The morning sun beat down on the oiled muscles of a hundred Therian himbos. Markus and Cades were among them. Markus’s fame had waned over the past couple weeks, with the crowd’s attention moving to whoever had pulled off something flashy the last competition or two. He was standing some distance from Cades, who seemed like he was avoiding our favorite musclehead.

“What’s the deal with him?” I subvocalized.

“He won’t say,” Markus said, a touch heavily.

“We gotta figure that out,” I said. “Abby, think you could tail him?”

“Your old hairstylist could tail him. He doesn’t pay attention.”

I snorted.

“What is it?” Kuril asked from next to me.

I scrabbled for an explanation. “I mean, just look at them all. Clumsy lumbering musclebrains.”

“That’s why we’re here,” she said. “I thought we agreed it’d be good to expand the House.”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “I thought you meant, uh, just you.”

“Behold, the fruit of Kabiades,” Kuril said with a bit of a leer. “There’s enough for both of us.”

“I’m not having an orgy with my mom!” I waved my hands frantically. “Adopted or not!”

The adoption ceremony had ended up being a simple thing, with me swearing to Gamal to take the Vitares family as my own, and Kuril and Roel swearing to accept me as part of the family. There were a lot of smiles among the rest of the House. Some of them didn’t even look forced! I was slowly but steadily clawing my way back from the absolute pit of social capital I’d dug myself into by ignoring them all in the beginning.

My new status as Ajarel Vitares seemed to have lit some kind of fire in Kuril, though, because she’d decided to go shopping for consorts while Markus did his thing. Roel was at home recuperating; her lack of energy besides, her leg made it impossible to walk.

“He’s reached the fourth round every time so far,” she’d said. “We won’t miss anything.”

That was certainly true for me—I had Markus’s feed up on my comm. Barked orders from the presiding priest had the contenders all pairing off in preparation for the wrestling event. Markus had taken a couple moments to pick out his buddies from the first day here, but mostly he was looking at Cades, who was looking anywhere but at him. His refusal to seek out another sponsor was extremely fishy; the Voranetti had to have some kind of dirt on him. I could almost feel Markus making the decision to win this event just so that Cades would have to deal with him.

Kuril dragged me out to the stalls where young men in eligibility wreaths were aggressively demonstrating their domestic potential. I was expecting us to peruse the selections more, but she walked up to the very first stall. He was a wiry type, brown hair and golden eyes, and he was weaving rope out of a pile of filament larger than he was. I had no idea how he’d carted it in here.

“Godsmile,” said the prospect. Kuril looked him up and down.

“Hm,” she said, glancing at me to gauge my reaction. “No. How about you?”

“He’s standing right there,” I said. He was looking pretty rattled at Kuril’s brutal rejection. “Are you just dismissing him based on looks? You don’t even know his name!”

“I’m looking for a consort, not a husband,” she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Even if he’s clearly skilled with those fingers, his brothers obviously stole his portion at the table. We must be decisive. There are thirty-eight occupied stalls; we must assess ten per round if we want to watch Thala. Now, yes or no?”

“Uh, sorry,” I told the guy. “Not today.”

“Decisive,” Kuril said approvingly. “We’ll check this side of the path and get the others on the way back.”

Markus had paired off with a dude whose name I didn’t know yet, but who I recognized as one of the weaker competitors. There was a whole art to this. You couldn’t obviously avoid people who you knew were going to wipe the floor with you, because then you were failing to exercise the manly virtue of courage. But you could maneuver around in between bouts such that you ended up next to someone who wasn’t one of those people. At the same time, however, those people knew they would win against you, and they’d be trying to close the distance.

Importantly, all of this had to happen under the guise of conversation and general mingling, because otherwise it wrapped back around to obvious avoidance and marked you as a coward. That might not matter for the results of the wrestling competition, but you’d get crushed in the passion events with their subjective judging. So even in the strength events, social skills got you farther. And Markus probably had more social skills than any two of the others put together.

“How about this one?” Kuril asked.

I refocused on my immediate surroundings. “This one” was a hairy dude who was grilling strips of meat with a suggestive expression. I was not at all sure what was supposed to be suggestive about this, but I dislike people who make that face at me on general principles.

“Pass,” I said, making direct eye contact with the dude. It felt great, like I was telling off every overconfident guy who’d made an unwelcome pass at me over the years. His face crumpled.

“The chest hair is nice,” Kuril said, tapping a thumb on her chin. His face uncrumpled. “Hm. No.”

Kuril was apparently picky about her men. I suppose technically speaking so was I, given that I’d rejected everyone we ran into. But I just—wasn’t going to do that, okay?

A couple rejects later we ran into a bare-chested dude with pinpoint burn scars all over his arms and a downright luxurious beard. Kuril stopped to appreciate the view.

“What’s your name?” she asked him.

