That was a treasure beyond words, and it was what made the Blackguards the best in all the world. That was what Aram lacked. His selfishness was poison to the heart of the one most valuable thing the Blackguard had.

But he couldn’t see it, and that wasn’t reason to hate him. It was reason to pity him.

“Aram,” Kip said. He saw the insignia on the young man’s lapel. “Lieutenant.” Respectful, but not deferring.

And the grief was gone. There was only hatred there, but Kip was unmoved by it, even as the squad bristled at Aram’s open sneer.

Aram said, “Search them. No one may go armed with the Spectrum meeting on this level.”

A Lightguard came forward to search and disarm Kip, and Kip was suddenly tired. They were really going to play this? Again?

“Uh-uh,” he said. He pushed the Lightguard’s hand aside.

With a voice equally tired, bored, and exasperated, Kip said, “I’m a full-spectrum polychrome. This is the best squad among the Blackguard initiates. We are weapons. There’s no such thing as disarming us. And we, for our part, are compelled as Blackguards not to let ourselves be disarmed within the Chromeria itself. It goes to the very heart of who we are. We are those who are trusted with weapons here. We make ourselves slaves to earn that trust. So what you’re asking is both pointless for you and impossible for us.” Kip said the words to the man who was approaching him, but they were for Aram, and more than that, for Grinwoody.

“Grinwoody,” Kip said, still bored, not turning his head to look at the slave, and still deliberately using his name in order to offend. “Use that unctuous voice of yours and the authority my grandfather has so mysteriously granted you, and clear this rabble.”

The sour look on Grinwoody’s face was worth a thousand nights in hell. He waved the Lightguards away, and together, the squad walked past.

But then Grinwoody stopped before they got to the council chambers. He put a hand on Kip’s arm. “A moment, young master,” he said.

Kip stopped, suspicious.

“Let me tell you how this is going to go,” Grinwoody said. He didn’t wait for Kip to acquiesce. He kept talking. “Your grandfather will berate you and accuse you of something. You will protest loudly—shouting is good, but not for too long. We need a spectacle, not a fight. And then he will banish you.

“You will then have one hour until the promachos publicly changes his mind and orders you brought in for questioning. Don’t be captured. The girl and a luxiat will meet you at red dock five, where her ship is anchored. Get the wedding taken care of before you leave the island. You understand? It must be done here, publicly, or the deal’s off.”

“Breaker,” Cruxer said, worried, “what is this?”

“It’s survival.”

The squad said nothing. Kip didn’t look back. Blackguards got used to following those they thought were making mistakes or endangering themselves recklessly, and though the squad hadn’t yet taken final vows, they’d still seen the attitude modeled enough times that they could emulate it.

“We go where you go,” Cruxer said. Anyone who didn’t know Cruxer as well as Kip did would have missed the sorrow in his tone. Dear Orholam, it was going to be hard to say goodbye. Maybe it was best this way, though. One farewell at the docks rather than slowly watching the void grow between them and Kip as their duties pulled them inexorably away.

The first Blackguard at the door was Gill Greyling. He’d watched Kip’s interaction with the Lightguards, and he seemed immensely pleased. He gave Kip the kind of salute that was supposed to be reserved for senior officers, then said, “Oops,” unapologetically.

“You’re supposed to go right in,” the other Blackguard said. Kip didn’t know him well. Parian named Kalif, if he remembered right.

Kip thought they were headed for the Spectrum’s council chamber, but instead, this was the Spectrum’s audience chamber. The Blackguards opened the double doors, and Kip found himself staring at several hundred people from the side entrance, with many of them staring back.

One of the High Luxiats was speaking at the front of the room. Everyone was dressed in their best attire for Sun Day, and all the High Luxiats except Selene were in attendance, in ceremonial robes of a particular color or of many. Some high nobles were seated, too, with sons and daughters at the front, in places of honor of some kind. The doors creaked loudly as they opened, and the High Luxiat seemed thrown off his sermon.

From a seat on the dais, Andross Guile stood and hurried toward Kip. He kept his head down as if he were trying not to interrupt, but he moved fast enough that he drew every eye.

As the luxiat began speaking again, Andross reached Kip and motioned furiously for him to go back out into the hall. Kip tried to back up, but with the whole squad and the Blackguards behind him, he didn’t get all the way out into the hall before Andross began. “How dare you show your face here?!” Andross hissed. “I heard what you’ve done!”

“What are you talking about?” Kip demanded.

“Is it that you’re guilty of so many things, you want me to tell you which one I found out about?” Andross said, voice rising. He kept his back carefully to the audience chamber, to maintain the illusion that he didn’t know everyone could overhear them.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Kip said, matching his grandfather in volume. “I haven’t done—”

“You and your squad killed a man! We found him. We found witnesses!”

“What man?” Kip asked.

“In the Six Corners district.”

Kip put a hand to his mouth. Suddenly this wasn’t a game. That was where Teia killed the man who’d been tracking them. He’d thought Andross was going to make something up out of a whole cloth, not convict them of something they really had done.

“There was no evidence that the man was a spy. None!” Andross shouted now. The luxiat in the room behind him had stopped even trying to preach. “Orholam help you, Kip. At best you’re a vigilante, at worst, a murderer.”

“I—”

“What did you think? That I’d shield you because you’re my grandson? No. And I’ve heard what you’ve done with this squad of yours. I don’t know how you turned the best of the Blackguard recruits, but I won’t tolerate anyone making a private army on my watch. What is it you call yourselves? The Mighty?”

Of course they called themselves no such thing. Kip’s head was spinning.

“I didn’t … I wasn’t…” he started to protest.

“Hold!” a voice shouted from the door at the back of the audience chamber. It was Commander Ironfist. It was like watching the axle rattle loose on a carriage. There was nothing Kip could do to stop it. There was no way the commander knew this was prearranged.

The commander was sweating freely, his chest heaving as if he’d run leagues to get here. “Kip was under my authority at all times. High Lord Promachos, there was no—”

“Yes!” Andross Guile interjected, cutting him off. A hint of a grin curled the side of his mouth but disappeared before he turned back toward the chamber, and Kip’s heart sank.

He’d seen that look before. That look was the look Andross gave when Kip had made a mistake playing Nine Kings. It was the look of a child being given an unexpected gift, as if the world stunned him at times with its sheer stupidity. Andross hadn’t planned that Commander Ironfist be here, but he knew what to do now that he was.