It was midmorning by the time I exited the building with Roel and Alceoi. The latter, to my annoyance, was ignoring all my subtler attempts to get her to go away, and I was too brain-fogged to figure out if escalating further would be damagingly rude. The crowds had grown since this morning, and a lot of delicious smells were drifting over from the cooking stalls. It was overstimulating and my head hurt.

The pentathlon wasn’t starting just yet, so we had to kill some time. I was about to suggest turning around and killing it indoors when Roel spotted Markus, who was talking with Cades.

“I’ll be alright,” Markus said to Cades, patting him on the back.

“I didn’t deserve this,” Cades replied, fingering the laurels on his chest. “You spoke with such elegance.”

“Next time,” Markus promised him. “I’m sure your performance was worthy enough.”

“Always,” Cades said, a flicker of his boisterousness reappearing for a moment. “But hear me, Thala, that was nothing but disdain for an honorable wound. The people of Vitareas are too comfortable with peace.”

“Yo, boys,” I said, walking up with the girls.

“Godsmile, Lady Ajarel,” said Markus just a bit pointedly. I pursed my lips at him. Gotta hand it to the Veleans—much more subtle than eye-rolling.

“Lady Ajarel!” said Cades. “You must agree with me.”

“Sure,” I said, trying to tamp down the burning sensation in my gut and mostly managing.

“Godsmile, Cades,” Alceoi said with an edged tone. Cades’s face turned wary at that. Shit, was he scared of her? Was I missing something?

“Forgive my rudeness, Lady Alceoi, Lady Roel,” he said hurriedly. “I’m just caught up in the judges’ decision—they’ve done Thala such an injustice—”

“Your emotions are running away with your heart,” Alceoi interrupted him. “Center it.”

“Woah! Calm down,” I said.

The look she gave me was almost disdainful, but she seemed to catch herself and reset her expression to blankness. Friggin’ mongooses everywhere. “It’s just the custom here, Lady Ajarel.”

From the look on Cades’s face, I doubted that was all that was going on, but I didn’t know how to pursue it. I needed my brain back. Val couldn’t finish those repairs fast enough.

“In any case,” said Alceoi, turning to Cades, “the god has entrusted our honored judges with discerning the grace of the contenders who compete in his honor today. Don’t forget it.”

“I’m sure he gets it,” I said. “We’re good.”

Alceoi looked at me searchingly, then shrugged with her head. “Then we’re good.” She frowned briefly, then messed with one of the trinkets in her hair. “I think I’ve dislodged something.”

Roel and I chuckled politely.

“Welp, are we heading home?” I asked Markus.

“I’m competing,” he said.

“You’re competing!” said Cades in surprise.

“But there’s no way you’ll win,” Roel said.

“Sometimes you try it anyway,” said Markus with a smile.

“Reputation building or something?” I subvocalized him.

“Next competition I’m going to be everyone’s favorite,” he shot back with an etheric laugh. I swear, the man was just irrepressible. The loss—or not-getting-first-place, if you wanna be technical about it—wasn’t affecting him at all. What a guy.

Then I realized I was being way too fond of him for my current state of grouchiness and did a comm scan. Hand amplifier. I fucking knew it.

*

We got premium seats for the start of the pentathlon since Kuril was one of the judges. Alceoi was off getting us food, probably so she could win back the points she’d lost with me for chewing Cades out. Speaking of which, Cades was warming up on the other side of the arena, near Markus. Markus was trying to warm up but the sling was giving him some trouble, which I assumed was the cause of at least some of the deafening audience chatter making my headache worse.

“I’m going to need to lie down after this,” I told the girls.

“You don’t need to stay,” said Kuril. “I’ll have the servants bring the carriage around.”

“I’m staying,” I said. “We owe him that much.”

Kuril nodded. “You’re both so courageous. Thank you again.”

“Thank you,” Roel echoed softly.

“You’re welcome, kid,” I said, rubbing her shoulder. I would have gone for ruffling her hair, but it had like eighteen overlapping braids in it and messing up someone’s hair over here was like drizzling mustard on someone’s tuxedo while you stared them dead in the eyes. Roel shifted her shoulder away from me with a pout.

“You’re just calling me that to annoy me,” she said.

“Absolutely,” I said happily, leaning back in my chair.

“Well, stop,” she said.

“Saved your life,” I said. “I get unlimited annoyance privileges.”

Kuril started laughing.

“If we’re being precise, Thala saved my life,” Roel countered. “You just stood there and got knocked silly.”

“Hey!” I said. “No fair!”

“She did distract the assassin for a moment,” said Kuril. “Doesn’t that mean she can annoy you momentarily?”

“Yes,” said Roel, thinking quickly, “but only a really brief one. The blink of an eye. So it’s too short to do anything and practically it means not at all.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

Roel looked at me suspiciously. I poked her.

“No!” she said. “You can’t! That was much too slow!”

I laughed and poked her again. She poked me back. “Ow! Injured!”

