Despite the disruption, the House Blacksilver representatives did finish their discussion with their counterparts at House Crimson. The entire time, Theo stood in place, trying not to anticipate a knife in his back. Fortunately, it seemed that the Armeau family really was limited by the powers of the city and they had no choice but to leave the restaurant.

As soon as they had finished their official duties and the negotiators began to separate, Fiyu turned to him with a somber frown on her face. "This is not fair. Matters of truth cannot be decided by duels. Will this truly occur?"

"I'm afraid so," Theo said. He'd been holding back his tension, but now ran his hands through his hair and found it sweaty. "Most places on Fithe don't really care about concepts like justice, they just think violence should be controlled. So unless our House will stick its neck out for me, the only real option is to start planning for a duel."

"That was my question." Nauda glanced after the retreating Deuxans, then toward him. "Do you think you have a chance of beating him? He's been an Archcrafter a lot longer than you have, and his family will throw their resources into him."

"It doesn't look good, but we have six months." Theo might have said more, but at that moment the groups finally broke apart.

Despite all the disruptions, the representatives on both sides appeared pleased by the economic terms they'd negotiated. Tythes had finished off several bottles of wine and fallen asleep, but now scrambled back to his feet. As he followed his allies out, he abruptly swung back as if he'd just remembered them.

"I'll be seeing you in six months! Maybe sooner!" With that, he gave a cartoonishly large wink at Nauda and then marched out the door.

Their group remained a little longer, gathering themselves, and then departed the restaurant. A floating palanquin waited for them, and the lead negotiator gestured for Theo to follow him instead of going with the other soulcrafters. Nauda and Fiyu joined him without getting permission and the negotiator looked too tired to object. Once they began floating back to the House complex, he spoke in a weary voice.

"Do I have your word as a member of House Blacksilver that you aren't responsible for any great crimes against the Deuxans?"

Theo nodded immediately. "Absolutely. I fought only in self-defense, but this is a personal vendetta."

"We recognize that you weren't at fault, and negotiations did finish despite the disruptions, so none of this will impact your earned merits." The negotiator looked back to Theo wearily and shook his head. "However, you are a newly joined member of the House, so we won't provide any special aid, either. We'll support your legal rights to the duel, but if you lose..."

"I understand. Give me the opportunity to work and I'll handle this myself."

"That's what we like to hear. Only one last thing: is your name really Bartolo? We don't care what name you used, but it would be good to have for our records."

"I..." Theo pretended to hesitate, then sighed. "Yes, that's my name, but I would prefer to be called Peanen."

"Fine. Now, let me think about what all this means."

With the negotiator turning to his own affairs, Fiyu and Nauda clearly wanted to speak with him, but there was no privacy in the palanquin. For that matter, they'd need to be more cautious about names in the future, as well.

Overall, he thought that was the least of his concerns. Though he'd disliked the idea of his false identities getting linked, it might actually work in his favor. Now, if anyone investigated him, the secret they would discover was just another false identity. Those were extremely common between worlds, so hopefully anyone working for Vistgil or other forces would ignore him.

Then again, perhaps not. No matter how much Theo thought over the details of the confrontation, he couldn't come up with any answers related to Brigana. Though Esaire might actually want revenge, his grandfather had clearly gone to so much trouble solely to investigate the name. He didn't understand how just mentioning the ai Teraeves family could lead to such an extreme reaction, but the old man had been deadly serious.

In the century Theo had been gone, something must have happened to Brigana's family, and the only thing he knew was that asking questions about it was dangerous.

~ ~ ~

When they finally returned to the House Blacksilver complex, they remained silent. Some of the other soulcrafters were now entirely too curious about Theo, but Nauda deflected their attention. Since it was still daylight, they all marched into the male quarters to discuss strategy. Only after Theo locked the door behind them did Nauda finally speak.

"Do you attract problems, or do you enjoy having them bearing down on you? First the Chasm of Lamentations, now a duel in half a year..."

"Six months," Fiyu said. "There are thirteen months here."

"Close enough. That's not much time before your life is on the line."

Theo took a deep breath, trying to find the excitement that he would once have felt. The truth was, the duel merely annoyed him now, another obstacle getting in the way of his true goals. Its only redeeming value was that the steps he needed to take to win the duel included many of the steps he'd planned to take anyway, just perhaps in a slightly different order.

"There's something I'm missing about this." Theo turned to the others and explained the conversation, including some details about Brigana, though those seemed immaterial to the vendetta. When he finished, all he could do was shrug. "Duels aren't to the death here, but if Esaire wins and they take me back, I'm as good as dead. I'd like to find out why they came after me, but I don't see a path to those answers."

