"Pick 'em up." His voice was gravel over my skin. Xyla moved to help me. He yanked out his burrowing whip, the end unraveling and glowing bright as an ember. She froze.

"By herself."

My face burned red. The pieces of my mechanical arm lay across the floor, but I didn't dare reconstruct and show him how flimsy my lie was. So I struggled to collect the coins with one hand, piling them back into the mesh bag they'd rolled from, eyes down.

It's just an act. You eat crow every day. This is nothing.

Even so, I burned at the humiliation of crawling at his feet. The last coin had rolled between his legs, and I reached for it, finally looking up. From below, I could see the stubble beneath his chin he'd missed, and the holster for the gun the guards rarely used in favor of the burrowing whips. I made my eyes like the fighter's: a deep, endless pool with hatred buried beneath miles of darkness.

"Anything else?" The words were out before I could stop them.

He smiled. "Give 'em here."

Those three words finally snapped Yerik back to life. Behind the guard he jerked upright, his mouth set into a line of hate as I passed over the coins.

Before I could slink away, the Kaptain reached forward, gripping my chin painfully, and bringing my face closer to his. My flesh crawled where he touched me, but I didn't jerk away. This close I could smell breath like old meat— something we didn't eat in the Belly, but I sometimes found in the Chute covered in maggots. I met his eyes and swallowed my rising bile— and the anger that came with it.

"You're a pretty little thing." His eyes flicked to my arm, where the flesh ended just below my shoulder and the circuitry began. His smile turned ugly. "Or at least, you were." He shoved me away, and with only one arm I fell hard.

"If I see any more coins, I shoot first and ask questions second," he roared to the hundreds of watching faces. "Back to watching."

The low noise of whispers began again as I slid back into my seat. I didn't miss the looks of anger shot at the guards or the looks in my direction: mixes of appreciation, exasperation and relief. Xyla squeezed my hand, her eyes worried as I gave her a tight smile I knew she saw through.

Just as I turned back to the screens, the announcer's voice boomed over the room, "And that's it! Dagger takes it! What a Trial! Unbelievable!"

With every camera trained on him, projected larger than life, Dagger stood, blood splattered on his chest. His shirt was torn from shoulder to hip, an ugly cut bleeding down muscles that spoke years of discipline. He didn't move to cover himself. Instead he glared up at the crowd's gaping mouths, now cheering and screaming for him, portrayed to us in deafening silence.

He'd won.

Somehow, impossibly, he'd won. And yet, Xyla was right. He was a bad bet after all.

"You okay?" Xyla whispered, watching me in the way she did when she was worried.

"Course. That Kaptain's an ass." But I didn't say it too loud.

She stood suddenly, even though we usually watched the final recap. "Let's go. I've got a circuit to fix in the Incinerator district. Yaneli said she could use your help." I knew what she was doing—shielding me from the curious eyes, or even getting me away from the Kaptain before I said or did something stupid—but I didn't protest like I normally would have. Together we made down the long tables, the room still dark as the others watched. I looked back a final time at Dagger, standing in the pit, almost a statue but for the blood running down his side.

He had fought. They all had. And even if all of them were dead but him, there was honor in that.

Xyla thought I gambled because I liked the risk, and I did, but there was one more reason I bet on the Letter Trials.

I was jealous of them.

Dagger stood in a pile of the dead, as I did every week, but after next week's Trial, he would either join the dead or leave the Belly forever.

All my life I'd been too much of a coward to do either.