The Broken Eye(305)
Tisis shut it. Teia ignored her, going straight to Kip’s bureau and rifling through it.
“Kip, you’re a great gushing shit sphincter, but I’ve got more important things to worry about. There’s—” She glanced distrustfully at Tisis, and stopped. She went back to digging and quickly pulled out Kip’s lens belt and tossed it to him. She looked at Kip. “You have any other weapons here? This may get ugly. The White’s in danger. I may be the only one who can save her.”
Tisis said, “I’m sure a color-blind drafter is exactly what the Blackguards need to do their—”
Teia pointed a finger at Tisis’s nose, getting right in the older girl’s face. “One more word, poppet. Give me the excuse. Breaker, now!”
The other thing? Oh, she meant the cards. Kip wedged his fingers behind his bureau and pulled it away from the wall. In the space underneath, he grabbed the card box.
Teia looked unimpressed. “I really need to show you better hiding places.”
Kip strapped on the lens holster. “Tisis,” he said, “go to the docks. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”
Teia turned and pointed. “Tisis, there are coin sticks on that rafter.”
“What?” Tisis said.
“Use green, moron! Knock them down with luxin and take them with you as you go. We can’t carry anything extra. Orholam’s balls you’re dumb.”
They left her standing there, fuming, and ran to the lift.
As they got in, Teia pulled out the gray cloak and fingered the twin black-and-white disks stitched on the back. “Kip, where’d you get this cloak?” she asked.
“I stole it from a god or a demon or something. Something bad.”
Teia looked at him, exasperated. “Asshole.”
“Teia, listen to me. I’m going to marry Tisis—”
“I don’t care. We need to talk about our strategy upstairs.”
“Teia! My grandfather has commanded—”
“So you are working for him. What was all this, part of a ruse?”
“What was all what? Ruse? What are you talking about? Teia, you of all people should understand!”
“Of all people? And why’s that?”
“You were a slave!”
“Oh, I’d forgotten about that. Perhaps you—”
“You should understand what it is to have to obey orders you—”
“—have forgotten that you’re free. Don’t you dare tell me you know what it’s like!”
“I’m doing it for the squad, Teia.”
“I could tell. Had your horn up for us, did you? Funny how the things you do for others end up benefiting you most of all. You’re a Guile, Kip. Through and through, and all Guiles are the same.”
Kip dropped his hands. She was past reason. And the lift was here.
They got on. Kip shifted the counterweights. He remembered it requiring more weight the last time he and Teia had taken the lift with just the two of them. Teia said, “An assassin of the Broken Eye took a contract from your grandfather to kill the White. He put a paryl trap around the White’s heart. She may already be dead. If she’s not, I’ll need to work on it. If we’re discovered, I need you and the squad to hold the door while I work. Oh, and we have to get past the Lightguards. Not a problem for me alone, but like I said, I may need you once we get in the room.”
Kip absorbed it in silence. “The squad?” he asked finally.
“Should be meeting us up there. At least some of them. I sent Marissia to find them.”
All Guiles are the same, huh? “Fine, I got a plan.”
“Which is?” Teia asked, as they started ascending.
Kip said nothing.
“Breaker, I’m serious. What’s the plan?”
Kip turned a contemptuous look on her, then looked away, dismissing her. He could practically feel the air chill. It wasn’t fair of him. Dammit. He should open that Lip and apologize immediately.
But he didn’t. And just as he was reconsidering, the lift stopped at an earlier level. Caelia Green stepped on with her distinctive swinging gait, followed by her Blackguards, men Kip didn’t know well. She looked up at Kip, then at Teia.
“I think it’s past time we get to know each other, Kip Guile,” she said. “I am Tyrea’s Color after all, and truth is, I don’t know my people all that well, and there are far too few Tyreans here at the Chromeria. You do consider yourself a Tyrean?”
“Of course,” Kip said. This? Now?
“Ah. Just didn’t know if you thought you’d outgrown that somehow,” she said. “We should talk.”
And then she got off at one of the upper levels. Kip and Teia continued on, but there was no way to apologize before they arrived at the top level of the Prism’s Tower.