Kip wasn’t certain how much to believe Andross Guile, though. Sure, it was one thing to go hunting the bane, but why sacrifice your whole fleet to do it? If you saw a trap, you sprang it with a few ships, not your whole fleet. He may well have been hunting the bane, but that didn’t mean he had godlike perspicacity. And he’d been a red wight at the time. That had to have clouded his vision, made him impulsive. Perhaps he was only lying to himself now, telling himself that the losses had all been part of the plan.

Kip opened his Blunderbuss to say so. Shut it.

Andross Guile continued. “But now you have another choice: marry Tisis, go with her tonight. I will provide a luxiat who will marry you in secret because he believes love conquers all. Whatever you tell her at first, I don’t care. But as time goes by, you will make her believe you’ve fallen in love, and do your best to make her do the same. That’s vital, you understand? Then, you stay with her, reporting to me from time to time. Eirene Malargos has big plans, and I’ve been unable to get a spy close in to learn them. You serve them, pretending to hate me. Your half brother will become the Prism—but Prisms usually only last seven years. You can wait, right? You’ll have a beautiful wife; you’ll have riches; I could even allow you to take your little friend Teia with you to guard your back, or your bed, whichever.

“At the very worst, Kip, it gets you out of Big Jasper alive. I know there have been attempts on your life—and those haven’t come from me. I don’t believe the attempts will stop if you remain here. What you need is some time to get away, to grow up, to marshal your powers and your skills. You’re sixteen and you’re starting to see who you will be. But you’re not that man yet, and there are challenges here to which you are not yet equal. If you take care how much you draft, in a few years you can come back as the head of the foremost Ruthgari house if not the head of the satrapy itself, and a full-spectrum polychrome.

“Then we publicly make peace and reunite, and all that I have will be yours. Marriages are often made to make peace and cement alliances, and yours would do both, both in the short term and in the long.”

“I just have to become your spy.”

“Yes, yes, staying alive is such a dirty business, isn’t it? Perhaps you should leave it to others,” Andross sneered. “You have to become my heir. You’ll be serving the promachos and the satrapies, not just our family. Such is only right.”

“Then why does it feel wrong?” Kip asked.

“Because you’re young, and you haven’t learned the difference between a twinge of conscience and a twinge of fear. In other words, ass from elbow.”

“Oh, no,” Kip said. “In my time under your tutelage, I’ve become quite adept in recognizing an ass.”

“Then you ought to do well when you meet Two Gun Ben.”

Given that Kip had only heard of the captain minutes ago, he was too shocked to keep it off his face.

“Oh, yes, I know all about him. He’s not a transporter; he’s a slaver, and too cautious to ransom the slaves he takes back to their families. You go with him, and he’ll clip your ear and put you on an oar. We’ve had quite enough of that in this family, don’t you think?”

“I—”

“Your friends aren’t as clever as you hope, Kip. Nor are you. Speaking of which, whatever you choose, before you go, I will have my cards. This is not optional.”

A jolt of real fear shot through Kip. “I already told you. I don’t have—” Kip said.

“Not optional. You must—” And to Kip, his face suddenly twisted, replaced by a much younger Andross Guile, young and strong, standing in his own manse, addressing his thirteen-year-old son. ‘You must do this, Gavin. All our family, all our satrapy, all the world, and all of history rests upon you. In the blinding glare of his responsibilities, a Guile doesn’t blink.’

Then Kip was back, and Andross’s face was tight, suspicious, and old. “Kip, show me what’s in your pockets.”

“You won’t listen,” Kip said. He couldn’t even take joy in the fact that the cards were in the bureau and not in his pockets. Small victory indeed.

“I won’t listen to lies, boy. And I can tell you’re lying to me.”

And a lie bloomed, and Kip saw a narrow hope. “Lying because I’ve been afraid of what you’ll do. Now I just don’t care anymore. I saved her life, grandfather, if only for a few minutes.”

“Her? Janus Borig?! I knew it.”

“Someone sent assassins after her—not ordinary assassins, but assassins who could make themselves invisible. I came in while they were still robbing the place, and I could see them in sub-red. They didn’t expect me to be able to see them, and I got lucky. I killed them both, but we triggered some of her traps, and the place caught fire. I tried to carry her body out, and she was still alive. She made me get the assassins’ cloaks, and then on our way out, she stopped me again. She grabbed this.” Kip wondered what insanity had gotten into him, but it felt like the only way. He dug out Janus Borig’s card box.

Andross Guile’s eyes lit with hungry fire. He reached for the box, but Kip didn’t give it to him. “Why is it broken?”

Of course he cared about the cards first, and not the woman. Kip said, “She died before I carried her two blocks away. I came and gave my father the cloaks and—”

“Cloaks? Plural?”

“Yes,” Kip said. He couldn’t help it. His lies wouldn’t have the ring of truth if he didn’t give his grandfather a whole lot of real intelligence. Of course, any of this could be a trap. Maybe his grandfather already knew all of this and was expecting the lie.

“And I gave him the cards. I took a peek first, of course. There was name after name, so many it was overwhelming. But it was the very night Gavin got back, and he found me, and took the cards. I didn’t see them again—until today.”

“You’re telling me you found these today?”

“I swear it on my hope for light.”

“Give them to me!”

Kip shook his head. “You don’t understand. I would have brought them to you. After looking at them, of course. After writing down all the names. Maybe after viewing a few of them. But maybe not even that. Janus told me she put traps on the cards that would flay a man’s mind.” Kip blew out a breath, and it wasn’t pretense. Whatever had happened to his mind, it had felt like flaying. He didn’t think he’d seen the last of whatever it was that had happened. “They were hidden in Gavin’s training room. When I found them…” He handed over the box.

Andross Guile’s brow furrowed. He hated not understanding things immediately. He handled the box like it was an asp. He put it on the table, pulled on his gloves, noted the box’s broken side, and opened it gingerly. When nothing happened, he examined the back of the top card minutely. “Definitely her work. I’d spot a counterfeit.” He looked up at Kip. “Congratulations, boy, perhaps you have some hope of being Prism after all.”

Kip just shook his head.

Andross scowled. He flipped over the top card. His head cocked as he saw the blank on the other side. He flipped another card. Blank. Another, another. He cut the deck in half and looked at a card there, then another. He flipped the entire deck onto the table and fanned them out. Every last card, blank.