Timbrelle and Adna wandered into the square, scooting sideways through a group of schoolchildren. They each wore a ring that exuded a bronze aura Timbrelle recognized from her subpoena in Yost. If they worked the same way, it was like carrying around a tracking tag. Artifacts like those were easy to find in The City of Metallurgy.

After dropping Davian off at the coliseum for registration, they’d stopped at a bakery in an attempt to burn time. The Tryptus wouldn’t start until everyone was registered and split into teams, leaving them with a couple hours to kill.

“Do we have time do get lunch?” Adna asked between mouthfuls of her remaining pastry.

Timbrelle laughed. “You’ll need to finish your breakfast before we get there.”

“That’f the fpirit.” She said, choking down another bite.

Adna was practically vibrating with energy from the soul transfusion. No onlooker would have guessed the woman absently bouncing on her heels had been comatose that morning. She was a rubber band about to snap.

Tellcentra was nothing like the monochromatic Yost Proper. Its onion domes on the stores and homes were painted in all manner of metallic colors. All around them were metals that lit up like aurora gems. From shutter hinges to doorknobs to the bulbous roofs, most things appeared to be made from the stuff. She didn’t know much about that genre of magic but certain things were common knowledge. The color of the metal changed depending on the alloy and the alloy was based on the necessary function. No doubt some roofs were magically water repelling, others might be fire retardant. Shiny pinks, blues and greens were common—each house a slightly different color. The one detail each and every building bore in common with the next was a wooden front door of faintly glittering violet. Simple to ornate in design, the deep, lustrous purple of the doors remained a constant.

“Do you know anything about Tellcentran security?” Timbrelle asked.

“At this juncture: not enough to confidently challenge it. Why? Are you itching for another job?” She laughed and jabbed Timbrelle with an elbow.

“It was really fun, ok? I want to do it again. Where do you keep all the stuff you steal anyway? Wait… what do you steal?” She asked.

“You know how I don’t like you looking in my closet?” She gave Timbrelle a side-eye.

“Oh, that’s not so bad. I was starting to think you were keeping sex slaves in there. Just stolen junk?”

“Junk? Eh… you might end up wishing it was people…” she trailed off.

They arrived at a tavern with Timbrelle still trying to leverage information out of Adna, who was surprisingly tight-lipped about this one topic.

“You need to give me a soft launch date for your secret. That’s only fair. ”

“You did set a precedent.” Adna allowed. “Ok. Next time we’re back in the temple, I’ll show you. For now, I’m deeply into whatever that aroma is coming from. Let’s find a seat and you can try getting that stain out of your flouncy dress. I think one of the kids from the square must have touched you.”

“Well, butts.” She cussed at the revelation. The soft word drew a look from a man at the bar who looked as though he grew facial hair for a living. Adna, too, lifted an eyebrow in search of an explanation.

“Tuna said I swear too much for a Rigel.”

“How is that Tuna’s business?” Adna asked, sincerely confused. “They adopted you as a fully fledged adult. Why would they expect you to change? They’re not raising you.”

“Speak for yourself. Fede gave me a serious lecture about stranger danger after my chat with Exantir. I think I’ve actually been grounded.”

“Bullshit. You’re worried about disappointing them. We really need to work on being more assertive, don’t we?” She surveyed Timbrelle openly with a piteous look. “And your wardrobe.”

“Bite me.”

They sat down at a table and ordered what the hostess recommended. Adna snarfed down the reasonable portion of her entire plate and forty percent of Timbrelle’s, remarking the entire time how crazy it was that she wasn’t as hungry as normal. Timbrelle had been flipping her soul sight on and off since the hospital to check the spectral energy. Adna was still an almost opaque blood orange—not too different from her state at the Preservatory. The excess food seemed to be enough to keep her heightened spectral energy levels steady.

“We should try to get one of those tube contraptions we used at the Preservatory. The soul transfusion seemed to work really well. I was surprised by how straightforward it was.” Timbrelle suggested.

“What can I say? I’m easy.” Adna shrugged.

Timbrelle sighed. “Remember how we talked about ‘TMI’?”

“Please, Timbrelle, I’m telling you once again, the acronym really doesn’t translate. You claim you mean to say ‘tee-em-aye’ but you keep saying ‘there’s tea in my eyes’. ‘Remember how we talked about the tea in my eyes’? And I’m supposed to be embarrassed at my over-sharing? The audacity. You sound ridiculous.”

Timbrelle was about to kick her shin below the table when she blurted out “Brandon?”

The tall ginger man whipped around at her voice. A look of murderous intent fizzled into puzzlement.

“Timbrelle? Can you see me?” He then placed his face in his palm. “Of course you can, why else would you call to me?” He walked over to her through the mess of patrons and tousled her hair.

“Who da ell id dith guy?” Adna asked through a bite of her dumpling.

“You can see me too, huh? Is my item not working again?” He leaned over and smacked the man with the megabeard who then looked right through Brandon for the culprit. “Nah, we’re good.”

Timbrelle scooted over and allowed him to slide into the booth. “This is Brandon, the Nighthawk of Tellushra. Brandon, this is Adna—my, uh, sister.”

