The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,186

“it’s about as funny as a fart joke. And less mature.”

“I love flatus quips,” Quentin protested.

“Yeah, see?!” she said. “Flatus? I mean, even that was dignified! Is that actually the proper name for—”

“It was actually a joke,” he said.

She stopped. “Oh.”

“Pretty bad, huh? Now you owe me a bad joke. C’mon, I even made it be a fart joke,” he said. “Meet me halfway here.”

“Okay. Fine.” She tried to think of a different joke quickly. Something less gross. Some actual fart joke she’d heard. There had been off-color jokes in the barracks every day. But of course now she couldn’t think of a single one.

She covered her face with her hands. I can’t believe I’m doing this. “So I was out following a bad guy, and he’d gone inside this hovel with what I thought was his mistress and I had to wait for them to finish fu . . . meeting.” She grimaced. “Anyway, when I first started doing this, I thought I was going to be like an avenging ghost, and all of a sudden I thought I was more like a fox, like my old shimmercloak—it had a fox on it?” This is awful. “Like I’m this fierce, keen, silent hunter who stalks unseen at night to kill, you know?”

“Uh-huh?” Quentin said.

“But then I thought, well, I don’t only work at night, so I’m not entirely nocturnal. More like nocturnal-y.” The worst joke ever. “But I am really focused on my missions. So, you know, I’m really worried about my nocturnal-y missions. So I thought, I’m not a fox. I’m a teenage boy!”

Quentin stared at her blankly.

“You know, a, a . . .”

Nothing. Total blank.

“What’s a nocturnal emission?” Quentin asked.

The blood drained out of her face. No, no. Hell, no. She was not going to explain that!

“I think I’ve heard the term before,” Quentin said, “but when I looked it up, it wasn’t in any of the luxiats’ dictionaries. Is it a specialized term? From what field? I’m so sorry, the whole joke hinges on that, and I’ve failed you. Maybe you could define it for me and then tell me the whole joke again?”

But then she noticed a tiny twitch of his lips.

“You asshole!” she said.

He burst out laughing. “Ah! the look on your face!”

“Goddammit, Quentin!”

“Easy, easy with the blasphemy!” he said, still laughing.

Oh, that was right. “Sorry, sorry,” she said. Swearing and jokes about wet dreams were fair game, but saying ‘God’ was out of bounds. Or was it the ‘damn’ part? Her mouth twisted. “We are really different from each other, aren’t we?”

“Oh, absolutely,” he said. “But . . . also very much alike. I mean, you could say I’m like a fox and you’re like a teenage—”

“Quentin!”

They both laughed, and Teia realized that for a precious hour, she hadn’t felt alone.

And when she left to go do more terrible, necessary things, she banked that memory like a little glowing ember in her heart. She would take it out later, and breathe on it, and bask in that little warm glow.

That, that right there, is what it feels like to be human. That’s what it feels like to have a friend.

She didn’t know what her future held, but she knew she would need it.

Chapter 52

“Satrap Corvan Danavis is bringing his fleet here. To celebrate Sun Day with the Chromeria, he says,” the diplomat Anjali Gates said.

Karris’s breath caught. “ ‘Fleet’? So our spies were right? But how’d he get a fleet? How could he afford that? The new Tyreans have nothing. Do you have any guesses on the number of drafters? Soldiers?”

The older woman fanned herself, though the morning was cool in Karris’s rooms high in the Chromeria. The head of the diplomatic corps had come out of retirement to serve in the satrapies’ time of need, and had proven herself a dozen times over.

“Not guesses. He told me the numbers himself, and from my experience, what he said seemed right. Four hundred drafters, four thousand fighters. He said he’d like to recruit among the pilgrims and drafters visiting the Chromeria while he’s here, to pull together an expeditionary force against the White King. He would need to be in direct control, with a very specific writ of authority, and he gave details on exactly what funding, logistical support, and intelligence he’d need. It is quite impressive in both scope and completeness.”

Taking up the pages and pages of requests, Karris was struck for a moment by the fact that she now knew exactly what