The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,21

heart inclines to mercy, if you love your father, you remember whatever tiny shred of devotion you hold toward that poor man, and you make sure they don’t steal and murder any other little girl’s father ever again.”

She trembled with sudden rage that he would question her love. Cold, hot, fierce, impotent, and utterly misplaced rage. “The extra cloak. You want it?” she asked flatly.

“Do I look like the hooded-man type to you? No. What waits for me is not a subterfuge kind of job.”

“Anything else you want me to tell her? I mean, if I do.”

“It was my father who kidnapped and imprisoned me,” he said. “Karris will ask. But he thought I was insane when he did so. He thought he was saving the satrapies. I have no rage left for him. She shouldn’t fight him. He’ll kill her, too, if he thinks he has to.”

“All right, boys!” Gunner shouted, climbing halfway up the stern-castle toward his wheel and turning to address the sailors. “We’re about to sail to legend—or infamy!”

“Not antonyms,” Gavin said under his breath.

“Wait,” Teia said as she was plotting her course through the milling bodies to still get to the dock. “Why is your father working with the Order?”

“Oh, he’s not. Not on this anyway,” Gavin mumbled to the deck as he folded his old clothing. “This is all on—” He stopped himself, it seemed, from saying a name. “On your old man, not mine. Andross needs the Blinding Knife to make a new Prism. Which is another excellent reason I can’t get off this ship. I’m useless now, but the Knife isn’t. I need to try to save it.”

“My old man?” Teia asked. “You say that like you know who the Old Man is . . . or who she is?”

“I’d love to tell you, but if I do, or even hint, this stone”—he tapped the black jewel on his eye patch, and winced as if it hurt more than he’d expected—“goes through my brain. Nasty little bit of magic, or nice little bit of bluffing, but I’m not desperate enough to call those cards to the table yet. Besides, telling you would only help if you went back now. I thought you were going to kill me. Your father for me. Good trade, if he’s a halfway decent man. Of course, if you come with us, you’ll most likely die with all the rest of us on this fools’ errand. But maybe the Order will honor their promise? I mean, they lied to me and plan to double-cross me, but . . . one can hope.”

“Or one can fight,” Teia said. She didn’t know if she was arguing with him or agreeing now.

Damned Guiles, getting you twisted up inside.

But she didn’t move.

“You do strike me as one not inclined to run away. Which way is running away now, though?” he asked, chuckling to himself. It was a dangerous mood, like he was this close to doing something incredibly rash.

With obvious difficulty, Gavin stood and stared up at the Prism’s Tower soaring high above them, like a man who would never see it again.

“I’m finished,” Gavin said loudly to the sailors.

He meant bathing.

“Draw the mooring lines!” Gunner shouted as he approached the sterncastle. “Lift the gangplank! Rowers ready!” Then Gunner wheeled suddenly and pointed sharply at Gavin. “Guile! I see what you’re doing!”

Teia’s blood froze.

Gunner wagged his finger. “Black eye. Gave you a black eye. That’s funny. Took me a moment. Forgot how you be. Always liked that white of yourn.”

Gavin forced a smile and lifted his chin in acknowledgment. Under his breath, he said, “Time makes a coward’s decisions for her.”

“ ‘White of yourn,’ thet ain’t right,” Gunner grumbled. “Whiting bit. Bidding white. Biding . . . shit!”

Waiting, waiting just a few more seconds, meant trusting the Order. Casting in her lot with them completely. It meant helping them. It meant doing evil, hoping that an evil man would do her some good.

How stupid do they think I am?

Stupid enough to get on this boat.

True. But I’m not stupid enough to stay.

“Biting wit!” Gunner crowed. “Ha!”

Drawing her paryl cloud around her, Teia jumped up on the handrail, running down it to the ship’s waist, stepping over Gunner’s hand and onto a finial as his bearded, bushy head swung under her as he began to climb.

She dropped to the deck and dodged between sailors, past the two men lifting the plank. With a heave, she leapt—

—and she wasn’t going to make it. Her