They walked together around the spindly circle, then turned toward the yellow tower. The yellow tower had been at the back right when Kip had entered the Great Yard, so he hadn’t really seen it. Now it loomed both above and below.
“I think my eyes are full,” Kip said.
“What?”
“I’ve seen too many amazing things today. Either this is just not as impressive, or I’ve lost my ability to be amazed, because to me, this looks like a plain yellow tower. No flames, no jewels, no twisty movement.” The tower was luminous, but otherwise it looked like cloudy yellow glass, translucent, but not transparent. Maybe it was hard to see because the sun was going down beside the tower.
Liv smiled. He didn’t know how he’d forgotten her dimples. “The yellow is amazing because it’s made entirely of yellow luxin.”
“And the others aren’t,” Kip said, not understanding. He blinked. “I mean, they’re not made of their own colored luxin?”
“No, no, no. The others have magical façades built over traditional building materials. The yellow is made entirely of yellow.”
From his admittedly brief instruction with the Prism, Kip thought that yellow was used like magical lanolin or something—it nourished other luxin, but otherwise degraded back into light easily. “Uh, I thought yellow was kind of a bad choice for a building material, being unstable and all.” Kip was just remembering why he had been keeping his mouth shut. The more he talked with Liv, the more natural it would be for him to talk about home. And the more unnatural for him not to say anything about home. The moment they went there, he was going to have to tell Liv her father was dead, and the pleasant ease of being in her company would be shattered. She would go from this bright, glowing, dimpled young woman to a bereaved orphan.
“It is a bad choice,” Liv said. “That’s why this is so amazing.” She pulled him toward the tower’s entrance. Suddenly Kip didn’t know if he wanted to leave the solidity of the blue-yellow spindles.
Sure, a minute ago, I was worried to step out on these, and now I don’t want to leave.
“Yellow is usually the least stable luxin. It shimmers right back into light at the least movement, like water boiling away in a moment. That’s why they call it brightwater. But do you remember when that harper played a few years ago back in Rekton, and he stopped between every song to retune his harp?”
Kip nodded. “It didn’t seem to make any difference to me.” Dangerous ground, talking about anything back home, but if he could keep her talking until he collapsed from exhaustion, he might avoid telling her the news for one more day.
Liv said, “The thing was, he could tell when his harp was even a fraction out of tune. No one else could, though. There are people who can do that with light. To make luxin of any color, you have to hit the right note within the color or the luxin won’t form. If you are only approximately on pitch, the luxin is much more likely to fail. You can cover some mistakes with more will, but you need someone really special to do work like this.”
“Does this have something to do with superchromats?” Kip asked. He felt like he was finally starting to put together some pieces.
“Yes.” She seemed surprised that he’d heard of that. “You’re not really going to stand out there all night, are you?”
“Oh.” Kip followed her into the tower.
“Superchromats can see finer gradations in colors than most people.”
“Are you one?” Kip asked.
“Mmm-hmm. About half of all women are.”
“But not that many men.”
“There are only ten male superchromats in the entire Chromeria.”
Ah, thus Mistress Hag calling Kip a freak. “That doesn’t seem fair,” Kip said.
“What does fair have to do with it? Because you’re blue-eyed you’ll be able to draft more than I can. It’s not a matter of fair.”
Kip frowned. “So you’ve got to be a superchromat to make yellow stay?”
“Short answer? Yes. In truth, even superchromacy has degrees to it. You took that superchromacy test and there were maybe a hundred blocks with fine gradations? Imagine there were a thousand blocks, with the gradations of color that much finer. To make solid yellow that will stay, you’d have to pass that test—and then have the control to draft yellow in that tight, tight spectrum. The result, though, is the strongest of any luxin.”