"Could you ask after the duel, assuming you win?" Nauda asked. "The terms seem more favorable to them, considering that you get nothing if you win, but at least you'd be in a position of strength."

"That could be, but it would take place after the duel. The odds are definitely stacked against me, so everything that occurs after then has become second priority... well, not acquiring Chasm Invitations. But those won't do me any good if I'm dead."

Fiyu sighed and sank down onto the bed. "So you are also concerned about the duel. It seemed nearly impossible to me, but I was not sure if you had a special plan from your previous existence."

"The central problem is that Esaire is starting with a huge lead: he's a fully polished Archcrafter and his family will definitely help him ascend." Theo leaned back against the wall and began ticking off the concerns. "I can probably work harder than Esaire, but twice as hard? He'll be soulcrafting every available hour, so not possible. I might be able to find better sublime materials, with a bit of luck, but I'm up against the resources of his entire family and possibly a Fithan House. My blueprint is superior to his, but it's not going to be ten times better than a design refined over generations. So simply surpassing him in six months is a fantasy."

"That sounds hopeless." Nauda watched him silently, her mind clearly churning over the same problem. "Yet you seem to believe there's a chance. He's obviously going to ascend to Ruler, so... perhaps you have a trick to get there too, and you'll only focus on a certain set of rooms you need?"

"I'm not going to try for Ruler at all. Rushing through ascensions is a sure way to create a weak soulhome."

As expected, that got an immediate negative reaction, but not as much as it might have been. Theo felt like in his past life, everyone would have shouted that it was crazy. This time, Fiyu merely tilted her head curiously and Nauda frowned as she considered it, so he continued speaking.

"Focusing on 'catching up' is a failing strategy, playing directly into his strengths. What I need to do is find a way to neutralize those strengths, then have an advantage that can take him down despite the gap between us."

Nauda started tapping her fingers along her staff in a swift rhythm, beginning to nod. "His cantae will be more intense than yours, so he'll win every head to head confrontation. But something like your gravitational torsion would still hurt him, if you have a way past his defenses."

"It is good to have hope," Fiyu said quietly, "but I think there is a bigger problem. Esaire is already very fast, and he will become faster. He will attempt to kill you before you can begin any strategies."

"Speed is a problem," Theo agreed, "and one I haven't entirely solved yet. At minimum, my blueprint has space for a speed-focused room on my second floor. I may need to take further steps, but it will be a question of what sublime materials we can find."

"This is a good plan, Theo. We will assist you in earning good materials."

"What's your advantage?" Nauda leaned forward, regarding him with narrow eyes. "I thought of your torsion technique at first, but Esaire saw it before, and you're not dumb enough to just try a stronger version. You have something else in mind, don't you?"

At first Theo hesitated to reveal one of his blueprint's secrets, but he realized that was a foolish vestige of his time on Earth. These two were his allies, and telling them would only help the group. Since their rooms in House Blacksilver were highly secure, he could reveal the secret there. Theo still sat down and lowered his voice.

"The four techniques on my first floor were not chosen randomly, they're all components of something greater. I intend to open channels from them to the second floor, where they'll all mix into a single technique. This is earlier than I intended, but it's possible to finish in six months, if enough other factors line up properly."

"Multi-floor designs are advanced stuff, but I assume you know what you're doing." Nauda shook off the tension and finally shifted back, giving him a wry smile. "I know this one isn't actually your fault, but you really do get yourself into messes. We'll help you if we can, but we can't afford to put aside our own soulcrafting."

"I can't afford it either: we should assume that Esaire's family might break the terms of the deal. Not overtly, since they need to obey the Fithan authorities, but we need to be alert. For that, all of us need to be fighting fit."

"There is another matter." Fiyu looked first to him, then toward Nauda. "They knew the travel name that Theo used when he joined House Blacksilver. Is that a sign of a betrayer in our midst? Or is that data public knowledge?"

"I doubt it's public," Nauda said, "but I think the easiest explanation is that they paid for it. Information like that must leak out, since it's not particularly important."

"I hope that you are right. Our House did try to help, so I would prefer to trust them."

As the three of them continued chatting about every angle of the situation, Theo let himself relax just a little. Not because he had time to waste, but because he needed to be at his best for what was to come. Given the amount of time, his objective was a marathon instead of a sprint, so he needed to pace himself perfectly.

He had a feeling that this time, there would be no grand coincidence to sweep in and save him.