“Need a hand?” I ask the dual affinity water and light caster as I see her struggling to get a good grip on the rolled blanket. Wonder what other secrets she’s hiding? And if it’s worth finding them out.

“I could use a hand, yes.” She steps aside as I effortlessly grab the blanket and hoist it onto a shoulder, drops of blood and brain dropping from the jostling.

“Do you know how strong you are?”

“Hm. I can’t put a number on it. I never aimed to lift a certain weight. My benchmark is being able to wrestle my wife, ha!”

“Wrestle?”

“Oh, it’s important. She gets physical, a lot.”

“Are you boasting, Lou?”

“Definitely.” We share a chuckle.

“…up.”

A whisper of a voice draws my attention to Robert. His gaze is locked onto the blanket on my shoulder. “You say something, hero?”

Mr. Talented gets to his feet, hands balling into white-knuckled fists at his sides. “…shut up,” he hisses with a little more volume. “Why are you laughing? Sebas is dead!”

I turn to Orphelia who is clearly exasperated. “You want to…” She waves at me, giving me permission to handle his outburst. Someone else would be sympathetic at this moment. His friend is dead. He clearly doesn’t have much experience with violence, at the very least violence between people, and is a decent person who is bothered by it.

Unfortunately, I am not sympathetic or decent.

“I wasn’t laughing about your dead friend. Don’t take your anger out on me, I’m not the one who killed him.”

“You…you left us. For a few gold crowns, you stood aside as my friend was murdered.” His tone is steadily becoming more spiteful, his eyes narrowed in a deep glare.

“Yes, I left you all to defend yourselves from your problems. How despicable.” I stifle the urge to roll my eyes. “I didn’t know he wanted to kill someone—” Which I still don’t think he did. “—but even if I did know, what does that have to do with me? Absolutely nothing.”

“You’re sick!” he shouts. “What kind of person leaves someone to die?!”

I rub my brow. “Hey, I’m going to be a little considerate here seeing as your friend’s brain was just blown out of his head. Go ahead and blame me if it makes you feel better. I won’t even leave your ass behind for the next assassin or clumsy caster or hungry monster to pick off. But if you’re going to blame me, you may as well cast stones at everyone else.

“Blame Cecile for being weak. Blame Lanston for being the inferior earth caster. Blame Orphelia, who just saved your ass and killed your friend’s murderer, for not doing it faster. Blame the enemy team. Blame the saints themselves for not descending to save you in your hour of need!”

I pause to let the ridiculousness of my words sink in. “Anything it takes to keep from blaming yourself.”

“This is not my fault!” he shouts.

“Cecile started the engagement. Lanston acted defensively. Sebas and Orphelia held your target in place. All you had to do, Mr. Four Affinities, what I presume your role in this team is, was throw all that talent at him. Instead, you dicked around with mud and ice and asked him not to hurt you oh so nicely.”

He runs at me with a shout. It’s so pitifully slow to my eyes. I catch his thrown fist and squeeze. He screams, dropping to one knee. I drop his hand. “Bell.”

“Coo!” She hurries over. In a flash, his broken wrist is healed. To my astonishment, Robert surges to his feet and strikes at me again, this time with a kick. I catch his leg and yank. There’s a pop and he screams like a gutted pig as he drops.

“Where was all this aggression earlier?” I say with a chuckle. “If you fought with half this fire, maybe I wouldn’t have a corpse on my shoulder, heh.”

The screaming and groans of pain transform into quiet sobs. I avert my eyes from his tears. Ugh. I know I’m witnessing him at a vulnerable moment and I don’t want to. There’s no sympathy or urge to comfort him. Just the pressing desire to get away.

Luckily, his friends are soon by his side. Cecile is also shedding tears, which is a bit of a surprise. Lanston’s eyes are wet but he holds back the tears, comforting his friend with a grim frown.

As Bell sets about healing Mr. Talented again, I turn back to Orphelia. “When we get to the gate, I’m going to need you to stick close to me until we get someone to sort this out.”

She pouts. “I’m wounded, Lou. You don’t believe in me, despite all we’ve been through?”

“I could care less and would rather have nothing to do with this. However, Alana disagrees.” We both look over to the blonde who is moving amongst the other team. Is she robbing the corpses? Why is that the first thing I think of? She must be looking for tokens to prove our story as no one’s dragging four corpses and a metal shell. Maybe something for the families if the bodies disappear from monster activity. That sounds like her.

“I see.” Orphelia’s gaze is full of calculation. “I didn’t think your relationship with Lady James to be significant enough to sway your actions.”

“…it’s significant.” Which means keep your hands off her. Don’t pull us into whatever this is. “Let’s get going. I’m not spending all day here.”

Lanston and Cecile help Robert to his feet. He shoots me one more nasty glare before allowing them to lead him away. Sigh. Can’t believe I was impressed by him for even a moment when I heard about his affinities. That boy is a walking disappointment, at least for now. Maybe the grief will give him some perspective once he’s had a chance to process.

I walk ahead of them, Alana keeping pace with me. When we reach the rest of our team, the three look between me and the blanket on my shoulder. I jostle my burden. “Dead royal.”

“We know that,” Marthe hisses. “I want to know why you’re bringing that trouble near us.”

“Someone once shared priceless wisdom with me. Happy wife, happy life.”

I fake a wince as Alana punches me in the side, grinning at her. Marthe groans and stomps off muttering, “Fucking idiot, losing her mind over every woman who bats her eyes at her.”

“Oi oi, you sure about this captain?” Arthur asks. “I’ve heard about fighters who use darkness from my pops. We ain’t supposed to know about them.”

“I have to agree with Arthur,” William says, nervously fiddling with his glasses. “The death of a royal and a girl who hid her light affinity until she had to reap lives. It points to something we should avoid at all costs rather than invite to travel with us.”

I scoff. “I’m not worried about myself. You may want to watch yourselves for a couple of days. Come on, grab our points. Geo, help them. We’re done with this test.”

“Right you are, captain.”

Why does he keep calling me that?