“Before we debrief, I want to congratulate you all,” said Abby. “The mission was a success, and we’re one step closer to enrolling Markus in the Kabidiad. Markus, that maneuver at the end was outstanding. I think the rest of us had given up hope of a victory there.”

We were hanging out in the lounge. Val was standing, probably to enjoy having his own leg again. Or as some kind of test to himself, I don’t know. He was weird like that sometimes. The rest of us were ensconced in the extremely comfortable armchairs. I was fairly certain that they had built-in translators designed to pump out the idea of comfort, actually.

“It wasn’t me,” said Markus with a smile. “Cades told the other guys what had happened. I’m a bit of a celebrity at the moment—none of the competitors are happy about the situation with Lirian. I was in the right place at the right time to serve as their protest candidate.”

“Did Cades catch any flak for that?” I asked.

“Yeah, one of the Jeneretti came down and grilled him,” said Markus. “It was pretty great. She asked if he was sure he couldn’t run any faster, and he was like ‘I could not have run more honorably.’”

“What a guy,” I said.

“And a friend to wolves, too,” said Abby, nudging Markus. It was an idiom on Veles—they mostly think of wolves as battlefield scavengers over there, so Abby was basically saying Cades could kill a lot of people if he felt like it. A lot of Velean compliments work that way, now that I think about it.

Markus laughed, a bit bashful. “I wouldn’t mind a deep cover assignment if it would help the operation.”

That got a chuckle from the other two, while I tried to look like I knew what was going on.

“Really?” Val asked me.

“Shut up,” I said. “Hey, we gotta move fast so Markus and I can re-insert with the Vitareas girls. Let’s move.”

Val smirked and inclined his head a degree or two.

“Self critiques, everyone,” said Abby. “Markus?”

“I am perfect,” he declared, preening.

Abby snorted. “You shouldn’t have thrown your whole shoulder in the way of the sword. You could have had an extra working arm for this whole operation.”

“I am nearly perfect,” he said, still preening.

Val chuckled. “That’s the ideal, isn’t it. For myself, I should have been monitoring Lilith when she left the stands. With proper overwatch, we might have eliminated Lirian when she attempted assassination.”

“And I should have called for backup before leaving,” I said.

“We need to get your social up, too,” said Abby. “We’ll work out a training regimen after this meeting. And my mistake was trusting Max to do dossier work for me. You could have had weeks of prep for this.”

“She did well enough on her previous missions,” said Val. “Personally I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Markus flashed a smile at me.

“Next item: we need to counter Lirian,” said Abby. “Val, I know you did a sweep. Can you give us a confidence level that she’s not on the ship?”

“High,” said Val. “At progressive monophase, using weighted estimates for cult size, Meris can sustainably output around thirty tetrons per operative, and maybe up to fifty for her favorites. In her best case, the scanner needs about sixty tetrons to punch through.”

His lips stretched into a thin smile.

“I gave it a hundred and twenty. She’s not in range.”

“What if it found her but the cloak stopped you from reading the results?” I said.

“That would be proof of an enemy,” said Val. “Cloaks can be intimidating to face at first, but eventually you learn that gods of secrecy don’t understand information theory. I read zero matches, so that’s evidence of absence.”

“I’m satisfied with that,” said Abby. “We need to reassess her capabilities. As Lilith observed, she has not been subtle. That was apparently an act. Her hit on Lilith was executed professionally, and without our synchronous communication methods it might have worked. She also walked away after taking a hit from a force mace. From that, I’m inferring physical enhancement of some kind.”

“A demigod?” asked Markus.

“Best explanation,” said Abby. “A less likely explanation is that she had some kind of blessed armor underneath her clothing.”

“Why is that less likely?” I asked.

Abby shrugged. “Experience. Let’s talk countermeasures.”

At that, the mood in the room shifted. Val’s attention sharpened and Markus leaned forward in his seat. I felt a little warm at that. Lirian was kind of my enemy, but I wasn’t facing her alone. She’d never know what hit her.

“We’ll need to be more careful about our movements,” said Markus. “MDOs should still work on her, right? The cloak seems to be countersignalling the idea of her rather than generating emptiness.”

“Yes. As long as she continues blocking our comm scans, MDOs should work,” said Val. “Lilith should probably work on absence meditations in addition to her presence meditations.”

“What’s with all the words,” I said. “Someone explain the words please.”

Markus cracked a grin and Val huffed. The duality of man, I guess.

“MDO stands for Mixed-Detector Overlay,” said Markus. “We slap two or more sensors onto a processor and it marks everything where their results don’t match up.”

“Infrared will likely be most effective,” said Val.

“Got it. And absence meditations?”

“I’ll go over it with you after the meeting,” said Abby.

I gave her a thumbs up and leaned forward in my chair. “She got my pulser. Can we track that?”

“No,” said Val. “I’ve been trying at regular intervals. She’s either not in range or her cloak is covering the signature. By conjecture, the cloak is active in her sleep, although it’s possible she doesn’t need to sleep.”

“That’s bullshit,” I said. “Lirian is just bullshit in general.”

“The war on the gods isn’t fair, Lilith,” said Abby. “This is about pitting our capabilities against the enemy’s.”

I sighed and let my head roll back into the armchair. “Yeah, yeah.”

Abby started tapping her fingers on her armrest. “We should review Lilith’s encounter with her. She repeated a code phrase twice—‘hands find their way.’ I assume that means she suspected Lilith of being another agent of Meris.”

“Well, I blew that, so she doesn’t anymore,” I said.

