or possibly breakfast—when you make a green luxin ball of your own. You’ve got the spectacles, a white reflector, plenty of sun, and an example. I couldn’t make it easier if I tried.”
“But I need Skill, Will, Source, and Still. I don’t have skill. Any skill. At all.”
Gavin looked at him sardonically. “And how do you think you get skilled? Skill is the most overrated of the requisites. Will covers a multitude of flaws.”
I keep hearing that. Kip hadn’t even had breakfast, and he wasn’t going to get to eat until he made a magic ball? Fantastic.
They came upon the back of the line. Gavin glanced at Commander Ironfist. Without further prompting, Ironfist said, “Looks like a wagon broke down. It’s blocking half the gate.”
Gavin swept a hand forward, as in, You go first. Commander Ironfist went first, and the impatient farmers and craftsman parted easily for him. Or at least those who looked furious at being pushed aside quickly hid it once they saw the size of the man towering over them. “We’re going to help,” Gavin said.
“Sure, you Parian scum,” someone said, spitting. Gavin stopped and scanned the crowd for who’d spoken. As men met his eyes and saw those prismatic orbs, they quieted, confused, stunned.
“You can have my help, or you can have my enmity,” Gavin said loudly. He unbuttoned the nondescript cloak and threw it back over his shoulders, exposing the almost blindingly white coat and shirt he wore underneath, worked with gold thread and jewels.
He walked on, and Kip scooted close to him. The crowd parted around them, murmuring questions and imprecations. In a minute, they were at the front of the line. At least a dozen men were straining to move a wagon. Apparently, the horses had spooked and veered to the side as they passed through the gate. The wagon’s wheel had smashed into the gate’s support—here actually the Lover’s hair. The wheel was completely shattered, as was the wagon’s axle, and the whole thing was still stuck against the wall, making normal efforts at repair impossible. The men were straining to lift the wagon by sheer brute strength, with a few using long poles to try to crank the mass off the wall.
“We’re going to have to bring up an empty wagon and unload this before we’ve got a chance,” one of the guards was saying.
To Kip’s admittedly inexperienced eye, the man was right. The combined muscle of all these laborers was barely budging the wagon. But the assembled crowd groaned, a few complaining aloud.
“Bring an empty wagon? From where? Through that whole mess behind us? It’ll take hours!”
“You all are going to have to use the other gates today,” the guard said.
That met similar protests. With how thickly crowded the street was, none of the men at the front of the line would be able to leave until everyone at the back dispersed. It would take hours.
“What?” the guard shouted. “I didn’t do this. I’m just trying to fix it! You have a better idea?”
“I do,” Gavin said.
“Oh, sure, you smart—Lord Prism!” the guard said.
That sent a ripple of murmurs through the crowd.
Gavin ignored it. He gestured to the men to step back. They did, some in awe, others more peeved, some hostile. He simply walked to where the wagon was smashed against the wall. “I see why you had trouble,” he said. “But I have a few extra tools available to me.”
Kip, still holding his green luxin ball and the white board, realized Commander Ironfist had disappeared.
He’s gigantic. How does he disappear? Kip looked around, and finally found him. The commander was standing behind a man in the crowd whose hand had dropped to the big work knife at his belt. Commander Ironfist’s huge hand enveloped both the man’s hand and his knife. The commander himself, towering over the man, was quietly speaking in his ear.
As he spoke, the man’s face blanched and his whole body slackened.
Commander Ironfist gave the man a friendly pounding on his shoulder—which nearly crushed him—and stepped back toward Gavin.
“Always running off when I need you,” Gavin said.
Commander Ironfist grunted.
Kip couldn’t help himself. “I think he might have just saved your—” He saw the look on Gavin’s face belatedly. Gavin knew. “Oh. Um. Never mind.” Clever Kip.
But Gavin was back to work already. “I need ropes.” He held a hand up over his head and a bar of yellow luxin formed in his hand and snapped out in both directions, until it was three times the