“Roel!” Kuril said, giving me a glare that said she couldn’t rebuke me directly but thought I deserved it. “Act like a lady!”

Roel and I apologized sheepishly, then made faces at each other. Alceoi chose that moment to return with the food—by which I mean she returned, and she also had three attendants, and they had the food—so we had to quickly shift back to our original positions and pretend like we hadn’t been doing anything indecorous.

In Vitareas the local food culture involved a lot of pastries with random fillings—kinda like smaller piroshkies, if I had to pick an Earth equivalent—so we ended up with a couple platters piled with them. Stadium food is stadium food anywhere in the multiverse, I guess. Alceoi had also found a jug of wine somewhere, which I probably shouldn’t be drinking. My cup was already half-empty.

“These are delicious. How full was the cook’s beard?” Kuril asked Alceoi.

“Exemplary,” Alceoi drawled, to laughter from the other two. I joined in like I got the joke.

The opening words of another priestly blessing told us that it was time for the pentathlon to start. The competitors lined up at the edge of the course, body language full of anticipation. Then they were off with a shout. Markus, surprisingly, was out in front, with Cades close behind him.

Except the other contenders seemed like they weren’t trying all that hard to catch up. The foremost were staying, like, one step behind Cades. And Cades was one step behind Markus.

“No fucking way,” I subvocalized. “He did this with thirty minutes and a hand amplifier.”

“Incredible,” said Val. “Put him up for commendation when we return, commander.”

“I’m guessing Cades bears partial responsibility,” said the commander. “It’ll be impossible to say he’s colluding with Lirian now that he’s publicly let Markus win.”

“Are they…” Roel said, looking at me.

“Yes,” said Alceoi, handing me a pastry. “Lady Ajarel, your friend’s charisma is dangerous.”

I dumbfoundedly nibbled at it as the pack of naked, sweaty men ran out of our line of sight. But not before we heard a familiar voice’s bellow echo across the arena: “Honooooooor!”

“Cades,” I said. “What a guy.” The other ladies made noises of agreement.

I had no idea if Markus could win at the other events, but it didn’t matter. If he placed first here, he’d earn laurels. Against all odds, we’d done it.

I helped!

*

My cup of wine was empty now, which was unfortunate, so I signaled that I wanted a refill. That reminded me that I really needed to go to the bathroom, which I really didn’t want to do, because did I mention that they had public toilets here? I don’t mean like restaurant bathrooms, I mean like literally a bench on the side of the road with a hole that drops into a pipe with running water. I can barely handle the bathroom at Starbucks, I had no idea how I was going to handle this. But I also couldn’t hold it, so probably my best bet was to cloak and hope no one else needed to use it while I was there.

You’d think that absolute social terror would prevent your bladder from betraying you like this, but unfortunately intelligent design is a fucking lie and bodies don’t work the way they should.

I excused myself, waved off Kuril’s offer of an attendant—that would raise so many awkward questions—and set off in search of one of those roadside toilet thingies. But I didn’t look too hard, because if I found one I’d actually need to use it. Yes, I know that doesn’t make sense, but how about you try taking a piss on a public street. See how motivated you are.

I ended up in a street that didn’t seem like it had much traffic, which was great in terms of public decency and not so great in terms of the knife that was suddenly pressed against my throat.

“Be silent,” said a familiar voice from behind me.

Fuck. It was Lirian.

Adrenaline jolted through me. I felt my whole body get ready to fight or run or something, which was counterproductive because if I moved the wrong way I was definitely getting my throat slit. I didn’t speak. I didn’t even subvocalize anything, because I had no idea if she’d notice the micromovements in the region of my mouth and throat. I didn’t dare cloak, because if she forgot my throat was there she might cut it by accident.

The best I could do was a nonverbal emergency ping. Pretty sure she couldn’t detect my soul activity.

“Good,” the cloaky asshole said. “Hands find their way.”

I had no idea what that meant, so I didn’t say anything.

“Lilith, are you okay?” the commander said immediately.

Emergency, I pinged back.

“Val and I are en route to your location,” she said.

“Hands find their way,” Lirian said again.

“Where?” I asked.

She ignored me. “Why did the Vitares hire you?” she asked.

“They didn’t,” I said carefully. Couldn’t press too hard or she’d go after them anyways.

“Unlikely. Try again.”

“Do you have a truth-detection method?” I asked. “Use it.”

“I am,” she said, putting a little more pressure on the knife. “So you have a truth-detection method. Tell me about it.”

“I don’t,” I lied.

“If your next answer isn’t satisfactory, you’ll bleed,” she said. “What do the Vitares know?”

I racked my fuzzy brain for ideas. They all sucked. I decided I just needed to stall her until the cavalry arrived. I opened my mouth to speak, then was interrupted by a stomp to the back of my knee as Lirian quickly shifted her hands to my shoulders. I went down hard, the impact with the ground jostling my aching head, then she body-checked me into the ground.

Then she grabbed my left wrist and jammed the knife right through the back of my hand and into the ground. I screamed. Sharp, sharp pain, whiting out my thoughts for an eternal, excruciating moment.

