Rowan couldn’t believe his luck. He wound through the whitewashed stones of the Uphill, a spring in his step. Nearby, a few women whispered outside of a brightly lit shop, giggling. Their eyes fell on Rowan’s sash a little too opportunistically for his taste, but he barely spared them a thought. No more begging Arlette for more money, he thought. No more odd jobs, no more fear of having to return home. With Cashin’s grant, he could get down to the real research. He’d figured out a way to stabilize Fulminancy in an object, of course, but could he stabilize it in people? Could he, more importantly, figure out how to stabilize it in himself?

Hillcrest had long written off Duds as those born without Fulminancy, but Rowan felt there was something else to it. There was something else slumbering inside of him— there had to be. It just wasn’t the obvious, crackling energy of traditional Fulminancy. It was why he’d gotten involved with the research in the first place. And well, without a family title to inherit, he had to do something, didn’t he?

He arrived at Arlette’s manor in Downhill Redring long before the crowds stumbled their way to the taverns and rings, and slipped inside one of the back entrances. The front of the manor itself was an imposing thing for Downhill, but fit well enough with other merchant homes in the district. It rose high above the street itself, its entrances fortified with wide, solid staircases. The neighborhood itself was far above the predicted line for Floodstorms, but the Stormseers weren’t always perfect with their predictions; predicting storms in Hillcrest was part art and part science, and Rowan wasn’t entirely certain the science had been settled. So instead, wealthier Downhill citizens opted for raised homes, carefully placed drains, and of course, no basements.

Rowan felt better as he left the streets. The Downhill wasn’t always kind to someone wearing a black sash, and this time he hadn’t been able to change. He untied his black sash the moment he stepped into the doorway and replaced it with a merchant’s red— the highest rank anyone living Downhill could afford. A part of him hated the dishonesty of it, but a bigger part of him appreciated not being stared at wherever he went. The sash flashed with a snap of Fulminancy as he tied it and flipped the switch to his workshop lights.

Rows of green tubes flickered to life, illuminating the room with a sickly but even glow. He frowned, looking at his ghastly reflection in a nearby mirror. The light reflected strangely off his dark hair and made his skin look paler than was healthy. I need to find someone who isn’t Claire to help fill these, he thought, turning away. Ideally Rowan would be able to find someone with a more natural amber tint to match the existing lights of the lower city. Perhaps Cashin’s funds could convince someone to help.

Rowan leaned over a workbench and flicked on another switch. Here, he’d nearly quadrupled the contents of the tube in Cashin’s study. He used metal at various places to give the Fulminancy places to jump to, and in this particular model he’d used even more to counteract the amount of Fulminancy in it. Another trick was an inert gas, pumped into the tube. Without it, Fulminancy had a tendency to blow more quickly, and it also allowed the tube to glow more brightly, which Rowan found fortuitous.

He jotted a few notes down in a nearby notebook, and almost caught himself humming. He smiled. Tomorrow I’ll increase it again, he thought. So far it hadn’t shown any signs of instability like his earlier models had. More Fulminancy would mean bigger, brighter lights perfect for industrial uses. Cashin would have a fit.

“Rowan!” The door to his workshop slammed open, and Rowan nearly dropped his pen. He knew who it was without looking, and simply rolled his eyes.

“I’m not replacing that doorway again,” he said, finishing his notes.

“You won’t need a doorway to keep people out with these glowing green monstrosities you’ve got set up in here,” Arlette said, trailing up behind him to squint at one of the tubes. “They’ll run the other direction the moment they see you crouched over one muttering to yourself.”

Her feet appeared next to Rowan’s little workstation, her boots so thinly soled that she might as well have been barefoot. Still, no tiny shoes could undo Arlette’s unfortunate height. Rowan’s, however, was even worse, as he stood a full head taller than Arlette. It certainly wouldn’t win either of them suitors in Hillcrest.

“Don’t you have someone to swindle?” he asked, still writing.

