Silence. The mistress looked from Luxlord Black to Magister Arien. "That is the way he ordered them," Arien said.
"So he's a freak to his gender. Are we done?"
"The key says it should be like this," Magister Arien said. She turned the tiles over and pointed to the numbers on the back.
"You come to me to differentiate the finest red chroma and you think I can't read?" Mistress Varidos asked sharply.
Magister Arien looked horrified. Her mouth opened and shut.
The old scarecrow picked up tile fourteen in her bony claws. She turned it and looked at the edges. "Strip your tester of her position," she said. "This tile has been left in the sunlight. It's been bleached. It's the wrong color. The boy's a superchromat." She turned to Kip. "Congratulations, freak."
"Freak?" Kip said.
"Simple, is he? Too bad."
"What?" Kip asked. He still hadn't figured out what everyone's titles meant, much less what he was supposed to do with all of this.
"Kip, you're forbidden to speak!" Magister Arien said.
"That's an injunction against cheating," Luxlord Black said. "For when hundreds of supplicants are testing in the same room."
"He just came today," Magister Arien told Mistress Varidos. "The Prism himself ordered that he be tested immediately. He doesn't know all the rules."
"Continue the testing," the mistress ordered.
Kip and Magister Arien glanced at Luxlord Black. Kip guessed that, technically, the luxlord was the highest-ranking person in the room, but the man gave the tiniest shrug, as if it wasn't worth fighting over. Go on, he waved.
Magister Arien sat once more, pulled out a set of tongs, and used them to lay out another dozen tiles-except these were all the same deep red. Kip blinked. Magister Arien handed him the tongs. Um, thanks?
Kip reached a hand out for a tile, and then he understood. He could feel the heat radiating off them. He was supposed to see the differences in heat? He stared as if by sheer willpower he could tear the truth out of the tiles.
Time crawled past. Kip started to daydream. He wondered if Liv Danavis was here. Oh, no, he'd have to tell her.
Hi, Liv, great to see you. Your father's dead.
Fantastic. Kip thought about the flames roaring through his town, about that drafter and his apprentice, throwing fireballs. Jumping over the waterfall, running down the waterfall path in the utter darkness, relaxing his eyes so he could actually see better than focusing directly. Oh, Orholam, I am simple.
"Okay, that's long enough," Luxlord Black said.
"No wait! Wait! I just-I just…" Kip stared at the tiles again. Relax, eyes, come on! He let his focus go soft, and abruptly it was clear. Using the tongs, he shuffled each tile into its correct place in moments from the hottest to the merely warm. This was what Master Danavis had been teaching him? The old dyer had never let on that what he was showing Kip wasn't normal. Unbelievable.
The thought of the dyer left a hollow in Kip's stomach. Master Danavis had been good to him. Inventing chores he probably could have done faster himself, just to give Kip a little money. And like everyone in Rekton, he'd been slaughtered.
Kip hoped Master Danavis had taken some of the bastards with him.
"Are we almost done?" he asked roughly. He wanted to be alone. He was too tired, his emotions erratic, the reality of what had happened in Rekton trying to rush in and overwhelm him now that he had a second where he wasn't running from soldiers or bandits or having magic thrown at him.
"No," the old scarecrow said. "Don't bother, girl," she told Arien, who'd only flipped over half of the tiles. "He got them all correct. Show him the superviolets."
Magister Arien put away the hot tiles with a glance at Luxlord Black, who seemed unfazed. Then she pulled out the last tiles, which were all the same deep violet.
Relax my eyes to see one side of the spectrum, so… Kip tightened his eyes as hard as he could, and the colors leapt apart. Someone had written a letter on each tile. It read: "Nicely done!"
Kip laughed. He slapped them into place.
Magister Arien looked at Mistress Varidos. "Why are you looking at me, you fool girl?" the old woman asked. "I can't see superviolets. I'm at the other end of the spectrum."
The younger woman blushed and flipped over the tiles. They were in the correct order.
"Congratulations, boy," Mistress Varidos said. "You can be some satrap's gardener."
"What?" Kip asked.
"It's one use for excellent color matchers, and a step up for you, Tyrean."
The door opened and Commander Ironfist stepped in. "What's this?" he asked.
"We've just finished testing the supplicant," Magister Arien said. "He's a full-spectrum superchromat!"
"You're wasting his time with tiles? I don't care what colors he can see, I want to know what he can draft. Where's that idiot tester I started with? I told him to put Kip through the Thresher."
"You're putting a raw supplicant through the Thresher?" Mistress Varidos asked.
"Wait, this wasn't the Thresher?" Kip asked.
"Do you feel threshed?" Ironfist asked.
"You're putting a raw supplicant through the Thresher?" the mistress asked again.
"He's leaving in the morning. The Prism demands to know his capabilities before they go."
"This is highly irregular," the mistress said. "Who is this boy?"
"I'm right here," Kip said, irritated.
"Regular or irregular is irrelevant," Ironfist said. "Can you and this magister assist in the testing or not?"
"Me?" Magister Arien asked, alarmed. "I don't think I-"
"We can do it-" the mistress began.
"Good, then-" Ironfist said.
"-but I demand to know who he is first."
"I'm right here!" Kip said.
"Don't you raise your voice to me, boy," the mistress said, stabbing the air in front of his nose with one bony claw.
"Who are you, boy?" Luxlord Black asked quietly, even as the voices continued to rise.
"I think I'd really prefer not to help with the Thresh-" Arien was saying.
"You have no standing to make demands, Mistress-" Ironfist was saying to the old woman.
"I'm Kip Guile!" Kip shouted. "I'm Gavin Guile's bastard, Kip."
Silence.
Kip looked from one face to another. Luxlord Black merely looked shocked. Magister Arien looked stunned to the point of tears. Commander Ironfist looked peeved. Mistress Varidos looked oddly satisfied. "Ah," she said. "Then we'll start the Thresher immediately. Girl," she ordered Arien, "go get the room ready. Summon the testers." She looked at Kip. "So, maybe not a gardener after all."
Go bend yourself over a fence, Kip said-but only to himself.
Chapter 38
Liv Danavis climbed the last steps to the top of the Chromeria, glancing around nervously. She was at the head of the short line of her classmates, carrying her chair awkwardly high so she didn't catch it on the steep stairs. At first she thought the deck was empty, then she saw him. Her target. Her last chance.
The Prism was standing right at the edge of the building, leaning out, looking east, past the red tower, studying the ships in Sapphire Bay. Though Gavin Guile was literally twice Liv's seventeen years, he cut a fine figure in the afternoon sun. A sharp V from broad shoulders to narrow waist, arm thick with muscle where the wind was blowing one sleeve up. His copper-colored hair streamed in the wind. He had that odd combination uncommon even among the high houses of the Seven Satrapies of red hair and-instead of the freckled skin that would mark him a Blood Forester-deeply tanned skin. Could it be true? Could this man be Kip's father?
"Liv! Move!" Vena hissed.
Liv started. She'd stopped right at the top of the steps, blocking the rest of the class. She hurried forward, blushing. She knew it was bad when oblivious Vena noticed something. Perfect. Liv was going to hear about this. If not from Magister Goldthorn, certainly from a few of the less friendly girls in the class.