“Don’t be upset. That actually tells us a lot,” said Markus. “If they have a recognition phrase, they must not know about each other’s operations. That’s exploitable.”

“You also vanished,” said Abby. “There’s at least a measure of ambiguity there. The pulser will be the key. Her actions going forward will depend on what she makes of that.”

“Androdaima,” I said suddenly, sitting up. “She’s going to target the Vitares girls. We have to cover them now.”

“Lilith!” said Abby. “Sit down. We need a plan first.”

I sat. “Stab stab shoot,” I said, bouncing my leg impatiently. “There, we’ve got a plan. I mean, come on, all we can do is wait for her to come after us.”

“She’ll observe first,” said Abby. “She’ll strike if we give her another opportunity. We can bait her.”

“She’s only gone after athletes so far,” Markus told me reassuringly. “The girls will be fine.”

“She knows I’m some kind of operative. Maybe she changes tactics.”

Abby exchanged looks with the other two. “We can continue this meeting later. Val, can you rig up the MDOs? We should get those planted on the Vitares estate ASAP. Markus, escort him.”

“Yes’m,” they replied, scurrying off to the armory. I looked expectantly at Abby. There was something gentle in her expression.

“Spar with me,” she said.

“Roel—”

“She’ll be safe. Spar with me.”

I took a deep breath, which sounded kinda shuddery because of the motion from my bouncing leg. I clenched my fist.

*

The practice sword slammed into Abby’s foamcore armguard. She had two of them, solid chunks of impact absorption strapped to each arm, and no weapon of her own. I still wasn’t landing any hits.

“Good,” she said. “I like your footwork. Controlled. You’re favoring that overhand, switch it up a little.”

I obliged, going for a lunge that she sidestepped and knocked away with her right arm. I swung from that side, the first just a feint for the follow-up strike at her head. She blocked them both, like I knew she would. The wham of the sword against the foamcore echoed in the sparring room.

“You’re telegraphing,” she said. “I can see where you’re going with all of those.”

“You literally fought an invisible lady,” I said.

“Then you can’t afford sloppiness,” she said, bringing her armguards together with a percussive slap. “Tighten your form.”

I did. We squared off again, then I went for her legs. She danced backward, daring me to overextend. I took the bait, stepping in, sweeping the blade up from the side. Rather than take a hit to the thigh, she knelt, clasping her hands, and threw her forearm into the path of the blade with so much force it bounced away, jarring my hands. She lunged at me and before I could get back into guard position, she was pushing the blade aside with one arm and swinging with the other. I dropped on my back rather than take the right hook, trying to get the blade between us again. She backed off rather than push the attack, leaving me on my ass. I hated this.

“So is this supposed to be some dumb moral lesson about staying cool in the field?” I asked while I got up.

“Do you think that’s a lesson you need to learn?” Abby asked, expression attentive but otherwise neutral.

“I’m not an idiot,” I said. “I know what you’re doing. It’s just pissing me off.”

“What do you think I’m doing?” asked Abby. We circled each other slowly, Abby content to let me initiate.

“Just, like, frustrating me,” I said. I mimicked her tone of voice. “Do you think that’s a lesson you need to learn, Lilith? Are you too angry to perform, Lilith? Aw look, the team baby forgot to learn her social skills!”

“Footwork,” said Abby. “You’re leaving openings right now.”

“Everything’s an opening to you!” I yelled. “You’re a fucking ninja! I can’t just close my—”

I stepped in and swung hard, right at her face, and I probably would have caved in her skull if she hadn’t deflected the blow at an angle that missed her shoulder by half an inch. I swung back at her, once, twice, then shifted into a shoulder check when she shifted her stance to better take the sword hits. She pushed back at just the right angle to overbalance me and I landed on my ass again.

“That’s why you watch your footwork,” she said. I yelled and swung at her feet, but she skipped out of range.

“Do you need to take a moment?” she asked. I bristled at the fucking condescension of it.

“Neh,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” said Abby. There wasn’t any skepticism in her tone, just professional neutrality. I knew she didn’t fucking believe me anyways. Whatever.

“Okay,” I said sarcastically, doing a kip-up. “Come on, let’s go!”

“I’m ready,” said Abby, still judging me behind her whole neutrality thing.

“Just fucking stop, okay?” I said. “I get it, you’re super controlled and everything. That’s not why I’m losing the fucking spar!”

“I’m ready,” Abby repeated. “If you don’t need to take a moment, attack.”

I yelled and went for the left shoulder, driving her back toward the wall. The blow made a solid impact on her armguards that she seemed to brace against. Some animalistic part of my brain registered that as a weakness.

“Fuck!” I yelled, striking the same spot again and again. “Fuck! Fuck this!”

“Lilith,” Abby said.

I threw the fucking sword at her and rushed her with just my fists. Her arms went under my guard but I got my right arm around hers, punching her repeatedly in the side with my left. She was wearing protective padding but dammit I was going to make her feel this—

“Shhh,” she said softly. I realized belatedly that her arms were around me because she was hugging me.

For a moment, I stood paralyzed by, just, everything. Then I buried my face in her shoulder and screamed. She hugged me tighter.

“Shhh,” she said again. “It’s okay.”

“S’not okay.”

One hand started stroking my hair. I hugged her back.

“You’re going to be okay,” she said.

“I can’t do shit,” I said. “I can’t talk, I can’t make friends, I can’t fight, I can’t—I can’t—”

“Shh,” said Abby. “You’re going to be okay.”

She held me while I cried.