Liv looked down and colored a little, but played it off. She tossed the short pants to Kip, who caught them instinctively, and instantly felt awkward. “Would you check if those are clean?” she asked.
Kip’s eyebrows shot off his face and stuck somewhere three floors up.
“I’m teasing. I just moved and they gave me all new clothes. Everything here is new.”
“Except my gullibility, apparently,” Kip said. That was twice in as many days she’d fooled him.
She laughed. “You’re great, Kip. It’s like torturing the little brother I never had.”
Oh, the little brother comparison. Just what every man wants to hear from a beautiful woman. I’ve just been castrated. “So would I feel more or less awkward holding my sister’s underclothes?”
Liv laughed again. “Would these be better or worse?” She held up some black lace that looked like little more than two strings tied together artistically.
Kip gaped.
Then she held them up to her hips and cocked a saucy eyebrow at him. Kip coughed.
“I think I need to sit down,” he said. She laughed like he hoped she would, but he wasn’t completely kidding. He backed up toward a chair—and instantly bumped into someone.
“Watch it,” Commander Ironfist said. “You don’t want to run into someone with that little sword sticking out.”
Kip was too mortified for words. Little? Liv saw the look on his face and burst out laughing so hard she fell on the bed. She laughed so hard she snorted, a decidedly unladylike sound, and then that made her laugh harder.
Turning around, Kip felt Ironfist’s firm hand guiding his pack away from him so he didn’t stab him with the scabbarded short sword on top of it.
Oh, that little sword. Relief flooded Kip, until he saw Ironfist glance down at the sheer short pants in his hands.
“You need me to find some in your size?” Ironfist asked drily.
Liv snorted again, giggling so hard she was gasping for breath.
“Aliviana,” Ironfist said. “You’re done packing? Because we’re leaving in five minutes.”
Liv’s laughter stopped instantly. She popped off the bed and began rummaging through her things at great speed. Ironfist let a small, satisfied smirk steal over his face briefly, then he dropped another pack next to Kip’s and walked out. Before Kip could ask him about it, Ironfist said, “Move it, boy genius. If you haven’t figured out the straps on your pack before I get back…”
He didn’t complete the threat. He didn’t need to.
Soon they were striding onto the docks together. Despite his threats, Ironfist had helped them with some settling of the packs. Mostly, that meant moving things from Liv’s pack to Kip’s. When Kip asked the silent question—why are you making me carry her stuff?—Ironfist had said, “It’s more complicated to be a girl. You got a problem?” Kip shook his head quickly.
As they walked down the docks, past fishermen unloading catches, apprentices of various trades running back and forth, loiterers, merchant women arguing with captains about prices for goods or transit—basically, all the normal business of the day—many people stopped whatever they were doing for a few moments. It wasn’t to watch Kip, of course. It was to watch Commander Ironfist. The man was big, and imposing, and handsome, and he strode with a total self-awareness, but it wasn’t his sheer physical presence that got him so much attention. He was, Kip realized, famous.
As Kip turned to see the faces looking at Commander Ironfist, he could see Gavin walking onto the docks. And if for Commander Ironfist, business slowed, for the Prism, it stopped entirely. Gavin walked through smiling and nodding to people automatically, but they treated him like he was nearly a god. No one tried to touch Gavin himself, but not a few brushed his cloak as it floated past.
What am I doing with these people?
A week ago, Kip had been cleaning puke off his mother’s face and hair while she lay passed out from another binge. In their hovel. With a dirt floor. No one in their backwater town had paid him the least mind. The addict’s boy, that’s all he was. Maybe the fat boy. I don’t belong here.
I’ve never belonged anywhere. Mother told me I ruined her life, and now I’m ruining Gavin’s.
Kip couldn’t help but think of his mother’s last words, and the promise he made as she was dying. He’d sworn to avenge her, and he’d hardly done anything to keep that oath.
They said Orholam himself watched over oaths. Kip hadn’t learned anything, and now they were going back.
“Hey,” Liv said, “why so glum?” She laid a hand on his arm, which tingled from the contact. They’d stopped at an empty place on the dock, down a ramp low to the water, and Commander Ironfist was drafting a luxin platform onto the water, the first building block of a scull.