“You play much?” Rea asked.
“Only twice. Lost both times, badly.”
She laughed quietly. Her dark hair, tightly curled, was massed in a huge, careful halo around her head, setting off a narrow face, full lips. “Most people lose the first twenty times they play.”
Ugh. “That’s not an option for me,” Kip said. “Where should I start?”
“Read these two first, and then study this one. This one has all the cards copied out, so you can refer to it when you don’t understand. The sooner you memorize them, the better you’ll be.”
Oh, boy. Kip settled in.
He read for twelve hours. When he went to the toilet once, as he was coming back, he saw a man hovering over his table, writing down the titles of the books piled there. He saw Kip coming and disappeared. Kip thought briefly of chasing him, but realized that he didn’t know what he would do if he caught the man.
Great, so they’re spying on what I read. Kip didn’t know who “they” were, but he figured it didn’t matter too much.
When he got up to get a late dinner, he went to Rea’s desk. “Can I come back after I eat?”
“You haven’t eaten yet?” She looked tired from working two shifts.
“No, but I’m starving now.”
“I’m sorry, then, but the library is closing in a few minutes.”
Kip looked at the students, who seemed to be giving no indication of leaving anytime soon, and gestured helplessly.
“Those are third- and fourth-years, Kip. Higher years and Blackguard trainees get to study whenever and wherever they want. With so many other duties, some of them don’t even get here until midnight. First-years aren’t trusted that much. You can only be here when librarians are.”
So Kip studied for a few more minutes. When he finally left to go to bed, he was stopped in the hall by Grinwoody. The man grinned wolfishly at him.
Kip hadn’t learned enough. There was no way he could win.
Andross Guile’s chambers were exactly like before, and when Kip sat, there was a superviolet lantern and a deck of cards. Kip looked through his own cards. The twelve hours had done him no good at all.
“What are the stakes?” he asked.
“Higher, I told you.” Andross Guile said nothing else. He played his first card, setting the scene.
Kip played. He played one of his good cards too early—which he only realized at the end of the game—and got slaughtered. He would have lost regardless, but it was the first time he caught a glimpse of something beyond his own helplessness.
“So what are you going to do to me this time?” he asked.
“Pathetic. Not a drop of Guile blood in you, whinger. You don’t have to lose. You are losing because you choose to lose.”
“Right, I’m choosing to lose. Because it’s so fun.”
“Sarcasm is the sanctum of the stupid. Stop it. The stakes this time were the privilege of eating tomorrow. Tomorrow, you fast. Maybe it will focus your mind. Now, another game.”
“What are the stakes?” Kip asked, stubborn. It told him how little Andross Guile thought of him, though, that he thought not eating was a greater loss to Kip than a girl being sent home and losing everything she’d worked for.
“Higher.” Andross Guile began to shuffle his cards.
“No,” Kip said. “I don’t trust you. I think you’re making up stakes after the fact. I’m not playing until you tell the stakes.”
A thin smile curved Andross Guile’s lips. “Practicum,” he said. “You lose this time, you lose your practicum.”
“I lose that every time you make me come up here,” Kip said.
“Permanently,” Andross Guile said.
Losing the right to go to practicum meant losing the one place where Kip could learn to draft in any sort of organized way. “Can you even do that?”
“There is very little I cannot do.”
If Kip couldn’t learn to draft properly, he had no future. “That’s not fair,” he said. He knew he’d lose.
“I have very little interest in fair. Guiles are interested in victory, not sportsmanship.”
“And if I refuse to play?”
“I’ll have you expelled.”
You asshole. “What do I win if I win?” Kip asked.
“I’ll send that bully Elio home.”
“I don’t care to send him home.”
“Maybe you should,” Andross Guile said.
What was that? A warning?
“I hate you,” Kip said.
“Breaks my heart,” Andross Guile said. “Draw.”
Kip drew. He recognized his opening hand as spectacular. He’d seen this hand in one of the books.