“Ooh, nice,” Kip said. “But I don’t think I can look at that cloak for long right now.” He was wincing and rubbing his temples.

She looked. The cloak was a drab, boring gray. It looked exactly like a normal Blackguard inductee’s cloak. “Kip, this is amazing!” It reacted directly to her will. She didn’t think the shimmercloaks changed their mundane form. Those only did one thing. This, this was something far more.

He grumbled something, but before she could ask him to repeat himself, Karris White Oak opened the door.

She didn’t look particularly pleased to see either of them. Nor was she pleased to see the mess of the punching bag down and sawdust spilled everywhere. She strode in purposefully, glanced at Teia, dismissed her.

“You did this, Kip?” she asked, meaning knocking the bag down.

He nodded, hands in his pockets. He also had a card box in each pocket.

“Show me your hands,” Karris demanded.

Kip pulled his hands out, carefully palm down, and Karris examined—his hands. Teia blew out a relieved breath. She glanced at her cloak. It was staying gray, like she wanted it to. Thank Orholam for that.

“Beat your own knuckles bloody, while training. Now your hands will be no good for days as you heal, and you’ll miss training. Does that strike you as particularly productive?” Karris asked.

“Learning to fight through pain is good training, yes,” Kip said. “And I won’t miss anything.”

Teia almost gasped at his tone, and Karris’s lips thinned. She was still holding Kip’s fist in her hand, and Teia wondered if she was thinking how fast she could turn her hold into an arm bar or a wrist lock and kick Kip’s defiant ass. Instead she turned his right arm over and looked at his elbow. Then she pushed up his sleeve and looked at his shoulder. She found the wound there.

“So you’ve discovered venting,” she said.

“Venting?” Kip asked.

“Shooting luxin is one way to make your punches or kicks faster.”

“Streaming? You already knew about that?” Kip asked.

“Why are you blinking? Do you have a hangover, Kip? Are you lightsick?”

“I’m fine,” he said.

She sighed. “We wait until after final vows to teach it. Your whole squad’s using this?”

Neither Teia nor Kip answered.

“Figures,” Karris said. “It’s a good way for people to burn through their halo in a couple years. And so difficult to use well that most Blackguards use it less than once a year.”

“A mistake,” Kip said. “Would you have us only shoot muskets once a year, because we use them so rarely in actual combat? The lack of practice reinforces—”

He saw the look on Karris’s face and finally shut up.

“So the bag tore off its hanger,” Karris said. “And it split open?”

Teia saw the problem. If the bag had torn off its leather hanger, that would have taken care of the force of a mighty punch. Or if it had ripped open at its loose thread, how would it then have torn off its hanger?

“I’m Guile,” Kip said, still hostile. It was, despite the incredible rudeness, kind of a brilliant response. ‘I’m Guile’ meaning that he was so far outside the norm that you could expect things far outside the norm to happen regularly around him, or ‘I’m Guile’ meaning I’m a cheater, and go to hell if you don’t like it?

Surprisingly enough, Karris didn’t slap Kip’s silly head off. And this was a woman who’d been famous for her temper. It seemed she was changing, mellowing with age. Of course, the open secret that the White had forbidden her to draft might have had a little to do with it, too. As a red/green, it might have been the best thing anyone could have done to her.

Karris’s face went still, her eyes hooded. “Don’t forget, Kip, I’m Guile now, too.”

Oh. So maybe not mellowing with age.

The chagrin on Kip’s face was priceless. Orholam’s bony knuckles, but Teia kind of wanted to give a cheer for her handler.

“Yes, ma’am,” Kip said.

Before Karris could say any more, though, the door creaked open once more. They all turned, but Teia was watching Karris, and she saw the woman’s face drain of color.

“Samite!” she said. “What are you doing down here?”

“The White said you might be here.”

“Sami, what happened to you?”

Teia saw the squat Blackguard give an apologetic grin. Her left hand was wrapped in a thick bandage that despite its thickness couldn’t hide that what was bandaged was smaller than a full hand.

“Retirement,” Samite said with forced cheeriness. “Or a post training the scrubs and the nunks here.” She lifted her chin at Kip and Teia.

Karris had already covered the distance to her friend. She lifted her friend’s arm carefully. Samite winced. “Samite. What happened?”

Samite shrugged. “The promachos has been sending out squads to search for all the bane.”

“Sure, sure,” Karris said.

“Mine went after the yellow. Found it and destroyed it. Not many wights there, but when yellows go wight, they figure out how to draft a solid yellow. All of them figure it out, it seems. Hell of a fight. Half the squad was new kids, and I was the only casualty. Embarrassing, frankly.”

Karris embraced her friend. Samite stood stoic for a moment, but then hugged Karris back.

“Guess this is what I get for that other thing. With Lady Guile. The last Lady Guile, I mean. Felia.”

“No, no, no, don’t talk like that.”

Teia was suddenly embarrassed at seeing this intimate expression between friends—and also intensely curious, though she could tell that this was a secret she wasn’t going to be learning.

Samite pushed back from Karris and looked at the heavy bag. “Kip, you do this?”

He nodded.

Samite continued, “Your father would be proud. He told me once to give you a hard time if you hadn’t knocked the bag open by Sun Day.”

Which did two things to Teia. First, she was deeply ashamed that she’d been part of the prank to keep that stitch reinforced and the thread loose. Second, it made her realize that Gavin had meant Kip to get those cards if he didn’t come back.

“But, I, uh, I’m not here about that, and I’m sorry to interrupt your training of these two, Lady Guile.” Samite took a deep breath. She glanced at Kip and Teia and shrugged. “It’s for your ears, but I guess they’ll know soon enough. Lady Guile, I wouldn’t have come to interrupt you for just … my … news. I came here to give you warning.”

“Warning?” Karris asked.

Teia was looking at Kip. He blanched. Teia had no idea what it was, but Kip obviously already knew what Samite was going to say.

“When we Blackguards landed on Big Jasper, there was another ship at the docks. A young lord was debarking. He was quite … willful, trying to make his way through the pilgrimage crowds. He said his name was Zymun.”

Kip looked ill again, but in a very different way.

Karris looked at her blankly. “And…?”

“Karris,” Samite said, “Zymun says he’s your son. The White wishes you to report to her, immediately.”