The other students set to work immediately, and Kip saw that the easy answer was impossible. He couldn’t just add full-size blocks of blue luxin together, because that would make the counterweight too heavy. The arithmetic here was to find the exact fractional volume of blue luxin he would need to make a new counterweight.
The best girls and boys were already working their abacus beads back and forth. Kip wasn’t good enough with the abacus. He’d never make it in time. He didn’t know how to figure fractions. He could work the entire time and still not—Oh.
Got nothing to lose, do you, tubby?
Kip scribbled something on his paper, stood up, and walked to the magister’s desk.
The magister looked at him tolerantly, like he was a student who hadn’t understood the question and was about to ask for clarification. Kip held up the paper.
He’d drawn a quick sleeve of blue luxin to go around the original counterweight to hold the broken halves together.
“You’re Guile’s by-blow, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Magister.”
“I can tell. Those boys cheated magnificently, too.”
Kip swallowed. The rest of the class stopped working on hearing “cheated.” “You taught them, sir?”
Magister Atagamo’s mouth twisted. He ignored the question. “You’ll have to learn to use the abacus eventually, you know.”
“Yes, sir.”
The old man snorted. “Goodbye, little Guile.”
“So I pass?”
“Highest marks of the day. And don’t ever do it again.”
Chapter 23
“Give us privacy,” the White said.
Ironfist stood in the White’s chambers, atop the Prism’s Tower at the center of the Chromeria. The wheels of her chair were tall enough that she could push on them directly to move around her room, which she insisted on doing, despite the delicacy of her wrists.
“My blanket, please,” she said.
He brought over her blanket—something she’d woven decades ago with her own hands. Like many who make their livelihood with their minds, she had an outsized pride in the few things her hands had crafted. It was perhaps the only thing for which Ironfist could consider her a silly old lady. He tucked the blanket around her legs and was surprised to feel how thin those limbs had become.
“You see?” she said. “You can tell, can’t you, Commander?”
Silly old lady indeed. She’d set him up. Sharper than he was, still. It was a good reminder, both ways. Weak physically, but not mentally. Not in the least.
“Tell what, my lady?”
“Psh,” she said. A little eye roll. “It is a hard place, for those who are not prepared.” I’m dying, she was saying, prepare yourself so that when I do you won’t fall prey to your enemies.
It was both terrifying to imagine a world without Orea Pullawr as the White, and warming to learn that she considered him a friend.
“Tell me again, Commander, about your coming to Garriston, and the preparations for battle there.”
So he did, again. He tried to tell it differently, knowing that she was sifting his words, looking for something. He told her about the movement of troops, about how many men and drafters each side had, about the disposition of the Ruthgari garrison that had been there. She’d been interested in that, the first time. But now those were mere numbers to her. She already had memorized them, and analyzed what they meant about the Ruthgari commitment to Tyrea, and who had been bribed. Now she was looking for something else.
He spoke for two hours. He told her about General Danavis coming alone—unmustached—to the Travertine Palace, and how Ironfist had been expelled from the meeting. He spoke of Gavin moving the wagon that had blocked the gates, making the men help in doing what he could have done by himself, thereby somehow cementing them to his own cause.
She smiled at that, a small, knowing smile. Perhaps the smile of one leader approving of another’s nice play.
He wasn’t sure what she was looking for, though, and pretty certain that he wasn’t supposed to know.
“You don’t gamble, do you, Commander?” she asked.
“No, my lady.” How did she know that? He supposed it wasn’t the kind of thing that would be hard to find out, but that she had, that she cared about it, and that she recalled it was what made the White both alien and a little frightening.
“Always thought that was strange. You seem like the kind who would.”
“I used to,” Ironfist admitted. “I had a bad experience.” He kept his face even. Equanimity was all a man could aspire to. Knowing what you had control over, and what you didn’t. The Nuqaba had no place in his thoughts.