The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,277

man, maybe in a ship? The Master. He was writing a letter to the Color Prince, a treasonous letter about becoming Dagnu. He was cowled, though, as you used to be. And his hands were stained crimson like a red drafter who’s gone wight.”

“Ah, that’s why you tried to assassinate me after the Battle of Ru,” Andross said.

“That is . . . not what happened. And we both know it,” Kip said.

“No, it’s not,” Andross admitted. “You remember no more of that card?”

“No. Not then or ever. One glimpse.”

Andross believed him, he could tell.

“Now, I’ve fulfilled the terms of my wager,” Kip said. “More than fulfilled them.”

“Tell me about these flashbacks you ‘sometimes’ get.”

“That wasn’t part of the deal,” Kip said.

“They’re part of the cards you destroyed, and it may be the key to saving us all, and who better to help you disentangle a puzzle than I?” Andross asked.

So Kip told him all about that, too.

Andross ended up shaking his head. “Off saving one satrapy when you could have been uncovering the mysteries of the Thousand Worlds that could save us all.”

“Perhaps,” Kip admitted, “but I’m not a man to sit idle while my people bleed.”

It caught Andross up short. He marveled at it. “An honest statement of your limitations, but without apologies nor posturing that those limits somehow make you superior to other differently gifted men. Hmm. I know men twice your age who are less comfortable with themselves.”

‘Comfortable with myself’? Kip thought that was the first time anyone had ever said that about him. But he supposed he had made some progress on that front in the last few years.

“You didn’t get all the new cards,” Andross said.

“Excuse me?” Kip asked.

“Gavin left the bulk of them where he hoped you would find them, but some he considered too sensitive for you.”

A shock passed through Kip, tightening his throat and turning his bowels to water. “How would you even know he did such a thing?”

“It’s what I would do. There are some things I wouldn’t want my own son to know.”

“And?” Kip asked.

“Naturally, I found them.”

“He left them for Karris, didn’t he?” Kip guessed.

Andross Guile only hesitated a moment. “Curious,” he said. “That’s the kind of thing Felia would have done. That much of an intuitive leap, so quickly.”

“Does Karris know about them?” Kip asked.

“Of course not. You don’t show the other players your hole cards, especially not literal ones.”

He flicked his gaze up to Grinwoody, who he suddenly realized was hanging on every word, as if he knew none of this. “More whiskey, calun,” Kip said.

Of course Grinwoody’s service was impeccable, silent, and swift, and emotionless. Maybe Kip should have called him by name to insult him.

“Where’s this going?” Kip asked.

Andross weighed him while Grinwoody served them both. Though he’d chosen a fast-game variant, he now gave no indication of hurry in his manner and seemed not to worry at all about the calamity bearing down upon them.

“The truth?” Andross said.

A smart-ass comment leapt to mind, but Kip the Lip clamped his jaw tight shut. Hectoring Andross wasn’t going to help anything.

Andross waved Grinwoody away. “Go, now, for a bit. Some few things are too secret even for you.”

Grinwoody retreated to stand with his back turned toward them, close enough to hear and return instantly if Andross called. Andross produced a long key, opened a locked drawer in the table, and withdrew a card box. He handed it to Kip.

Nonchalantly, Kip flipped open the box. And his heart stopped.

It was the deck he’d absorbed. The new deck Janus Borig had painted—the deck Kip had destroyed, erased.

“Not originals,” Andross said. “These cards can’t be Viewed. They’re paint and gold and parchment and lacquer only. There is no magic in them.”

“How did you . . . ?”

“Janus had enemies. She kept this deck far from her home in a place she thought was safe. She hoped that if she were killed, some future Mirror would might be able to use these to re-create her work.”

“How’d you get them?”

“Please,” Andross Guile scoffed.

“You killed her? She was too dangerous to you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t destroy what I might better use. And I had many questions for her. Some other player did that, and not necessarily even a major one.”

“Why have me describe them if you already have them all?” Kip asked.

“For one reason above all: it tells me you’re honest, that you’ll make good on a wager, even to me. I had to establish that first. Now, with that done,