“With pleasure.” Grinwoody bowed and left.

Andross Guile paused at the door. In his brocade and Abornean goat’s wool and cloth-of-gold and murex purple, he looked a king of old. He put his hand on the doorframe, though, and bowed his head, taking a few deep breaths.

Then he turned on his heel, sharply, and walked back into the room.

He came around the bed and straight for the nook where Teia stood. Her heart jumped, and she almost bolted. Almost attacked. She looked to his left, but the wall was too close; she would brush against him.

The only way open was up onto the bed. She jumped lightly onto the bedframe, one small foot on the side frame, one on the headboard, an arm stretched out to push off one of the bedposts to hold herself in place; if she stepped on the bed itself, she’d leave an unmistakable dent in the blankets and mattress. It was a brilliant bit of balance, especially given how disconcerting it was to not see your own limbs. The only problem was that stretching out so far like this exposed one boot entirely on one side, and her hand and forearm on the other.

But Andross was already past her, bending down to pick up something that had been placed in Teia’s nook. It was a painting of his late wife, Lady Felia Guile. The frame had been broken, and there was a tear through the middle of the canvas itself. He stood, holding it delicately.

If he turned counterclockwise, toward the room rather than the wall, Teia would be face-to-face with him. With how much of her was exposed, he couldn’t miss her. Teia tried to scoot her foot along the frame and the cover of her short cloak, but all her weight was on that foot. It wouldn’t slide.

Andross turned in toward the room—disaster! But he was holding the painting up. It passed between Andross and Teia, blocking his view, the frame nearly cracking Teia’s nose.

He carried the painting back to his desk, and Teia, breathing once more, stepped silently back into the nook. Her heart was pounding so loud it was a marvel she wasn’t shaking the entire house.

“Fee,” Andross said quietly. “Forgive me for this.” He fingered the tear where he’d obviously punched through the canvas. “I was wrong. Like so many other times we fought. You hurt me, leaving like that. It felt like betrayal, but I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have forbidden you the Freeing this year. Oh, but my dear, if you could only have stayed to see me now! One more year! You could have held on one more year, could you not? But I wasn’t myself, stuck in that room. I know. I thought my light would fade before I could do all I promised you so many years ago. I need you, my dear one. What I must do with a sword, you could do with a smile.” He traced the line of her cheek with a finger. “I shall never find your like again.”

Then he cleared his throat, and composed himself. He hurried from the room as if he could leave tenderness behind.

Teia didn’t know why, but that unexpected gentleness made her more frightened of the promachos than any coldness she’d seen from him. She knew that if he found out that someone had seen him during that moment, his vengeance would be terrible.

As if breaking into his house and spying on him would result in only a firm talking to?

They can only kill me once.

The thought didn’t make her feel any better.

Chapter 82

After giving Promachos Guile some time to get ahead of her, Teia followed. He was at the bottom of the stairs by the time she reached the top of them, and she had to wait. Should have followed closer. Going down the steps would expose her feet, especially if someone were below her. If she had instead followed him closely, the angles would have made it much more difficult for him to see her.

Some invisibility.

She headed down the stairs carefully, putting as much of her weight as she could on the handrail, skipping the steps she’d noticed creaked. Here, at least, was one good thing about being small: she didn’t weigh much. She heard a bell ring from the room where Andross Guile had gone. She made it to the bottom of the stairs without any problem, and heard him speaking to one of the attractive slaves who’d been upstairs.

“There’s a damaged painting in my quarters. Have it repaired by whomever’s the best.”

The woman bobbed and came out of the room, stepping between the Lightguards standing watch at the door.

Teia flattened herself against the wall, but the woman ducked into a slave’s door off to one side. There was a brief opportunity to slip into the room, between the two Lightguards. But if one so much as shifted …

She hesitated, and Andross dismissed them.

The two Lightguards were both big men. Not the hard, professional warriors that made up the Blackguard, and part of Teia couldn’t help but sneer at them. But they did look like they knew what to do with a cudgel. Both had noses that had been broken multiple times and flab over big muscles. The one on the left had the red nose of a drunkard. The one on the right walked with a slight limp. The most salient detail about them, though, was that they took up the whole damned hallway as they walked side by side.

Teia retreated down the wall, walking backward carefully, only stealing glances at the men’s feet so they wouldn’t see her eyes. Stairs or doorway?

She pressed herself into the recessed doorway.

They turned toward her door, trapping her.

The one on the left, closest to the door, put his hand on the high latch, right next to Teia’s face. She held her breath. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” he said to the other one. He turned his head to the other man as he pulled the latch down. The handle brushed Teia’s shoulder as it turned, but he didn’t notice. He didn’t push the door open, either. Still trapped.

“You touch the brandy cabinet one more time, you’re gonna get us both whipped,” the limper whispered. He looked around nervously. “He’ll smell it on your breath, Arrad!”

There was nowhere to go. If the man moved forward quickly, he’d run into her before she could retreat. She couldn’t open the door herself and slip away; his hand was still on the latch. There was no space to slip between them. They formed a perfect, closed crescent, with her between them and the door.

Before she realized quite what she was doing, Teia was drafting. She was already drafting paryl in order to keep the cloak functioning, and the instantaneous thought shot through her: Is this what other drafters talk about? Reds spoke of feeling their own passions twice as deeply, blues spoke of a cool logic, but Teia had never felt anything at all from paryl. This odd, unlikely creativity or awareness or …

She swept paryl through the second man’s leg. There was a mesh point with paryl between a gas and a solid where you could shoot a stream but still direct it. She’d tried this a hundred times and succeeded twice, both times when she didn’t think about it too much—which was maddening. But it worked again. She felt the knot in the limper’s bad knee, and seized it, solidifying the paryl and pulling until the paryl broke.

The limping Lightguard’s leg folded, and he fell. He cursed as he hit the floor.

The drunkard Arrad let go of the latch to see what had happened, and Teia pushed the door gently so it swung open slowly as if he’d pushed it a bit. The Lightguard started laughing at his friend.

“Here you were worried about me. You’re the one who looks drunk! That dodgy knee again?” he asked.

But Teia didn’t wait to hear any more. She disappeared into the room.