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  Faol shook his head, not letting go, persistent stupid mutt. “There’s better places to go looking for survival,” he said. “You could be out in the green world right now, playing your songs.”

  “I don’t deserve to be.”

  The words hung there like the smoke in the air in Tinctora, something she couldn’t take back. Orfeus ran her tongue over her lips, and crossed her arms, too, tightly. She pressed down the frantic babble that wanted to rush out and soothe the silence.

  Faol nodded, once. She wanted to bristle at that, but she just felt tired. He was perfectly entitled to think her contemptible, even if his reasons weren’t the right ones. He took a step back and then another and another, until he was just a shadow at the end of the corridor. Everyone said you didn’t need to be afraid of shadows.

  From there he said, “There are counsellors available to our folk.”

  Unbelievable. “Thanks,” Orfeus said and flipped the hilt of her cauterknife in the air, catching it deftly. She shot a wintry smile in his direction. “Of the things you’ve offered me tonight? Between knives and advice? I’ll take knives.”

  The Wolf said nothing else, and must have left. She wasn’t sure he’d gone, even though there was no shadow at the end of the corridor, so she stood waiting at the door just in case, with a prickle in her back, an irrational need not to go inside and leave herself unguarded. She stood in half a trance even after that, before she shook herself and went inside.

  At least it was lockable from the inside, a simple bar mechanism, though the bar wasn’t included. Orfeus put her guitar under the bed, then stretched out her cloak and lay on it. Restlessness still swigged and stirred in her bones, so she got up again and went through stretches, slowly and methodically and painfully.

  Then she lay down again and waited for the morning. Time passed like claws scraping the wall. Like fangs around her neck.

  Chapter Seven

  She vanished without a trace, gone in smoke. After I had aided with the healing and made sure all was well, I went in search of her, but she was nowhere to be found. I purchased a candle of beeswax and lavender to burn for her at the appropriate time, but I did not truly think she was dead. The main thing on my mind was how to extend my assignment; there was so much of the world still to see.

  At the time I argued, and indeed was convinced, that if she still lived she was planning something and may pose some danger to Eldergrove. If I had known Orfeus better, I would have been more worried still.

  - From the journal of Rivasoa

  * * *

  The next day, Orfeus sat up in bed and clicked her fingers in the right configuration. Sparks flew. Orfeus let out a relieved breath, long and juddering.

  She washed after all. Someone had left an oatcake by her door. She ate half of it before the dryness felt suffocating.

  A clanking heralded the Wolf, and beside him, the person sitting below Luga’s throne yesterday, Dormarch. Ve looked to be in early middle age, face grizzled with the marks of drinking, ver nose red with burst blood vessels. Dormarch had ver mask pushed back on ver forehead, but it looked vaguely canine like Faol’s, some manner of dog with red-tipped ears. What were they meant to be dipped in, blood? Wine?

  “I’m the Boarhound,” ve declared. “I’ll keep an eye on you today.” Ve grinned. Ver teeth were jagged. Old, but certainly not blunted. “Not going to do anything, mind. I just watch.”

  “Your proclivities are your own business,” Orfeus said mildly. The Boarhound barked out a laugh.

  Faol looked disgusted. Her mask still covered her eyes. Orfeus sketched her a salute, and Faol turned around and clanked off down the corridor, Dormarch following a step behind. Faolan was louder than usual, a layer of metal armour over the tough fabric or plastic. It wasn’t like Orfeus was that big a threat, so…

  Faol was determined for her to fail. Well. Orfeus wouldn’t be so easily quenched. She could at least put up a fight.

  A few windows let natural light into the base. All she could see out of them at a glance was clear blue sky, which supported her theory about being airborne. The two hunters strode ahead of her, and they might take it badly if she rushed off to stare out the window instead of following where she was told. It made her teeth itch. No one told her what to do.

  It looked like a beautiful morning.

  They took another left and came into a corridor broader than the others, this one lined with windows and people. Boarhound waved ver hand and rattled introductions as they walked down the line, Faol stalking silently beside vem, too many people and animal masks flashing past much too fast. They stepped into a small black room.

