. Kip shall not be dead indeed.

She couldn’t stop grinning.

“Teia, Teia, I have something to say.”

She leaned over him. “Yes?” Maybe it was all drafting, the nearly falling to her death, the escape from Murder Sharp, the fight with Kip, the saving his life; maybe it was touching all the other luxin, maybe it had worked on her even as she’d worked with it, but she felt all warm and soft inside. He was right here. She remembered kissing him, that night after they’d all been out drinking. It had been nice.

“Teia, I have to tell you,” Kip said again.

“Yes?” She should kiss him now. What was the harm?

“You’ve got a booger.”

“Uh-huh, I—what?! What?!”

Kip pulled away and sat up. “Sorry, you were all looming over me, I got claustrophobic.”

“Looming?” She punched his shoulder, while she fished in a pocket for a handkerchief. “I don’t loom.” She started laughing. She couldn’t help it. She deserved it, didn’t she? After leaving him standing there, hugless. It wasn’t like he was retaliating, it was like the universe was. A firm elbow from Orholam himself. She laughed, hard, maybe a little bit out of her mind.

He seemed puzzled by her laughing, but then he joined her in it. “What are we laughing a—”

His smile froze on his face and he stopped laughing. He jumped to his feet, staggering, awkward, but never taking his eyes off her face. An odd black-and-white cloak unfurled from his hand, ignored. He tilted his head, studying her. He blinked, like something else was standing in her shoes.

“Kip?” she said.

“T?” he asked.

No one called her T. She only called herself that.

“Kip, are you … are you well?”

“You’re sheering off in different colors, disappearing. You’re—no, it’s going. It’s—” He shut his eyes tight as if groping for a memory. “Mist Walker.”

Her throat tightened.

He blinked. “It’s gone.” He shook his head then put a hand to his temple as if he had a ferocious headache. “Huh, Mist Walker. You ever heard of that?”

He’d never heard that term. Not from her. Not from anyone. That was an obscure tale.

She opened her mouth to lie to him. She heard Karris’s arguments in her mind that anyone who knew this secret only put them all in more danger. And she saw how right Karris had been. Teia hadn’t needed to know Karris’s identity. It had been helpful only emotionally—and hurtful in every other way possible. And yet still the lie wouldn’t come.

“It’s what I hope to be,” Teia said. And she realized only as the words passed her lips that they were true.