“Swindle?” Arlette plopped down on a nearby stool, looking offended. She was rather good at it. Arlette was ten years his senior, well into her thirties, and by Rowan’s estimation she’d spent her extra ten years of life perfecting the fine art of always getting her way. “You think that swindling is what I do to pay for all this nonsense?”

“That and a fair amount of family money I’d imagine.”

Arlette waved at him dismissively, auburn hair falling into her face as she leaned forward and peered at his glass tube. “They cut me off years ago. We’ve been subsisting off of earnings from the rings for the better half of a year now.”

Rowan paused in his notes and studied Arlette. “That much?” he asked, unbelieving. Rowan was able to occasionally convince his own family to help his cause, mostly through his mother, but Arlette’s family money supported the bulk of the household— or had, anyway. She nodded, eyes still on his experiment. “How do you make reliable money gambling of all things?”

“It’s not gambling,” she said. “It’s statistics. Each fighter has a win percentage, a likelihood of succeeding on certain days. You can map out humans with math, Rowan. Taller and heavier fighters are more successful Downhill, and if you can spot Fulminancy in one early, you can ride their victories Uphill until they get thrashed in one way or another.”

“But everyone can bet on heavier, better fighters,” Rowan argued. “You wouldn’t be able to make money that way.”

Arlette grinned broadly, leaning back on the stool to put her boots on the counter. Rowan shooed at her feet, but she kept them there anyway. “Of course I can’t make money that way— or not much, anyway. The real money is in the discrepancies,” she said. “Pay attention to patterns and you’ll learn who breaks the pattern— those are where you can make the real money, Rowan. Which reminds me—“ She pulled a handful of card stock out of her pocket, penned in her no-nonsense handwriting. “I need you to take these to Redhill tomorrow and get them certified.”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Rowan frowned, taking the cards. “A Downhill Bloodcrawler?” he asked. “She’s not even Fulminant— she’ll get destroyed, won’t she?”

Arlette smiled again in a knowing way and patted his shoulder so hard it rattled the desk he leaned against. “What did I say about discrepancies?” she asked in a singsong voice. Rowan sighed and pocketed the tickets, turning back to his notebook. Then something occurred to him. He pulled the cards from his pocket and peered at them again. A girl’s name was printed there, along with her rank. She’d be facing an Uphill girl from a red and black sash family— one with a history of poor control over her own powers, if Rowan’s memory was correct.

He waved the cards at Arlette. “She’s a Dud?” Arlette tapped against his little glass contraption with a piece of metal.

“Officially, yes,” Arlette said. “Her record is as clean as it gets— maybe too clean. She fights, she loses, she lives to fight another day. No record of impossibilities or oddities in her bouts, besides the obvious issue of throwing matches for a living.”

“Then why fight against the Fulminant?” Rowan asked, trying not to wince as Arlette continued her tapping. “Why go Uphill at all when she’s paid to fix matches down here?”

“That’s the same question I asked,” Arlette said, meeting his eyes. “So I dug into her past matches. Whether she’s agreed to do it or not, she has a long history of fighting against the Fulminant. Not full sashed ones, mind you— just the typical dregs of the Downhill. Girls who later lose in Uphill arenas or otherwise disappear as low level servants for wealthy families. Or maybe they get a job in the parlors— before that disaster the other night, anyway.”

Arlette sighed and straightened, her eyes falling on Rowan’s other lights. One of them flickered slightly, and Rowan frowned at it, his attention threatening to wander away from the conversation. “Regardless, there might be something more to her,” Arlette continued. Rowan trailed over to his flickering light and inspected it as she spoke. As he held out a hand the light dimmed further, though Rowan was used to that particular oddity. “It’s not normal to survive so many fights against budding Fulminancers without ending up sidelined yourself, Rowan. Even if you dodge the worst injuries, the kind of pain and trauma that Fulminancy inflicts over time would be enough to spook any fighter out of the ring for good. Too many close calls, too many healing bills— you’d have to have something wrong with you to keep stepping back into that ring.”

Repair finished, Rowan stepped back from his light, and it blossomed into life again. “So either she’s exceptionally talented, crazy, or…”

“Or she’s Fulminant herself.”