  “Best get ready,” Dormarch said almost kindly, and left her there. Faol peeled off inscrutably, and Orfeus was alone in the darkness, in front of a door that was almost a gate. She finger-combed the knots from her hair and adjusted the lay of her cloak.

  The gate opened. Orfeus strode through it with her head high and knife in one hand, the other curling ready at her side.

  The room resembled a battered sparring ring, bigger than Luga’s throne room, a space Orfeus’s house would fit neatly inside and still leave room for the garden. The ground was tough and a little springy, like rubber. The gate clanged shut behind her.

  Hunters of the Wild stood ranged up against her. With an echoing non-sound, force fields went up, walls of blue light ringing the arena and rendering it inescapable. No one said anything, or explained what was happening.

  “Three,” called a voice over loudspeaker, affable and a little blurred: Boarhound. “Two.” Orfeus darted her eyes out over her opposition, names blurring through her mind.

  The Ocelot, in boxing wraps with a curved sword at her hip. The Starfish, a cloaked figure, holding violently glowing whips that each trailed into three separate strands. The Wolf, the Owl, the Hyena and Shark, the Wasp and the Otter. There were too many to keep track of, let alone analyse individually to try and find weaknesses.

  The germane point was that there were eight of them and one of her. No wonder they were all named after predators: she was going to get eaten alive.

  “One,” the Boarhound called.

  All of them moved fast, but it was the Hyena who hit her first, barrelling right into her. Orfeus was on the ground before she realised what had happened. The Hyena pulled out her long gun with the tip glowing blue, but Orfeus rolled and sprang to her feet. She whipped her cloak in front of her face.

  The stunning blast dissipated off it. Score one for thick cloaks.

  Something kicked hard into her leg and Orfeus staggered away. She turned, falling into boxing stance in time to dodge as the Ocelot swung a punch at her. She ducked under the next one too, then flinched as something hit hard and stinging into her back. But the Ocelot was right in front of her, coming in again. Orfeus got off a quick rabbit punch, hitting the Ocelot’s chin but not fazing her.

  Orfeus danced back a few steps, feeling at her back. Some kind of dart, but if there was tranquiliser or poison, it hadn’t kicked in yet —

  Blue light arced towards her, and Orfeus dived to the side and hit the ground hard, skinning her elbow.

  The Wasp darted forward, her mask a thing of nightmares, and lifted a long, sharp knife like the tip of a stiletto heel, dripping with poison.

  Orfeus rolled aside as the knife came down at her, wriggling back. She avoided the blade but it dug into her cloak and pinned her down for a precious second. The Wolf kicked her in the stomach.

  Either could’ve stomped on her throat and killed her. They weren’t going lethal, quite, but—the Wasp stabbed down again and this time it nicked her arm, and her skin blazed and burned. She had to get back on her feet. Thinking so short term wouldn’t help; she would die here battered and bleeding.

  Orfeus got up and flung herself bodily at the Wasp, screaming. The Wasp lifted her blade a little too slow, startled. Orfeus clicked her fingers and clenched her hand into a fist and punched the Wasp hard with lightning trailing from her hand. The Wasp’s chin knock
ed back and she staggered.

  Something hit hard into her back, and Orfeus swallowed a yell: burning, burning, the burning of a lash, fortunately through her cloak so it didn’t flog the skin from her. Orfeus danced a step forward and glanced back at the Starfish with their other whip raised. She let out a ragged breath, lifted her cloak over her face and rolled out of the way. Each time she got up slower.

  “Nothing personal,” called the Shark, the first to speak. The Wolf shot him a glare, but more pressing was the small bomb the Shark threw from his belt, trailing smoke. Orfeus dived and rolled again, this time coming up a little closer to the solid blue light walls encircling the arena.

  Smoke flaring up around her, Orfeus pressed her fingertips to the ground and channelled out sparks. The wall near her flickered. Not quite enough. The arch of her right foot gave a warning tingle.

  Faolan rushed forward in a blur of motion, cauterknife glowing. Orfeus lurched up, lifting her knife, and as Faol brought hers down Orfeus caught it on the hilt. Surprisingly the boxy black hilt didn’t give way beneath the sharplight, but the blade slid off so close to her knuckles that Orfeus jerked her hand back and lost a moment to fear.