“I am Bofa,” he said. “A blacksmith by trade.”

I barely held back a snicker. Kuril shot me a questioning glance.

“Nothing,” I said quickly, fighting the smirk that wanted to take over my face. “It’s nothing.”

“As long as you have no objections,” she said. “Godsmile, Bofa. From your presence here, I infer you’re in need of work.”

“Godsmile. My hands have found less to occupy them than I prefer,” he said, risking eye contact. Kuril favored him with a smile.

“I would like to hire you to demonstrate your skills at the Vitares estate,” she said. “I shall instruct the forgemaster to prepare you a suitable task—tomorrow afternoon? With refreshment and entertainment after your successful showing.”

“I would be honored,” said Bofa.

We walked away, Kuril with a look of satisfaction on her face.

“Lilith, are you okay?” Markus asked, already having pinned his first-round opponent in the minute after the round started.

“No one on this planet can understand my pain.”

*

Twentyish stalls and two invitations (both Kuril’s) later, Markus and Cades both advanced to the fourth round. We were a little behind on our schedule—the bouts were like six minutes, so at ten stalls per bout, that was like… thirty seconds per stall? Ish?—but Kuril seemed happy. She hadn’t pushed me too hard to pick out a guy for myself, which was fine by me. My newly developing Velean senses gave me the feeling that I was mostly along for moral support.

Markus and Cades ended up close to each other during the pre-bout shuffle, which might have turned out badly for their reputations if Cades hadn’t called out Peloman the Cartwright instead. From my experience watching practice bouts, that fight could go either way, with maybe 60% odds in Cades’s favor. You had to pick on guys your own size if possible, otherwise you weren’t being honorable. Peloman was the size of a tiny mountain. No one would doubt Cades’s honor today.

This wasn’t normal, though. Usually Cades and Markus sought each other out at this point to see who’d win the right to go for the finals.

“He’s definitely avoiding you,” said Abby.

“It could be for competitive reasons,” Markus said. He didn’t believe it either.

“We need to infiltrate the Voranetti,” I subvocalized. “They definitely have something on him. Give me some cameras and I’ll have them bugged by tonight.”

“Aren’t you keeping Roel company tonight?” Abby said.

“I can do it afterward,” I said.

“You haven’t slept. You need to rest.”

“Okay, I’ll do it tomorrow,” I subvocalized huffily. “Get off my case.”

Markus spoke up. “Lilith, we should chat about—”

He was cut off by a shout from the priest. His opponent charged him, hoping to gain an advantage by striking first. Markus moved to a crouch and lunged into his opponent’s onrush at the last moment, flipping him over his well-oiled back. The poor guy hit the ground with a thump that knocked the wind out of him. I winced sympathetically, then pretended I’d been paying attention to what Kuril was saying. Fortunately, after dozens of men, I was starting to get a sense of her tastes.

“The forearms, though,” I told her. She made a nonverbal noise that meant good point. The enterprising street chef in our latest stall—who Kuril had yet to address directly—subtly tried to emphasize the forearms in question.

“What’s your name?” asked my ruthless adoptive mother.

“Godsmile!” he said, relieved at finally being acknowledged. “I am called Peioripedes.”

“I have no need of a cook. Do you have other skills?”

“Uh—why, yes, of course. I am a painter of some success—”

“Very good. May the goddesses smile on your business.” With that, she swept off.

“We’re in a hurry,” I explained to the crestfallen man as I scurried after her.

“It wasn’t for competitive reasons,” Markus said with finality.

“What?” I subvocalized. “You mean Cades avoiding you? Why’s that?”

“It was subtle enough that the audience won’t notice, but Cades just threw his fight.”

*

Markus won laurels for wrestling. Cades had already earned his in the racing event earlier. Now the Renathion was shifting to passion events. For once, Markus wasn’t heading to the private exhibition area for the massage contest. Kuril had to—she was one of the judges—but we’d agreed I should stay to support Markus. The competitions for singing and dancing had a different slate of judges, appointed by a council reporting to the Visionary, who did their best to appear impartial but always managed to select the Jeneretti’s favorite candidates.

As bare-chested Kabiadesian acolytes swept the arena grounds to clear out the wrestling circles, Markus lined up with the other competitors for song. A dais was assembled from pre-built sections of beautifully painted wood, including a curved roof that seemed designed to grasp at the laws of acoustics. With Kuril out of sight, it was my turn to step up.

I disappeared.

The judges’ seats were placed at the center of the arena seating, the part where it curved around at the far end of the competition ground. The Vitares box was more to the side. This was ostensibly because it was the same box they’d occupied since the city’s founding, but there had been renovations to the arena and the other big Houses had boxes close to the center. I headed straight for them. People saw me, so they didn’t bump into me, but the cloak ensured they would never understand that they’d seen me. I threw myself into a presence meditation, focusing on the fact that I existed, forcing my noetic faculties to aim through the fog I was generating around myself.

