The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,160

from an unbearably shitty life with the point of her blade. No one would raise a complaint. Such kids were disposable.

Just like me.

Maybe that was it. Once you stop telling yourself how much you’re not like your neighbor, suddenly someone murdering your neighbor takes on a different hue.

Teia’d advanced in perfect time on the path to perfect conscience-lessness, hitting every beat, every step required, a compliant partner taking the devil’s hand and following the devil’s lead, and dancing to his tune, whirling round and round, skirts and morals flying as she spun, the dance floor itself a vortex to oblivion.

He had his hands up her skirts already.

All she had to do was to tell herself that one more step didn’t matter, that she’d come this far, and this far was too far to give up now, that she’d be throwing away all her work—all her damnation—for nothing if she didn’t kill this One Last Time. What, really, was the difference between twenty-seven kills and twenty-eight?

But dancing with the devil was damning enough. She wasn’t gonna get in bed with him, take his seed, and watch herself grow into another Murder Sharp.

She flexed and massaged her legs to keep them from cramping.

This waiting thing wasn’t good for her. Gave her too much time to think, and she went all sideways when she thought too much. Got maudlin. Full of regrets and hypothetical questions.

What would life be like if I’d gone with the Mighty?

Yeah, like that one.

Oh, poor Teia. Barf.

Besides, I’m not waiting. I’m stalking. I’m not sitting around hoping for a chance to murder someone. I’m hunting. I’m fierce. Even a little frightening.

Not a ghost; she was more like a fox, as her old shimmercloak showed. Not that she was particularly keen of hearing nor of smell. But if you dunked her in water, she did look about as small and frightening as a squirrel.

Ergo, practically indistinguishable from a fox.

No, no, that wasn’t it.

No, she was nocturnal like a fox.

Mmm, well, not entirely nocturnal. Her prey didn’t go about solely in the dark, so obviously she didn’t either, but she was nocturnal-y. That’s when the Order always met. At night, out of the sight of Orholam’s Eye, the sun.

And like a fox she was very focused. Her eyes locked onto her target and she didn’t let anything distract her as she glided toward her prey on silent paws. She let nothing interfere with her missions.

Which . . . makes me very concerned with my nocturnal-y missions.

I’m not a fox, I’m a teenage boy.

She nearly laughed out loud despite the danger and the dark. Hell, maybe because of it. Orholam’s balls, she’d actually slapped her forehead. While on a mission!

But she paid that no heed. Instead, she tried to remember exactly how she’d come to the punch line so she could tell . . .

Kip.

It was a kick in the stones.

Gavin’s wasn’t the only ship that had sailed, was it? Kip was gone, and gone in more ways than one. Gone so that even if he came back to the Jaspers, he could never come back to Teia.

Enough! Come on, she wished she could tell any of the Mighty. Ben would laugh. Ferkudi would bray—when he got it in a week or so. Big Leo would grin despite himself, and Cruxer would sternly disapprove, but if she watched him, she’d see a lip twitch. But they were gone, too. Fighting, out there somewhere in the thick of it. Even if they came back, they’d come back different, suspicious, uncertain at first whether she could understand or whether she was one of them now—the gawkers, the people who asked you if you’d killed anyone, and how did it feel, or what the worst thing you’d seen was. But they’d warm, those boys of hers. They’d laugh, eventually, and they’d be her friends again, once they saw that she understood, once they saw that she’d waded in shit and hadn’t come out clean, either.

But she had to brace herself that not all of them would come back. Worse, she had to brace herself that one or more of them wouldn’t come back because she hadn’t been there to guard their backs, seeing what they couldn’t see.

Oh, did we reschedule the pity party? And I showed up without my hankie!

Teia huffed. She wondered if she should start chewing khat to help her keep focused.

You know what? Fuck the Mighty and all this crybaby shit, she just wanted a friend to be able to tell a