  The Otter caught at her shoulders, trying to pinion her. Orfeus tried to wriggle free but couldn’t. She jackknifed and elbowed hard at any bit of flesh she could find, and jerked away and ran. After a moment she settled into a ready crouch, switching her knife on so the blade gleamed. Their armour would turn it anyway. She was in little danger of killing anyone.

  She hadn’t thought she’d kill anyone in Tinctora either.

  That should have frozen her, but it spurred her forward. She darted forward light on her feet like a dancer, weaving away from any who would grab her, and snagged one of the bombs from the Shark’s belt and danced back.

  “You could have just poisoned the oatcake,” Orfeus called. Her arm itched and ached.

  The Wasp pulled out a smaller throwing knife and shook her head. “The point is it’s a fight,” she said. Faol gave a quick, grudging nod.

  Orfeus bared her teeth. “Not a fair one!”

  “Stop talking,” Faol warned. Her claws sprung out from her glove, gleaming bright.

  Orfeus threw the smoke bomb at Faol, as the biggest threat. She didn’t know how to activate the bomb, so it just rolled harmlessly, but the moment where everyone’s eyes followed it gave her time to dart aside and draw out her net.

  This was a fight she was destined to lose. Was the test in how she lost it? No way to know.

  Orfeus ran the net over her fingers, thinking furiously, and backed away as they advanced on her. Backing into a corner, but that was what this whole fight was. She twisted her fingers in the sign for Heat, white-hot glowing, and the net started to wisp smoke and then caught fire.

  The Starfish flicked their whip at her, maybe intending her to grapple with the net and lose her grip. She took it full across the front of her body instead, unmoving. The glowing lines bit through her burned clothes and seared lines into her skin, and Orfeus let out half a cry, strangled. But she gripped painfully tight on the net, and the flames caught at last.

  Orfeus threw it at the Hyena, who was closest, and jerked back as Hyena squalled and clawed at it. The net wouldn’t do much damage, but as a distraction it was superb.

  Orfeus vaulted back until her back hit against the blue wall. Solid light, not burning light, good. She had just the breath of a moment.

  She held up her cauterknife, extended sidelong, to examine the blue-lit flicker, the shape of sharplight. Not quite the same as the barrier, but the same blueglow core. Could she do this? She could try.

  Rivasoa had cast illusions by holding her hands out fingers up, so Orfeus borrowed that movement, cueing her Blood. She told her Blood: Make light like that. Now, here, in front of me, square, pictured it and held the picture in her mind fine and fierce as a song.

  Light shimmered out, a little paler than she wanted, weakly translucent. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a wall of blue in front of her, and through it she could see the eight hunters as dim shadows in a vortex of blue. She must be similarly obscured.

  Orfeus grinned fierce, holding her hands up. The arch of her foot twinged in complaint. Her barrier held steady.

  She had a moment, a precious moment, as the shadows beyond her wall prowled around but did not yet come close. Orfeus breathed, tiny breaths, in, out, measured and safe so they wouldn’t be heard. She stifled a giggle in the collar of her shirt.

  A figure moved close enough to make out the striped yellow mask. “There,” the Wasp said, pointing. “Symmetry,” she added smugly.

  Orfeus gritted her teeth and held her light barrier as they moved towards her. Where now? Run to the ground with her back to the wall, sleeves empty of tricks.

  A bulky figure held out a long object, Hyena and her stun-gun. When the stun-blast hit into her wall, the sensation sparked unpleasantly up her fingertips, and Orfeus dropped the barrier, shaking out her stinging fingers.

  The Wolf and the Wasp and the Otter and the Ocelot moved in on her, all of them. The Wasp held out her throwing knife, ready to stab, and it didn’t seem likely she’d be so easily thrown off again. The Ocelot shifted, ready to hit, and Orfeus showed her teeth.

  Orfeus whirled to the side, grabbing the Ocelot and physically hauling her so her body fell between Orfeus and the Wasp as the blade fell. It sunk into the Ocelot’s side, right up to the hilt.