I made it to the bottom row of benches without incident. I was preparing to jump the small railing to the arena proper when I heard the clattery sound of people running in armor. I looked up at the source of the noise. Three Oathkeepers, led by Falerior the Smug, rounded the corner of the arena, slowing to a more measured pace once they were in public view. Falerior was holding that rod with the eye sigil on it, and it was pointing in my direction.

I immediately pinged an observe and support request to Abby and sent a command to my eyes to zoom in on the Oathkeeper’s faces, where my comm picked up the meaning of their moving lips.

“—in this direction, but we’ll never find her in the crowd,” Falerior was saying.

“There are two exits in the back,” said one of his buddies, an old woman wearing the same style of armor. “We can block them for now.”

“I’m on your feed,” said Abby.

“You want to stand watch for invisible whispers?” asked Falerior, whose expression communicated long-suffering patience.

“We should prevent everyone from leaving, brother. Smoke her out—” my vision was blocked as Falerior turned to look at her, getting his dumb head in the way.

“Get moving,” said Abby. “Do you need a distraction?”

“Use your best judgment,” I said. “I’m going to split them up.”

My original plan had just been to cross the grounds and climb up where the judges were, but with Falerior and his Magic Wand of Bullshit that was probably just going to turn into a Tom and Jerry chase sequence and get Markus’s performance suspended. So instead I made my way through all the people pressed up against the railing, wishing I’d taken the high path instead, or maybe ducked into the tunnels beneath the stadium. The next staircase was about a hundred feet away.

Behind me, glimpsed between egregiously expansive hairstyles and cheering women pressed up against the railing, I saw the Oathkeepers part ways. Falerior was walking sedately along the side of the arena, making surprisingly good time for all that he wasn’t in any obvious hurry. I lost sight of his buddies, but if their plan was just to block the exits, I wasn’t worried. I had my pulser on me.

I threw myself into presence meditation, keeping the awareness of my soul fixed firmly in my noetic faculties despite the etheric fog I was spewing all over it. The necessity of pushing past people without knocking them over meant that Falerior was gaining on me. I decided to push forward. It’s not like he could do anything if he caught up to me, right? The height difference was like eight feet, and he was a middle-aged man wearing twenty pounds of armor, if I recalled the chain shirt stats correctly.

“Is he tracking your cloak?” Abby said.

“It’s the cloak or it’s just me,” I said. “I’m not taking that risk. Move, please.”

The lowborn merchant woman—when had I started thinking of merchant class people in those terms?—didn’t hear me. I took a deep breath and shoved my way past her, which she blamed on the lady next to her. The sound of the resulting argument faded into the noise of the crowd as I kept moving. Sorry, gals. It’s for the greater good.

“He can’t be tracking you. The cloak should block that.”

“How am I supposed to know what fuckery these guys throw at us next? Maybe it’s like a Wand of Track That Cloaked Fucker and it just magically bypasses everything.”

“That’s—Lilith, what would it even track? Your signal is obfuscated.”

“Bullshit,” I said, trying to squeeze behind someone who needed to bathe more. “It would track fucking bullshit.”

“He’s almost on you. You need to turn off the cloak.”

“He’ll find me!” I said.

“I’ll walk you through the infiltration if you need it. You can do this.”

I swore and turned off the cloak. I was careful enough to do it in that order. Falerior didn’t stop.

“Shit shit shit he’s still coming,” I hissed. I was trying to make more progress, but it was harder to move now that I was visible. “Markus isn’t on first, right?”

“You’ve got ten minutes or so.”

“That’s doable if I don’t get arrested,” I said. “Fuck, Kuril’s gonna kill me.”

“You’re haven’t been—”

“Thank you, I am aware!”

Falerior was almost on top of me, but the staircase was right there. I’d be a sitting duck for Falerior to spot if I took the stairs up, but there was a ground access ramp right next to them. If I could get down there, I’d be out of his line of sight. Maybe he’d pass me by.

I took a risk and dove over the railing. The ramp was made of concrete, and that did not make for a comfortable landing. My hands and elbows got scraped up, and I tumbled into a pile of clothing and blunt force trauma.

“Fuck, ow,” I said, rolling to a standing position and rubbing my forehead.

“Damn, that was a tumble,” said an elderly voice.

I looked up. My eyes widened as they met the eyes of the Oathkeeper slowly walking up the ramp. It was the older woman who’d suggested covering the exits. Steel-gray ringlets hung down from under her helmet and matched her all-too-perceptive eyes.

“Oathkeeper Vanerel,” she introduced herself.

“G-godsmile,” I said.

“Just wonderin’,” she said with a knowing smile, “but have you seen an invisible girl runnin’ around?”