Page 97 of The Only Way Out Is Up

“Star wants you to know that he did most of the work,” I choke out.

“Right.” Ky looks over at the runic, who flutters his legs and gives a little bow. “Thank you, um, Star. You were brilliant.”

“And… do you mind…”

“Sorry.” She hurriedly steps away from me, which is a relief from a breathing point of view, although the feel of her body pressed against mine lingers. “Just… a lot of emotion to process here. Thought we were going to die. But we’re not! Not today, anyway. You won.”

Her energy is infectious. It hadn’t felt like a win, cowering in Vripiai’s shadow and watching as Quech crushed that girl’s skull. But I had made it to the next round. And Star had triumphed over two of the vaunted Hod runics, for all their slick parts and shiny exteriors. The Mark 6 is fast and strong, his fighting limbs able to carve through metal with ease with the power of yellow sigils behind them.

And I haven’t even shown off any of his tricks yet. A grin starts to spread across my face.

“I tried to take notes on every runic I could see,” Ky continues. “And I’ll see if there’s any info floating around we can trade for. We should be better prepared for the next round.”

“I’ve got a few tweaks I want to make to Star, too,” I tell her. “We’ve got two days, that should be plenty of time.”

“I doubt you’ll get much work done tomorrow,” she says cheerily. “We need to get ready for the ball.”

“The ball? I thought we didn’t have time for dinner invitations and such.”

“This is different.” She looks at me seriously. “It’s part of the tournament, we can’t skip it.”

“But…” Stumbling around Ky’s opulent house with only her and the servants to see my unfamiliarity with everything is bad enough. The thought of a party with the elite of Hod makes my cheeks start burning with preemptive embarrassment. “Isn’t that all about… dancing and such? I don’t know how.”

“It’s easy, I’ll walk you through it.” Ky grins. “Besides, Alzimyth will be there. It could be your only chance to talk to him.”

That makes my heart lurch. Alzimyth, the visitor from Above. Stars, I don’t need to talk to him. If I can just get a look at his coat…

Ky, watching my expression, gives a satisfied nod. “Now come with me. You’ve got clothes to try on.”

THIRTY

I stand with my arms splayed like a mannequin as two older women fuss around me, adjusting hems and sleeves and collar until everything is just so. This ordeal has gone beyond embarrassment and into simple boredom, and I’m starting to wonder if they’re caught in a loop of endlessly undoing each other’s fixes. Eventually, though, they stop tucking and tweaking and step back, and I cautiously lower my arms. They’re looking at me, as though waiting for something.

“Do I need to stand on my head now, or what?” I ask.

The more senior of the two gives a bow, expression twitching not a whisker, and indicates a full-length mirror on the wall. I take a hesitant step forward and examine myself.

I’ve never been much involved in what passes for fashion in the Heap; people wear whatever they can get their hands on, patching and dyeing and repatching as things wear out. Up on Malkuth, those who have the money like bright, garish colors, while the Yesod managers wear suits in a variety of sober shades. The outfit I’ve been given is like some kind of mutant combination of the two, with the basic form of a dark suit—shirt, pants, jacket, plus some extra bits around my midsection—but shot through with subtle notes of brightness. A splash of red around my pocket, silver and gold thread on the sleeves, colorful slashes on the inside of the jacket.

It fits, though. It ought to, considering how long it took to measure me; Ky’s tailor did everything but slap a ruler on my cock. The pressure of the strange garments feels odd, but not entirely uncomfortable. I try a few quick movements, and expensive fabric rustles. My hair is shorter than it’s been for months, trimmed and styled by an efficient young man and then treated with various salves and powders. I resist the urge to touch it.

The maids still seem to be waiting for something. Eventually, one of them clears her throat and says, “Is it to your satisfaction, Master Taj?”

“What?” I glance from them to the mirror. “Oh, yes. It’s fine. Thank you.”

They give a relieved bow and hurry out. I spend a moment—all right, maybe a few moments—looking at myself in the mirror and wondering what everyone back home would do if they saw me like this. Laugh, probably, and throw trash at me.

There’s a rap at the door. “Taj?” Ky says. “Are you decent?”

“Um. I try to be?”

“I mean do you have your pants on.” Ky opens the door and sweeps in. “I hope Saree hasn’t overdone it—” She stops, taking me in, and a slight flush enters her cheeks. “Oh. Um. Hi.”

“Hi,” I manage to say, with the tiny fraction of my brain not occupied with staring.

I’d thought Ky looked good in the dress she’d worn for Pader, though that memory is confusingly entwined with both the image of her slipping out of it and that of her face turning purple moments later. Compared to this, though, it seems like a garish monstrosity. It doesn’t look like she’s wearing anything at all, but rather that she’s transformed into a glittering, ethereal creature, only partly of flesh and partly of gleaming, weightless silver. The dress follows her slim lines, flaring at the waist and narrowing again around her ankles, and matching silver wire descends in weightless curls from her bare shoulders to heavy metal bracelets against her wrists. Her white hair is gathered into an interwoven mass that sits on her right shoulder, looking like it’s about to slip off but somehow never actually doing it.

“You look”—I manage to peel a few more bits of brain away from my eyes—“nice.”