“My lord!” the Blackguard Samite shouted.
“Don’t even try to stop-” Gavin snarled.
She held her hands up. Peace. She tossed him her cloak to cover himself. “Good luck, sir.”
Gavin tied the cloak around his waist and jumped into the lift shaft. He dropped down one level. He swung out of the shaft and stormed toward the women’s side of the Blackguard barracks. The door was closed.
“Karris!” he shouted.
But as he approached, a dozen Blackguards, most of them only half dressed, formed ranks seamlessly in front of the door. They made a wall in front of him.
“That’s far enough, my lord,” Tremblefist said, gently. He was one of the half-dressed ones, and even though he wasn’t quite as big as Ironfist, he was still bigger than Gavin. Enormous pectorals, shoulders broad enough to close the Everdark Gates.
“Out of my way!” Gavin shouted.
They said nothing, merely held ranks.
“Damn you all, you can’t stop me!”
“Yes we can,” Tremblefist said. “Now please, sir, leave. Leave before you shame your faithful servants any more than you already have. We’ve new men in our company. They can’t understand.”
Gavin screamed in frustration and stormed out.
The ride up one floor wasn’t enough to cool his rage. His young Blackguards watched him closely, aghast, but said nothing as he strode past them and back into his room.
Ana should have been on her knees, weeping and begging for forgiveness. Instead, she stood in artfully meretricious pose that Gavin recognized from a famous sculpture, the Maiden’s Gift. She’d even put on a fine silk shift identical to the statue’s: back turned, hair spilling over her shoulder, curves in an S, the side of one breast visible. It was so obviously staged that Gavin would have laughed if he weren’t so furious. Instead, it stoked the fires hotter.
“My lord,” she said. “Shall we continue? I’ve so many pleasures yet to share with you.”
Gavin’s self-restraint had one last gasp. He closed his eyes, ground his teeth. Finally said, “Do you have any idea… I only-I thought you were her!”
“What?! Her? She’s all muscly and gross. Karris is old enough to be my mother. I mean, if you want a sparring partner, I’m sure she’s wonderful, but a lover? Bedding her would be like fucking dust. That old bitch-”
A sound like an uncaged tiger tore its way out of Gavin’s throat. He hit the lever that dropped all the windows in his room open and was on top of Ana in an instant.
The night was moonlit, clouds being chased by buffeting winds.
“My lord, what are you doing?!” one of the Blackguards yelled, but Gavin didn’t even hear him. He grabbed a handful of the girl’s hair, walking her backward out into the cold night. “That bitch,” he screamed above the howling wind, “is the woman I love!” With an inhuman roar, he flung Ana from him. Flung her so hard that she hit the railing of the balcony and flipped right over it.
And fell.
She didn’t scream. She barely yelped, and Gavin barely heard it over the sound of wind.
Gavin’s heart stopped, and the wind stopped, but he didn’t hear her land. Maybe something had broken her fall? Maybe someone had saved her?
A fool’s hope, and Gavin knew it.
Rushing to the edge of his balcony, he looked over.
Orholam have mercy. Hundreds of feet below, Ana had landed headfirst. Her body had crumpled all the wrong ways. From here she looked like a grape popped between your fingers: all the skin gathered and juices everywhere.
“My lord…”
Gavin turned and saw his two young Blackguards. The looks on their faces told him that Ana wasn’t the only person who’d just fallen from heaven. He covered his face with his hands. He stepped back inside, and one of them, wide-eyed, closed the windows. Gavin sat on his bed, conscious for the first time of his near nakedness.
“Go tell who you have to tell,” Gavin said. “I’ll be here.”
Of course, he lied.
Chapter 80
When the pounding started on the door of the women’s side of the barracks, Karris thought it had to be Gavin come back again, but the voice was Watch Captain Blademan’s. “Hey! Why’s this door locked?! I said all hands on, dammit! I don’t care if you’re naked or on the shitter, I mean now!”
Karris threw the door open, instantly alert, tears forgotten. “What is it?” she asked.
Watch Captain Blademan looked at her, the cloak not covering her chemise, not covering her makeup, her perfume, her coiffed hair, her eyes puffy from crying. He hesitated only a moment, working through his surprise, then decided that whatever this was, it could wait. “All hands on, Karris. You’re needed upstairs immediately. Some girl just took a dive off the Prism’s balcony. She’s dead. We think he threw her.”
Gavin stared at the moon, drafting its feeble light slowly. His plan was simple-to draft a rope and dangle it out the window, making them think he’d escaped.
But he couldn’t draft green or blue now. A rope was impossible. He leaned on the doorframe, swallowed with difficulty. He’d never had to think this way before. The simplest answer had always been the best. With every color in his palette, he’d simply had to figure out the best materials for the job. Now… now he was like some normal drafter, trying to solve a problem with a limited set of tools. It was a totally different way of thinking. He hated it.
As he turned the problem over, he grabbed fresh clothes from his closet and got dressed. He could, he supposed, draft a yellow chain, but that would beg them to ask why he would choose to draft only yellow, which was much more difficult and time-consuming. Questions like that could be more deadly than killing a powerful nobleman’s daughter.
He pushed that out of his mind. No time.
Just an open window, then.
Then Gavin saw the shimmercloaks in his closet. He threw on the larger cloak. He knew the choker had to be important, so he put it on, drew it snug. He hated having things around his neck, and there were cold metal ridges along the inside that dug into his skin unpleasantly.
He stepped in front of a mirror. He was still very much visible. He drew the cloak closed. Still visible. He closed his eyes and imagined being invisible, willed it, desired it, lusted after it, believed it. Cracked an eye. Still there.
A soft knock sounded on the door. Gavin drafted instinctively to defend himself.
Daggers stabbed into his neck from either side. What felt like a sheet of flame shot up and down his body: cheeks hot, scalp aflame, chest burning, arms burning, legs burning. Then the heat passed, leaving tingling, and the tingling turned to sensitivity, like a tooth shy of a cold drink.
He looked into the mirror-and saw through himself. His face was visible, and a V of his neck where the cloak wasn’t fully closed. The collar had injected two needles into his neck. Gavin pulled the cloak fully closed, and found there were tiny hooks hidden in the fabric to keep the hood closed even over his face. Only his eyes remained. The rest of him was translucent-not perfectly transparent, but like looking through a dirty window. In low light, it would be more than acceptable. If he stayed still against a wall, it would be perfect. But moving fast in good light, he’d be easy to spot.
Louder knocking. “Sir, please let us in!”
Gavin ducked his head, to see if he could hide his eyes under the flap of the hood and thus be functionally invisible. When he did that, he saw nothing at all. Blackness so deep it struck a visceral fear into him.
So if he fell under piercing scrutiny, he’d have to make himself blind in order to be fully invisible. Lovely. Terrifying.
The window was already open. Gavin stood against a wall next to the door.