“What do they know?” she said calmly. The smugness from our first meeting was gone, leaving only cold professionalism.

“I’m just a guest!” I shouted, then screamed as she twisted the knife.

“We can do this for as long as you like,” she said. “We’re shrouded by the Lady of Secrets. No one can hear you. No one can find you.”

I pinged emergency frantically. I didn’t get a response.

“I’ll fucking kill you,” I said.

“Interesting response,” she said neutrally. “I’ll give you a moment to spend your resistance. Then we’ll go back to knife wounds when I don’t like what you say.”

Should I just flash? I didn’t want to, but it had to be better than bleeding out to a bunch of stab wounds. Fuck, it hurt. I could cloak. Maybe she’d think I got away somehow. Except apparently my cloak looked like a blessing of Meris and maybe she’d been trained in dealing with those.

Give her what she wants for now. Minimize stabbing. If I could make it back to the Ragnar, I’d be okay, Val could patch me up.

If he can find me.

“I’m just a girl from out of town,” I tried. “You’re paranoid.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” said Lirian. “And you are ruining things.” She grabbed my hair and yanked it painfully upward. I gritted my teeth and groaned as she yanked the bloody knife out of my hand and started hacking at my hair. It didn’t cut cleanly. Every impact cut some hairs and tore others out of my scalp.

“Ow! Fuck! What’s your problem?” I shouted. I tried pushing at her but the angle was poor to have any effect.

“That’s all you have to say? It’s your hair,” she said. “What backwards, barbarian city do you come from?”

“Your mom,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Congratulations, you just lost your ability to walk,” she said. She dropped my hair and pivoted her weight. Oh shit, she was going to fucking hamstring me. I tried kicking to stop her, but she slammed the knife handle right into the bruise the commander had left on my head. The pain made it too difficult to think for a moment, and a moment was all she needed.

I felt a searing line of pain across the back of my ankle and screamed into the dirt.

When she shifted her weight, she’d moved off the part of my dress where my pulser was stowed. I jerked my arm in that direction, but just as my hand closed on it, she slammed her other knee onto my arm. I struggled to gain any kind of leverage, something that would let me fight on even footing while she pried the pulser out of my hand.

“You treated this like a weapon,” said Lirian. “You have more secrets than anyone I’ve ever met. This continues until you explain who you really are and why you’re meddling.”

Sudden, desperate inspiration struck me. I reached for my etheric cloak, slowly increasing its power to take the bite out of my various wounds. Once the pain was no longer affecting my behavior, I spoke.

“A truth of the eyes, of course. Congratulations, Lirian of Silence,” I said, fading out of reality. “You’ve passed the test. We’ll meet again.”

Then I spiked the power, enough to disappear. Not overloaded like I’d done with Markus and the angel—I liked existing, thanks—but as high as I could manage in my adrenaline-fueled state. The pain of the knife wounds and the pressure of Lirian’s knee on my back faded behind the dueling sensations of “you don’t exist” from my cloak and “holy fuck you so definitely exist” from my adrenal glands.

No luck. Lirian immediately realized what had happened and began stabbing repeatedly near her knee. She got the ground a couple times. The other times, she got me. Arm, chin, shoulder blade. They didn’t matter, the pain didn’t exist. Lirian had my pulser, but I still had my hand amplifier. I reached down. Lirian couldn’t see the movement this time, but I almost failed anyway due to her knee’s awkward position next to my holster.

I grabbed the hand amplifier. No time to program it, every time the knife came down was a chance to hit an artery. I overclocked the hand amplifier’s output and hoped whatever frequency was on there was intrusive enough to incapacitate her.

I barely reached her leg. The hand amp made contact—she immediately stopped stabbing, collapsing off me. The instant we were no longer in contact, I was alone.

I rolled painfully onto my back. There was no sign of whoever had attacked me. I kept the cloak up, quickly excepting the team from the cloak effect in case I disappeared again. Within moments Val and Abby were rushing around the corner.

“Godfire, Lilith, what happened?” asked Abby.

“I think I got stabbed,” I said, struggling to stand up and failing. I looked down at my hand amplifier, which was in my hand. That made sense. “And then apparently I made a really devastating comeback.”

Val immediately snapped his head up.

“Pulser!” he barked. “Check your comm shields!”

I didn’t quite follow what happened—he snapped out a side kick, apparently at thin air, and bounced off as if he’d hit something.

“Attacker is cloaked,” he said to the commander, scanning the ground near him for footprints

The commander drew a telescoping baton from within her shawl. “Get her to the ship,” she said. Val immediately strode to my location and picked me up in a fireman's carry. I was starting to feel lightheaded. I reached deeper into the cloak to make it go away. No. Wait. That’s not how it works. Don’t do that, Lilith.

“Put that toy away,” said the commander to the empty air. “You’ll need more than that to kill me.”

I could see something. Or—a not something. It was behind Abby—

I fainted before I could shout a warning.