2.20 Schrödinger's Kitchen

That’s it! Iris screamed. It’s over! Esther remains the undisputed champion of the Starlit Palace!

A massive crowd cheered in the distance as if millions were watching this fight from afar. A shiver ran down my spine. I had a creeping feeling that the fight was being live-streamed to an audience I could not see. Wonderful. The thought of having my failure forever burned into the minds of an unseen audience made losing all the more unbearable.

I’m better than this, I wanted to tell them. I swear!

But I doubted they would care even if they could hear me. All that mattered was that I had lost.

Amid the roar of the crowd, I heard someone in the room with Iris whisper something unintelligible to her followed by the sound of disinterested clapping. I couldn’t make out a word the stranger said even as I strained my ears to hear. But the presence was unmistakable. There was definitely someone else in the room with our Host.

Morpheus? I thought in alarm. It better not be Morpheus. I’m not ready to see him.

I groaned, tossing Kairos to the side as I rolled over onto my stomach to get up. But for a moment, I stayed put, not entirely sure I was ready to get up again.

I felt awful.

Fighting Esther was like drowning in a poisonous bog. You could feel the poison of her technique shutting down your own as you were slowly deprived of oxygen, metaphorically speaking. It was as if she was reading all of my attacks from a notebook. My mind searched desperately for what I could have done differently to affect the outcome, but honestly, I don’t think there was much I could have done. Esther was just that much of a better duelist than me, and I had to live with that.

Guess I shouldn’t feel too bad for losing, I reminded myself, although the self-talk did nothing to lessen the sting of defeat. I pressed my forehead onto the ground. I’ve lost plenty of times before, but this was one of those losses that would haunt you for the rest of your life because of how brutal it was.

This sucks.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gordon crawl out from the safety of his pocket dimension. He looked side to side like a chicken crossing a road before jogging over to me with the urgency of a concerned coach. When he reached me, he stood in front of my face, peering into my eyes like a chef scrutinizing an apprentice’s final dish. I wonder what he saw. A friend to encourage? An entree to roast? Until he opened his mouth, both possibilities were true in Schrödinger's Kitchen.

The cat opened his mouth to speak.

I braced myself for a second beatdown.

But instead of giving the flambée of a lifetime, the cat began to lick my face.

"Okay, okay, I admit it!" I giggled, pushing Gordon away with my right hand. "I'm a trash duelist without my magic."

Gordon’s ears perked up as if I was offering him an entire bag of kitty treats.

“What was that?” he said. "Could you say that one more time?"

“I said,” I repeated, “I’m trash without my magic, you silly cat!”

A loud beep emanated in the distance. It took me a second to realize the beep came from within the pocket dimension. The cat hummed with magical energy for half a second, his fur standing on edge as if next to a tesla coil. His fur didn’t catch on fire this time, though.

“And pause!” the cat cackled wickedly.

I said I'm trash without my magic, you silly cat! a recorded file of my voice said at an uncomfortably loud volume, loud enough for even Esther to hear.

“Save audio as blackmail material,” Gordon said, a smug grin settling onto his wide face like curdled milk being dumped into an empty bowl.

It took me a moment to realize the betrayal that had happened.

"Delete that!" I cried.

Audio saved! a robotic voice replied cheerfully.

"No, no, don't save it!" I cried.

"No can do," Gordon replied, savoring each syllable like the last few bites of a delectable chocolate truffle. "This will be most useful down the road."

“Traitor!” I growled. “Imma climb into that pocket dimension and destroy that file right now. Delete it!”

The cat was gone. He scampered back to the pocket dimension and vanished so quickly I could scarcely believe my eyes. I had never seen anyone or anything move so quickly in my life, and I could stop time for brief stretches. The coward was probably moving the recording to a more secure location where I would never find it.

I nearly got up from the ground and dove into the pocket dimension myself. But when I moved to do so, I stopped. My spirit was too beaten down from my loss to follow up on my threat. I sank back down onto the ground and closed my eyes. In a few moments, the recorded file would likely be beyond my.

But I just let it happen.

This is bad, I thought.

There was no telling what the cat would do with a recorded confession of me stating that I was trash.

I opened my eyes again as soft footsteps approached me.

“Are you still alive?” Esther said with genuine concern.

“I’m not sure,” I groaned.

I lifted my head only to meet a sharp blade pointed squarely at my throat. Esther stood at the other end, her dark brown eyes cold and merciless.

“Then let’s make sure,” she said icily.

For a second, all I felt was fear, raw and unfiltered. She seemed quite serious. I poked my shoulder with my finger to ensure that our dueling barriers were still active.

Oranges sparks indicated that they were.

There’s no way she’s going to hurt me, I chided myself.

But the way Esther held the frown on her face. a small part of me began to doubt.

There’s no way. I told myself again.

For a second, I thought I felt a sharp pain run through my heart. Panic seeped into my vein. The arrow she had shot me with, was she going to to use it now?

