'Why don't you go the back way?' Gavin said. He turned and flung superviolet at the opposite wall. A section of the wall popped open on previously hidden hinges.
Liv took Kip out the back door.
Commander Ironfist and Luxlord Black came in the front door.
'Luxlord, Mistress, Commander, Magisters,' Gavin said, waving a friendly hand to show he was simply too busy just now to speak with Ironfist or Luxlord Black. He walked toward the back door himself. He needed to get Kip now. He should have commanded the boy to wait outside the room instead of sending him upstairs.
Gavin stepped through the back door, already composing the letter he would leave for the White, and almost ran over a dark, demure little man in a slave's robe. He recognized the man and his heart dropped.
'Greetings, Lord Prism,' the little man said, his headscarf so starched it barely moved as he bobbed his head. He'd been a Parian legalist before being captured by Ilytian pirates, enslaved, and eventually sold to Andross Guile. Brilliant and discreet, he'd been Andross Guile's right hand for twenty years. 'Your father tires of your delays. He demands you come to his chambers immediately.'
With Andross Guile, 'immediately' meant yesterday. Gavin cringed inside, popped his neck right and left, and said, 'Take me to him.'
Chapter 46
Kip followed Liv Danavis through a narrow hall and then out to a lift. His head was still awhirl and his emotions were a riot that seemed not completely internal, as if somehow, additional emotions were being pressed onto him. It felt alien. Maybe it was just seeing Liv. He'd known she was at the Chromeria, and he'd hoped to see her ever since he'd known he was coming here, but actually seeing her was different.
Master Danavis had shared many of Liv's letters with Kip, so in some ways it didn't feel like it had been two full years, but she'd been fifteen then. He'd been thirteen. Apparently, he'd grown since then, because he was finally taller than she was. Of course, he was still also about three times wider than she was. If anything, she was even more beautiful than she had been.
As she led him through a hall and finally to a lift, she didn't say anything. Kip was glad for the silence. He didn't think he could have found his tongue. An odd, quiet joy and peace settled over him at seeing her. He remembered when she was fourteen years old and the rumor had run around town that she was going to be betrothed to Ged, the alcaldesa's son. Shortly thereafter, she'd left for the Chromeria. Kip had been relieved. She'd seemed too good for little Rekton. But though he was sure she hadn't thought of him since, he'd missed her. She had been like the sun passing overhead, and he'd turned his face as she passed, warmed by her presence, but never daring to hope for more. When Master Danavis had shared that Liv was having a hard time with some girl at the Chromeria, Kip had wanted to leave immediately and kill the offender, then come home.
Seeing her wavy hair swish and bounce around her shoulders as she led him was like standing in the sunlight again after a long winter. Kip didn't want words. Once he opened his big mouth, he'd surely spoil everything. He just watched her walk, hiking up his own pants gracelessly as she strode ahead, purposefully, at home, at ease, in command of her environment.
'I think I'm lost,' Liv said. She looked to each side, down halls that looked exactly the same. She bit her lip.
Eyes locked on that full, slightly moist lip, Kip gulped.
'Kip?' she said. 'No, never mind, of course you wouldn't.'
She headed off again, and Kip followed. Liv had turned into a woman in the time she'd been away. She was as slender as he was fat. Her eyes large lucid brown, her skin smooth and clear where his was cursed with pimples around his neck and jaw as his beard was only just coming in. Thank Orholam, at least her chest was bigger than his.
Kip barely glanced there, though, and now as he followed her, he barely looked at her body. Her skirt did swoosh back and forth in a most pleasing manner as she walked, revealing slim, well-turned calves. But aside from a glance or two, or maybe three-Kip glanced again. Ah! Four. Aside from that, he didn't look at her the way he'd look at some other beautiful woman. It just didn't seem respectful.
Oops, five.
She stopped when they got into the lift. 'I just realized,' she said, laughing at herself, 'that I have no idea where I'm supposed to take you. Uh, tell you what. You can come to my room until I get this figured out. If you're like I was after the Threshing, you'll probably need to go straight to bed. Right?'
Kip wasn't sure how he hadn't noticed before, but he was tired. He felt as if someone had taken the bottle of his energy and shaken it all out. He nodded his head.
'Don't feel like talking?' she asked, giving him a little grin. It was the kind of grin you gave a little child who'd missed nap time and was fighting to stay up to get dessert. But Kip couldn't even summon the passion to despair at seeing that indulgent grin on her.
I'm cute to her. Cute. Ugh.
She set the counterweights on the lift, paused for a moment-she must have been surprised how much weight she needed to add to account for Kip-and added more. In moments, they were speeding up the tower, passing other students going both up and down. They stopped and stepped into a wide lobby area that dimpled out to one of the clear tubes that connected the central tower to all the others.
Kip looked at Liv, eyebrows up.
'My apartments are over in yellow. Yellow's in the middle of the spectrum, so bichromes and polychromes include yellow more often than other colors, so the yellow tower has more bichrome apartments. They don't have the space for those in the Prism's Tower. Are you afraid of heights?'
'Not usually,' Kip said uneasily.
'Oh, so you can talk!'
'I can fall too,' he mumbled.
'You'll be fine, I promise,' she said. She walked out into the tube. It was four paces across and enclosed with blue luxin so thin it was almost clear. The bottom of the walkway was thicker blue reinforced with thin bars of yellow. It looked impossibly thin. As Kip had seen from far, far below, the walkway attached to the Prism's Tower only at two places: on the east side and here, on the west. After going straight out about halfway to the green tower that was directly west of the Prism's Tower, this walkway met a great almost clear luxin circular walkway. From that circle, there were spokes out to each of the six towers.
Liv led Kip out to one of those intersections between circle and spokes, the point farthest from any support. She jumped up and down. 'See, totally safe.' She laughed. 'Now you try it.'
'I don't know,' Kip said. If he could ever overcome his fear, the view from up here was magnificent. Of course, it was hard to look at mere magic towers when he had Liv right here. 'Okay,' he said weakly. He didn't want to let her down.
Of course, if I break this spindly walkway, I'll be letting us both down. The quick way.
Trying to be a good sport, Kip hopped a little, landing as lightly as possible on his toes and absorbing all the shock in his knees.
'Oh, seriously,' Liv said.
Kip sighed and jumped so high he thought he was going to touch his head on the canopy. As he landed, he heard a loud crack.
He threw his hands out looking for something to grab, his heart seizing up. He was about to throw himself at the handrail when he saw Liv's face.
She laughed and covered her mouth. 'I am so sorry,' she said. 'I shouldn't have. It's kind of a tradition for new students, and the Prism wanted me to give you the whole experience.' Kip looked at her hands. They seemed to be clenched around something invisible. He tightened his eyes, and sure enough, she had a bar of superviolet luxin snapped in her hands.
Kip chuckled. It only sounded a little forced. 'Give me the traditional mop, would you? I think I left a traditional puddle.'
She laughed. 'Thanks for being a good sport. If it makes you feel better, I almost fainted when my magister did
