he’d gathered in his right hand, until he saw the stunned face of Lady Proud Hart directly in the line of fire behind where the invisible Shadow was standing. The noblewoman was still seated. Hadn’t moved from her place, frozen by shock.
Then there was splashing as the Shadow realized he’d been discovered, and bolted.
Wine-wet footprints marked his passage, but Kip had it now. If this Shadow was too good at his work to be seen in sub-red, then . . .
Kip’s eyes spasmed to an inhuman narrowness as he peered at the world through chi. Faint skeletons grinned at him everywhere through their flesh suits. Metal in cold black and bones like pink shadows; all else was merely colored fog.
In chi, though, the shimmercloak flared with weird energies, magic boiling off it in clouds like a sweaty horse steaming on a cold morning.
The Shadow stopped running, his shoes finally dry enough not to leave footprints. He turned back into the middle of the room, checking that he was unseen, skeletal hands pulling the folds of the cloak in place.
Kip kept moving his head, as if he, too, were blind.
The Shadow drew a short sword, but kept it tucked down, covered by his cloak. He walked toward Kip, secure in his invincibility.
Orholam, he wasn’t giving up, even though they were all on alert now. Kip couldn’t decide if it was overweening pride or terrifying professionalism that the man thought he could still pull this job off against these odds.
Waiting until the Shadow was close, Kip suddenly looked directly at him. “You’ve a message for me,” Kip said. “What is it?”
The Shadow stopped as suddenly as if he’d been slapped. Kip could see the man’s skull dip as he checked himself. No, no, I’m still invisible. It’s a bluff.
“You’ve got a message,” Kip said.
The skeleton-man paused, as if he thought Kip was trying to fool him into speaking and giving his position away. After a moment, he shook his head slightly.
“Ah,” Kip said, gazing straight where the man’s veiled eyes must be. The air began humming with Kip’s gathering power. “Then you are the message.”
The Shadow twitched as he finally accepted that Kip really could see him. He lunged forward, stabbing—
And Kip’s pent-up fury of tentacled-green and razored-blue death blasted into the assassin and threw him across the room.
The danger past, Kip released chi, and was immediately reminded why he hated chi. Drafting chi was like riding a horse that kicked you every time you got on, and every time you got off. In the face.
Kip fell to his knees, his eyes burning, lightning stabbing back into his head, tears blinding him. He squeezed his eyes tight shut, but when he opened them, they were still locked in chi vision, people around the room showing up only as dim shadows and skeletons and metal-bearers.
Chi was the worst.
Kip willed his eyes to open to their normal apertures, and mercifully, they did. This time, thank Orholam, chi hadn’t stricken him blind.
Big Leo materialized, standing over Kip, as Ferkudi went over to make sure the Shadow was dead. Ben-hadad and Cruxer limped over, leaning on each other, Cruxer looking better by the step.
Only Winsen hadn’t moved. He still perched on his table in the corner of the room, an arrow still nocked, never having shot. He wasn’t usually shy about shooting in questionable circumstances.
Ferkudi stood back up. The Shadow was, indeed, dead. Very dead. Gory, don’t-look-at-that-mess-if-you-want-to-sleep-tonight dead.
It was a mistake.
Not killing the man, but that he’d obliterated him: Kip had destroyed a shimmercloak.
No one reproved him. No one said he should have done better, as Andross Guile or Gavin Guile would have. Maybe they didn’t even think it.
But he did. He’d been out of control.
It was a reminder that he’d been drafting a lot. In its unfettered strength, green had taken him further than he wanted to go. If nothing else killed him first, it would be green that got him in the end. Indeed, he hadn’t looked at his own eyes in a mirror in a while, fearing what the bloody glass would tell him.
“What the hell, Win?!” Big Leo demanded. “Where were you?”
But the lefty still stood silent, a bundle of arrows held with the bow in his right hand for quick drawing, as if he didn’t even hear them.
Big Leo blew out an exasperated breath, dismissing him. “And what the hell’s with you, Ferk? You say you smell cloves—and then shout Nine Kill Naught?”
“My goof,” Ferkudi said as if he’d said he