He was going to marry Tisis. He was really going to do it.

She had done exactly what his grandfather had warned him of: seduced him into rescuing her, without ever having to resort to actual physical seduction.

And there was that damned loose stitch on the heavy bag. Still just the same amount of looseness in it there had been months ago. Dammit! Like he’d accomplished nothing.

He focused on that side, chasing it when it turned, punching it with left hooks so it would turn right and then slamming a kick into it as hard as possible.

And then he began streaming. That was the name the squad had come up with for Kip’s little trick of shooting luxin while moving in order to move faster. Streaming was, they all agreed, incredibly dangerous—and they all did it as frequently as possible. If Kip streamed luxin out of his shoulder as he punched, he could punch the bag almost twice as hard as a normal punch. Which was awesome, except that hitting something that hard would break his hand, and wrist, and probably his arm. Streaming didn’t make you tougher, it just moved you faster.

They’d had more pratfalls and collisions and collected more minor injuries than any Blackguard squad in history.

It had given them some hilarious stories, though: watching Ferkudi stream while running in order to run faster—and jetting from his shoulders, which made him go really fast for a few moments, until he faceplanted. He’d skidded, and was only losing the last scabs on his face now. Cruxer flipping into Daelos while trying to learn to leap high.

Kip had wondered aloud if you could coat your bones in solid yellow (provided you were able to draft a solid yellow) and make them unbreakable, so you could hit anything. Teia had pointed out that your tendons and skin still wouldn’t be unbreakable; Cruxer pointed out that it would be incarnitive, and thus forbidden, with the penalty being death. It was where all wights started, he said, tweaking their flesh just a bit for an advantage here and there.

Now he made a mistake by streaming red first. The advantage was that it had significant mass, so the action-reaction combo of throwing red took less drafting for an equal amount of streaming. But red wasn’t purely physical, as he should know well by now. The emotions poured through him, first among them fury.

Kick. Fury at looking a fool. Kick. Fury at Andross Guile. Kick. Fury at Gavin Guile for leaving him here. Fury at Karris and Teia for rejecting him. Fury at his own weakness.

Fury to rage to insanity.

He aimed a roundhouse kick right at that one loose, defiant stitch, and his fury crested. Hit it. Nothing. Punched, punched, punched. The world fogged into pain and stubbornness and one loose damned stitch. Kip was that stitch, waiting to be clipped or sewn up by a power greater than he. Thud, thud, thud. The bag was swinging back and forth, and Kip’s fists were a blur, a rattling drum punctuated by great streaming kicks. He was getting hot, overheating, so he drafted sub-red to cool himself, and it stoked his rage higher, blotted out pain, blotted out reason. He became pure beast, pure hatred, a roar sounding from some place deep within him.

He roared, and as red luxin streamed out of his heel so too did sub-red, and the luxin ignited. His kick was biomechanically perfect, weight to counterweight, muscles and resistance delivering a whipcrack right into the junction that was the rounded striking surface of shin and foot. But the thrust of that fire-streamed kick delivered incredible force into the bag.

There were two cracks: one felt, one heard.

Kip didn’t see what else happened because he was swept off his feet. His planted foot was expecting only so much force to rotate around it, and he had doubled or trebled that. He went down, landing heavily on his side.

He wondered if he’d broken his leg. He wiggled his foot. It hurt. He flexed it. It still hurt, but it didn’t seem to be broken. Hurt? It hurt like, really-really-damn-I-can’t-even-swear-under-my-breath-because-I-can’t-get-a-breath-because-it-hurts-so-bad hurt.

Kip rolled over, wincing, breathing, and sat up. The heavy bag was on the ground. It had been torn loose of its chains and was lying on the floor. The bag hadn’t burst.

It had just … Fuck.

It had just fallen over.

It lay there, mocking him. He stood up. Oh wow. That really hurt. He hobbled over to it. Nope, the heavy bag had definitely not burst. The same loose threads were still simply loose.

Mocking him.

But Kip had heard two cracks simultaneously. If one had been the torn leather hanger on top of the heavy bag, what was the other one? The heavy bag slapping onto the ground? No.

The second crack had come from inside the heavy bag. Kip was certain of it.

Well, hell with it. He was already going to have to explain the broken bag to Commander Ironfist—come to think of it, he was already going to be kicked out of the Blackguard sooner or later—so what did he have to lose?

He looked over at the blue light and drafted a little blue knife. Sitting, he poised the knife over the stitching where the loose threads were.

Months of punching this thing, for one reason. All that time, trying to do one stupid thing, failing to do one stupid thing, and now he was giving it up? I really wanted to punch this bag open. Ah, well.

The bag came open in moments, and revealed … sawdust. Kip sat cross-legged on the floor and plunged his hand into the sawdust, making a mess on the floor. Already gone this far …

He only had to root around for a few moments when he felt it. A box, deep inside the middle and top of the heavy bag, where few of the strongest blows would land. Soon, he had it out.

It took his breath. He knew this card box. No, not a card box. The card box. Olivewood and ivory, just large enough to hold one large deck. This was Janus Borig’s card box, the one she’d hidden from the people who’d murdered her. The box that he’d happily given to his father Gavin. The precious wood was cracked, right in the middle, from Kip’s kick.

Oops.

He shook off the sawdust and, with trembling hands, opened the box. The new cards were there. All the precious cards—a treasure beyond imagining, the hidden truths of kings and satraps and Colors and many of the greatest women and men alive today and in the last two hundred years. They were all here.

Gavin must have known that with how often he was gone, his things would be searched. So he’d hidden it here, where it would only be found by either Kip or Ironfist. Which of course brought up the obvious problem. Where could he hide such a treasure, when he’d shown how terrible he was at hiding anything and Andross Guile had shown how ready he was to violate Kip’s privacy. Or should he turn over the cards, take Andross’s deal? Turning over the cards would mean Kip had given up on his father.

But that could wait.

A chill passed over his sweat-damp forearms, tingled down the length of his spine and up into his scalp. Kip stood, disrupting the heavy bag. More sawdust poured out onto the floor. He was going to pay for that mess. But it wasn’t just sawdust. There was another card box—one Kip had seen before, briefly. Andross Guile’s own card box: the one he’d asked if Kip had stolen. Gavin had stolen it.

And now Kip had it.

But that could wait, too. He had the cards. Janus Borig’s life’s work. Her masterpieces. Wonders of the world. Kip had scanned these cards once, when he hadn’t known anything. He was giddy, trembling. He opened the broken box and lifted the entire deck out.

A shot of joy, as intense and burning as straight brandy, went through him.