  There was silence. The Wolf and maybe all of them were able to move faster than sight, but no one moved. The Wasp said, quietly, “Oh.”

  Held in Orfeus’s arms, the Ocelot’s body was tensed, and then it went loose, slack, and Orfeus staggered as she took her weight. She lowered the woman’s body to the ground and peered at her: her face was pale, her wound bleeding sluggishly around the knife.

  “She’s hurt,” Orfeus said, looking up. “Stop the Trial!”

  There was nothing. After a moment’s hesitation the Hyena walked up alongside the others, her gun lifted: the Wolf advanced, claws gleaming. Orfeus lurched to her feet, hunkering her shoulders, standing over the prone body with her teeth bared.

  She sparked electricity out of her hand, channelling it out to one side, into the wall. The wall pulsed, brightly, pulsed again. It didn’t come down, but the lights overhead flickered. The Shark looked up uneasily. Orfeus gripped her knife. “Kick me out if you can,” she snarled. “Just help her!”

  A solid thunk in her side, like being punched. More painful. Orfeus glanced down and blinked. Cauterknife wounds really were a lot more clean.

  She swayed, then steadied. Had to stay standing. “Help her,” Orfeus repeated. If she died here too, no one would be helped, and the one wounded by a physical knife was in more danger of bleeding out.

  But there was nothing, and the Starfish advanced with those glowing whips. Orfeus gritted her teeth and dropped to her knees, partly because she couldn’t stand any longer, partly to get closer to the wounded woman.

  Orfeus pulled off her heavy cloak, her movements so fumbling that it took her three tries. She dropped it to the ground, ready to bind the woman’s wound, and frowned down at it. Removing the knife would cause more bleeding…

  Hm.

  Her foot tingled and ached as her Blood warned her of her limits, but she hadn’t passed them yet. She had burned herself out worse than this yesterday accidentally hurting people; surely she could push herself past her limits to heal as well. But who knew what poison was in there?

  “Help her,” Orfeus said, but they wouldn’t, or not soon enough. Orfeus breathed in, out, steady, the world narrowing down just to her and the wounded Ocelot. Orfeus drew her knife. She closed her eyes, and opened them. One, two, three—

  She pulled the throwing knife out of Ocelot’s side, and blood at once began to flow. Orfeus squared her shoulders and pushed the cauterknife down into the hole. A sizzling, a hiss. Orfeus breathed raggedly, but her hand stayed steady. After a moment she pulled it out again. The wound, at least,
looked a little cleaner. Enough for now, when she had had nothing to wash it out with. Oh, for a surgery table.

  The Ocelot’s eyelids were flickering, her face pale. Going into shock. “Juana?” said someone uncertainly.

  “It’s okay, Juana,” Orfeus said, pitching her voice low and soothing. She was meant to be good at lying. She held out her hands and flickered her fingers and told her Blood to heal.

  She could tell it was confused, though it wasn’t really sapient exactly. In her mind’s eye, she saw a picture of her body, uncertain red pulses in her own left side and down her front and in all her wounds. Orfeus shook her head and pressed the tips of her fingers lightly to the scorched-clean hole in Ocelot’s side. Heal.

  Flesh began to knit together. Not much, and slowly, but it did.

  Orfeus’s foot pulsed with pain like someone had stabbed it, and Orfeus pulled her fingers back. She rocked back, meaning to sit up on her heels, but she fell on her ass instead. Juana wasn’t moving yet, of course. Orfeus put one hand to her mouth, frowning distantly. She’d stabbed her. With a knife. Only a little, and it had seemed like a good idea at the time …

  Something touched her shoulder and Orfeus lifted her head slowly. She was so tired of getting hurt.

  Someone looking down at her, the friendly face of a dog with red-tipped ears. “Can you fight?” Dormarch said.

  Ahead of her, a little blurry, the Wasp got a shoulder under the Ocelot’s arm, whispering something soothing. The Shark pressed Orfeus’s discarded cloak to the wound, his face devoid of smiles. “Smog Sky and Rising Tide,” Orfeus said. She let her head loll back. “No. I can’t fight.”

  The Boarhound stood up. “The Trial is over,” ve declared.