The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,99

of the bridge, she slipped into the back of a narrow wagon transporting empty tun and hogshead barrels from the Chromeria’s larders. She wedged herself into a narrow spot where she could only see the sun, and thus not be seen herself, and let her invisibility go.

Without the paryl in her, it seemed the rational blue light from the luxin tunnel did much less to ease her. She felt shaken, jittery, a runner wobbly long before the last lap.

She had leagues to go yet before she was safe.

She pulled herself together, removed and rolled up the master cloak, and put on the Fox Cloak; loosed her belt, letting out the extra folds of her tunic to make a simple dress, colorful banding already stitched to it; pulled up her trouser legs and bound them at each knee; flipped her belt over to the opposite side, red for black; and rolled her sleeves up and her tall boots down. She donned a large necklace and bound her hair tight and pulled on a wig of wavy brunette.

Fear is a tortoise; its jaws will snap you clean in half if you let it—but it’ll only catch you if you don’t move, Teia’d learned.

Teia moved too fast for fear to follow.

Right now, she was just a lazy serving girl hitching a quick ride so she didn’t have to walk. A little innocent mischief. She emerged from the barrels and slipped from the back of a wagon as it passed through a knot of people near an intersection.

In moments, she was better than invisible. She was anonymous. Unremarkable. Unseen.

The bright, rich districts—where the Chromeria’s every be-serifed whim was captured by bespectacled scribes in official green ink and stamped with a reeve’s seal and enforced by women armed with abacuses and bad attitudes and wearing ridiculous plumed hats—soon yielded to neighborhoods ruled by attitudes as foul and condescension as thick, but wielding tools sharper than a quill that writ decrees in a redder ink.

But Teia couldn’t tell the difference between green and red anyway, and here her heart quieted some of its panicked thunder as of a summer squall passing into the distance.

She didn’t let down her guard, of course. It was still a dangerous neighborhood, and the slight but perilous possibility of having picked up a tail was still present.

Her goal now was a series of blind alleys she’d discovered in a slightly nicer neighborhood nearby. The alleys led to . . . well, to nothing. Situated here on the dark side of Weasel Rock, the neighborhood wasn’t the kind to attract passersby, but not quite a slum, either. The locals would avoid a dead end, but they also wouldn’t allow any gangs to take up residence.

Teia could hide and wait for an hour or two for any pursuit. If none came, there was a spot where she could climb out of the alley to a rooftop in case her highly hypothetical pursuer followed this far, actually knew that this alley was a dead end, and tried to wait her out.

You poor bastards, she thought. You have no idea how good I’ve gotten.

No one’s chasing you. They don’t know there’s anyone to chase. The Order doesn’t even know you’re here, T.

From little contextual clues, Teia’d guessed out that Murder Sharp was the best of the Order’s Shadows. And further, that he was gone, which could mean he’d be gone for months yet. That meant any Shadow who might possibly come after her was second-rate. She was just being paranoid.

It was easy to impute legendary status to these people, but Teia had seen a little glimpse behind the façade. Anyone can kill if you give them invisibility. And the Order had to take those who were (1) murderous, (2) loyal, (3) able to split light, and (4) able to draft paryl.

That couldn’t leave that many candidates.

Martial prowess, intelligence, flexibility? None of those could even make the list of requirements.

Being a bit scared made her careful, and that was good when the stakes were so high, but she couldn’t make them out be to gods or something.

She’d take up a position around the third sharp corner, she thought. Just in case she was a bit slow to take down her opponent and there was a fight. A brief fight. That she would win.

Stepping around the corner, she saw the briefest hint of distortion like a floater in her eye, so close she couldn’t focus on it—and she ran nose-first into something that wasn’t there. She reeled