The Blinding Knife
Page 73

Teia heard someone say, “Bite down on this, Rud. This is going to hurt.”
Then there was a quick flash of fire, and the stench of burned flesh and tea leaves and tobacco as they cauterized the cut with red luxin. Rud drummed his heels against the dirt and made a high-pitched whimper that trailed off quickly into deep, fast breaths.
One of the best boys in the class, Jun, came back into the square, pressing through the crowd. The next team was just about to leave, two skinny brothers who were in the bottom third of the scrubs.
Jun kept his voice down, but Teia heard him tell the brothers, “Don’t take Low Street. There’s a roadblock there. Twenty thugs, some of them armed. They already got Pip and Valor.”
Oh, lovely, that was where Teia was hoping to go. Well, that left only—
“Corbine Street’s blocked, too,” Jun’s partner Ular said.
Jun said, “The alleys through Weasel Rock looked clear, but they’re so narrow, two men could hold them.”
After making sure Rud was okay, and checking the wound, Trainer Fisk made his announcements again and handed the money to the Oros brothers.
“I’ve got a plan,” Teia said.
“Huh?” Kip said. “What is it?”
She made a noncommittal noise. “You’ll see.”
“Teia? Teia, you’re my partner. That means I’m your partner, too. You should tell me the plan.”
She grinned. “And spoil it for you?”
He glowered. “Fine, then. You have any food while I wait? I’m hungry.”
“No!”
“No, really, I am hungry. I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”
“Don’t be thick,” she said.
Kip held his hands up to himself as if measuring his thickness. He sighed. “Can’t help myself.”
She cracked a grin despite herself. “Give me your coins, when we start.”
“So I can’t buy a sweet roll?”
“No!”
“Yes, sir,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“It’s a good plan,” she said, suddenly defensive, suddenly aware of who she was teasing. You’re a slave, Teia.
“Mm.”
“It’ll work,” Teia said. “Promise.”
“Betcha anything it won’t.”
“What’ll you give me if it does?” Teia challenged.
“A kiss,” Kip said. Then his eyes got round. Like he couldn’t believe what he’d just said.
Teia felt totally frozen. Was he making fun of her? Wait, a kiss if she was right?
Kip saw the look on her face. He said, “I… um…”
“Kip, Teia, you’re up!” Trainer Fisk said. “Rud getting hurt put us behind schedule. Let’s go.”
Trainer Fisk ran through the announcement again, but Teia barely heard it. She handed her coins to Kip, not looking him in the eye. Trainer Fisk bound the red kerchiefs around their brows, and then Kip took off.
Despite his bulk, Kip seemed to have no trouble keeping up with her as she snaked through the crowd. She went down one block and then turned into a cooper’s shop, then through a smithy’s yard connected to it, and then ducked into another shop.
Teia was already at the counter when Kip joined her. “At the Great Fountain within two hours?” she said.
“Our man’s headed up that way in half an hour, so that’s no problem,” the grizzled old man behind the counter said.
Teia put the coins on the counter. “Delivery either to Kip here or Trainer Fisk, or Commander Ironfist?”
Kip tugged at Teia’s sleeve. “What are you doing?”
“It was your idea that got me going. Now shut up.”
She gave brief descriptions of Trainer Fisk and Commander Ironfist. Then she paid the courier fee—one danar—and asked, “Do you have a back door?”
The old man waved toward it.
“Thank you,” Teia said. She took the red kerchief off, and motioned for Kip to do the same. It wasn’t exactly a disguise, but with the Blackguard scrubs garb, she wasn’t going to be able to get both of them into disguises. “Kip, take off your kerchief.”
“Huh?”
“Off. Unless you want to get jumped.”
Kip took off his kerchief, getting it.
“Hold on,” Teia said.
“What?”
She licked her lips. “This was your idea, understand?”
“My… what? You know, I usually feel smarter than this.”
“I want you to act like all this was your idea.”
“Why?”
“Just do!”
He stood there, as mobile as a sack of paving stones, nonplussed.
She grimaced. “It’s part of my strategy to make it into the Blackguard.”
“Giving other people credit for what you do right? Ingenious.”
“Look at me,” she said. “I’m not tall, not muscular, not a bichrome. I’m fast, but I’m a girl and a subchromat. I want everyone to underestimate me, Kip. If they think I’m smart, they’ll take me seriously. If they take me seriously, I won’t make it in.” She gripped the little vial on her necklace unconsciously. “Without my mind, I’m not good enough to make it in. Please.”
He raised his hands. “I’ll help you however I can. You’re sure?”
“A thousand times yes.”
He followed her lead. They walked to the Great Fountain via Corbine Street. They passed one group of young men who gave them hard stares, but by now the gangs had heard about the scrubs with money wearing the red kerchief, and because the scrubs’ training clothes didn’t have any pockets and Teia’s and Kip’s hands were open, it was clear that they didn’t have anything.
The men, some of them bloodied from encounters with the other scrubs, let them through without saying a word.
When they got to the Great Fountain, though, only Commander Ironfist was there.
“You can show me your money,” the commander said. He looked pointedly at their lack of red kerchiefs.
“Where are the others?” Kip asked instead. Teia watched him nervously. So rude!—and to Commander Ironfist!
The commander leveled his gaze on Kip and said nothing.
Kip looked away, glowered, but said nothing either.
Anything Teia said would just bring her between Rock and Hard Case, so she kept her peace. What did her father like to say? “She who gets in the middle of a pissing match will only get wet.”
Then she realized Kip was doing it for her. He wasn’t being obstinate, he was pretending to be obstinate to deflect any questions. He was alienating himself from Commander Ironfist—for Teia’s sake. It almost made the brittle, fearful part of her soften. She knew how much Kip thought of the commander.
The Great Fountain capped the artesian well that provided much of Big Jasper’s freshwater. Large underground pipes took water to four other public areas of the city and each of the embassies, and the Chromeria had its own well, but for the poorer residents, the Great Fountain was their sole source of water. Most made the trek at least once a day, if not multiple times.
The fountain itself was crowned by a glass statue of Karris Shadowblinder, the second Prism. She’d been Lucidonius’s widow. Face upturned toward heaven, toward Orholam’s eye, instead of standing, she was suspended by the twin jets of luxin pouring out of her hands toward the ground. Wearing only a shift, she had the lean body and the broad muscular shoulders of a fighter. Teia had always liked that about the statue. No soft lady of leisure, she. Like the drafters who would follow her, Karris the First’s body had been shaped by the pure physical work of hurling luxin as much as she had shaped history by using it.