No. Please.

“Before you stop my heart with your magic,” I yelped, “Can you tell me what’s going to happen, please? I have trust issues, and it’s gonna get worse if this kind of stuff keeps happening.”

“That’s rich coming from someone willing to take cheap shots in an honorable duel,” she growled.

My eyes opened in alarm. I had completely forgotten about the cheap shot I had made in the second round.

“I’m sorry!” I replied hastily. “There’s no excuse for that.”

Sparks erupted as she pressed the blade against the dueling barrier. I yelped in alarm.

“I thought it beneath a duelist of your caliber,” she said sternly.

“I’m sorry!”

More sparks.

“Apologize!”

“I’m sorry!”

I collapsed onto the ground, playing dead, hoping it would convince her I wasn’t worth the trouble. After a short pause, I carefully opened one of my eyes to see if she still planning to kill me. Esther raised her blade as if to strike again, but as she lowered the blade, she stopped mid-motion. Then, like ice melting on a hot summer day, the biggest smile broke out on her face.

Oh, thank goodness. She’s just messing with me.

Esther lowered her Kairos to the side and began to laugh. I found myself laughing as well, whether from relief or from joy, I did not know. She shook her head as she tossed her Kairos into the air. The blade transformed back into her mother-of-pearl hand mirror just as it reached its apex. As the mirror hurtled back toward the floor like a meteor, it vanished in a burst of light just before it shattered into a million pieces on the cold metal platform beneath our feet.

It seemed I would have to challenge her for that Remnant another day.

Esther plopped onto the ground in front of me, legs crossed, chin resting on the palms of her hands. She seemed as exhausted as I was from the fight. That made me feel a little better knowing I made her work for the win.

“Bravo,” she said.

I realized she was still wearing her smithing clothes, apron and all. I smacked my forehead with the back of my head. If my loss wasn't bad enough already, I had just lost to someone still wearing their work clothes while I was in full battle regalia.

“You don’t need to be nice," I said, painfully sitting up from the ground.

“I mean it.”

She held out her hand for me to high-five. I reluctantly high-fived her. She laughed as she leaned back and stretched her legs out to the side. She rested her weight on her right hand as she gazed up into the starlit sky above us.

“I’ve been fighting for a very long time,” she replied. “That's one of the few things I'm certain of from my otherwise murky past. And you are a great duelist.”

I couldn’t take the compliment as it was. Surely there was more she wanted to say.

“Sure, your form could always use work,” she said.

There it is! I thought. The compliment sandwich.

“As could your lazy footwork."

That one hurt. I prided myself in excellent footwork.

"But the speed and aggression are there."

She knew me pretty for someone I had just met.

"That is difficult to cultivate. A little fine-tuning, some practice, and you'll be back in top form. But you already know that, don't you? It is your reliance on your magic that has made you soft."

She knows! I gasped, startled at her insight.

Esther’s eyes narrowed with glee as she caught the surprised look on my face.

Esther, give him a break! Iris chided. He’s already dead!

"No, no, she's right," I said. "My magic did let me get away with subpar swordsmanship. But no more. Since my magic is compromised, I need to get back into form, quickly, too. Thanks for showing me."

Esther beamed. She was by far the best duelist I had fought so far, and that was considering other monster duelists I’ve had to face like Priscilla, Yeigar, and a score of the veteran members of the Dawn Guild. I wasn’t the best duelist in that group by any stretch of the imagination, but I could take a round or two off of any of them on any given day. Esther was in a league all her own. The only one that might even come close to Esther's skill level was my mother, come to think of it, who was the best duelist I knew.

It was going to be a long time before I could even think of taking a round off of my opponent.

Esther stood up from the ground.

She held out her hand for me to take.

I took it.

Esther lifted me back onto my feet with the strength of a thousand forklifts.

"Whoa!" I cried. "You're gonna pull off my arm!"

"I'm hardly using any strength all," she chided.

We laughed.

Then we shook hands, duelist, to duelist.

Now I saw the wisdom in Iris having me duel Esther now. I felt a lot better working with a stranger now that I knew she was a warrior more experienced than me. It was always nice to work with people who were better at your craft than you were because they could cover for you if you slipped up.

As we released each other's hands, we locked eyes for a moment. It was one of those moments when you accidentally make eye contact and couldn’t look away right immediately at the risk of being rude. But Esther smiled and communicated to me that she was proud of what I had accomplished.

I like her, I thought. I think we're going to get along.

Any reservations I had about her before slowly melted away. Esther might not remember her past, but she certainly knew how to make you feel heard. And that's what mattered to me.

I moved to go pick up the pocket dimension housing the traitorous cat when Esther motioned for me to stop. There was a troubled look on her face now that the laughter had passed. The look was not unlike the face she made shortly before she had shot me in the heart.

“Now that we have established who would win in a fair fight," she said. "Let the real duel begin.”