Rowan met Arlette’s eyes. There was a spark there— that of money to be made. Perhaps Arlette could follow this Fulminant fighter Uphill where there was significantly more money to be made, but Rowan was interested in the girl for another reason.

“What happens when someone hits her with Fulminancy?” Rowan asked as he sorted through a stack of journals. Arlette frowned, watching him, but finally stopped tapping on the glass tube.

“That’s the odd part, Rowan— if she was completely Fulminant she could just channel it away, but she still ends up Marked.”

“Maybe she’s doing it on purpose.”

“Maybe,” Arlette agreed. “It would seem suspicious if she walked away unscathed from every Fulminant fight without a scratch. Clouds, her fight record alone is damning enough. She—“ Arlette paused, then leaned over the table where Rowan was thumbing through several pages. “What are you looking for?”

“Discrepancies, like you said.”

Arlette sighed dramatically and leaned back against the table, crossing her arms. “Not this again,” she said quietly. Rowan ignored her. That page is in here somewhere, he thought, flipping faster. “Rowan, if she was like you, she’d never get hit at all.”

“Maybe she just doesn’t understand how to control it.”

“Control it? Rowan, there’s nothing to control as a Dud— that’s the entire point. You’re no different than me, or anyone else born without Fulminancy. You—“

Rowan stopped his search on a familiar page, then locked eyes with Arlette and reached up towards the tube of light. He closed his hand around the warm glass, and the light snuffed out entirely where his hand met. Hesitantly, Arlette reached out and did the same.

Nothing changed.

Rowan raised an eyebrow at her and returned to his book. “There’s more to this than you want to admit,” he said. “If that girl’s been surviving fights she shouldn’t, then maybe she has a different way of fighting back.”

Arlette took her hand away from the tube, frowning at it. In spite of the physical evidence, Rowan knew she still wasn’t convinced of his odd powers. It was one of their oldest arguments, and while Arlette had seen plenty of evidence to suggest that Rowan was different in some way, she was a practical woman. Esoteric powers just weren’t her wheelhouse, just as gambling and numbers weren’t Rowan’s.

“Well,” she said, straightening. “I don’t care if the woman is a Dud of the highest order or the Seat of Mariel herself— she’s going to make us a lot of money tomorrow night. Make sure you get those betting cards stamped before then, but not too soon.” She paused at the doorway, some lift back in her step. “Don’t want people knowing of our bet too early— word travels fast in Hillcrest.”

With that, she shut the door to Rowan’s shop, leaving him alone with his work.

Rowan thumbed through the cards one last time, then set them on top of his notebook. There, penned carefully in his own handwriting, was a list of failed experiments not on Fulminancy, but on himself.

Each was crossed out with a line along with notes in the margin that had grown more frantic as the years passed. Each led to another dead end, another mystery. The mysteries weren’t the hard failures to deal with— those he could research, provided he could get his hands on the right information. That, of course, was easier said than done in Hillcrest.

The dead ends bothered him, though. These suggested that there really was nothing to his condition. They suggested that Duds were simply people cursed with the inability to harness Fulminancy.

But there’s something more to it, he thought. There has to be. For years he’d been able to negate Fulminancy or otherwise affect it in a way that few other Duds he knew of could, almost like he directly opposed that crackling energy with his own sort of power.

The scientific part of him had nearly given up on such a possibility, but another more emotional side of him wasn’t so easily dissuaded. He wanted answers. He’d tolerated abuse and dismissal for far too long to give up now.

There was something here, among these failures. A clue or a lead he could follow. Perhaps his success with Cashin was a sign of more success to come. With more funds and access to Cashin’s connections, Rowan could research his condition in earnest. He could find a cure.

Rowan glanced at the tickets again, where the name Kess was printed across the top. A mysterious girl without powers able to survive multiple fights with Fulminancers, he thought. It was another mystery— another series of experiments that simply didn’t make sense. He shut the notebook, the leather smooth against his touch, and piled it haphazardly on a stack of other notebooks.

Today he would find answers about how to spread Fulminancy to the entire city.

Tomorrow, perhaps, the girl could provide answers about himself.