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

Brandon appraised the white-haired woman and then focused over her shoulder for a moment, reading her basic stats. “You look like you should be competing in the Tryptus. Your strength is impressive.”

“You obviously know exactly what a girl likes to hear. Your place or mine?” Adna asked.

The freckled man let out a boisterous laugh. “Oh, you’re fun! Come to the Reaping with us! Only Unmade and their invitees are allowed entry. I wasn’t sure if Timbrelle could access the physical invite in her inventory so I prepared a stack, just in case. I’m lucky to have run into you two.” Brandon put two hands out and mimed like he was flipping a shoebox upside down. From the empty air between his hands, a pile of envelopes spilled onto the table.

“It’s just like a Tryptus for Earthers but since I’m the host and an American, it’s going to be Super Bowl themed. Well, Tellushra said she’d allow fireworks and a kick-ass halftime show. She only approved one gaudy ring for the winner instead of forty for forty winners… so it’s not so much Super Bowl ‘themed’ as ‘inspired’. There will be foam fingers, though. Oh! And tailgating! I was thinking we could play covers of Earth songs over the sound system and have someone throw out the metaphorical first pitch. The last Reaping was themed off the Olympics so they did a big Florentine cultural show. I didn’t want to try to compete with that, it was amazing. Just imagine superhero Olympic opening ceremonies with magic. Jeremy or Lu Mei might have a recording.”

Timbrelle let the man ramble until a glimpse of daylight could be spotted between sentences. It came somewhere after hotdogs but before he could get further into grilling.

“—it sounds great, Brandon! I think we’re both looking forward to it!” Stopping the man while in motion was like standing in front of a train. If you had any chance of keeping up, you needed to make it take stops and allow cross-traffic. “I think I’ll need to talk to the Rigels. They might be weird about me going to hangout with a bunch of Unmade.”

“Yeah, I heard you got adopted.” He scowled. “Which was intensely rude of them, if I might add. Unmade have a familial hierarchy. They stomped all over our culture without realizing it. Any Unmade would have murdered the Duke for trying to take their kid…”

“Well he’s my dadpa now, so nobody touches the guy. Got it?” She snapped at him, pointing a finger at his chest.

“Yeah, yeah. Fine. We don’t technically know who your parent is since the interface glitched on you. So I guess it’s ok for now. Until it places you with a mentor, I’ll give you a little advice: as an Unmade you are beholden to nothing and no one on all of Kitos. No law enforcement, no royalty, no Gods can command you simply by virtue of their position. Not even the Rigels who seem to run the world. This is why you need to be careful of making contracts. A bad contract could make you a slave. If you remember nothing else, remember that. Ok?”

“Honestly, I feel pretty beholden to Nerrus.” She admitted.

“You have entered into a two-sided contract as patron and devotee. The only reason it would feel one-sided is if you are not taking advantage of the pact. How often do you converse with Him?” He furrowed his brow in disgust. “Or does Nerrus ignore your prayers?”

“I suppose I’ve never actually prayed to Him… so it’s the opposite. Nerrus actually answered a prayer I made to Jir. I didn’t know I could call Him up until this morning. You know, what with Him being a God and all.”

He laughed. “Well, that’s different then. You’re just kinda dumb, huh?”

Timbrelle grabbed a fork and stabbed it down onto the table where his hand had been an instant earlier. His astonishing reflexes not only dodged the attack but landed a smack upside the back of her head.

“Your level one reflexes are kind of cute.” He tugged one of her braids before she could react. “Once you gain access to the interface, you can begin your Unmade training with your mentor. I imagine it will be in the old Crudwell County. Lu Mei has almost finished displacing the population into other districts.”

”Crudwell? Those other districts are calling them refugees…” she narrowed her eyes at him. “I have a good friend who was displaced by the Unmade, after her tribe was massacred. This is as good a time as any to ask: do I really want to be associated with you people?”

“Do you have a choice?” He sipped her water, watching her over the rim. “The way I see it, your only choice is which of the Unmade to associate with. The normal, if ruthless, demigod bastards or the Player’s Cult? One is full of monsters, psychopaths, killers and god-like power with no oversight—and the other is worse. We don’t kill Kitons.”

He jammed his finger down on the table top, punctuating his words. His face had turned icy and stern, adopting the passion of an unknown yet storied past. Whatever it was, Brandon had a history with the Player’s Cult.

Adna, having finished the extra dumplings Timbrelle ordered, waded into the tense conversation. “Did we catch you in the middle of something? You seemed busy…” she played uninterested, but Timbrelle could sense she was curious. It was as much a diversion from the triggering topic as it was a self-serving inquisition.

Brandon rubbed his neck, warring with himself about something. “I can’t say much. I’m just keeping an eye on that one Jir devotee in the Tryptus. I don’t trust any of them and they’re not going to ruin my Reaping. I need to earn back all of the money Tellcentra has funneled into it. If this doesn’t go well I’d have to adventure to earn money. Blech.”

Timbrelle craned her neck and gawked around the tavern for people that might stand out as Jir devotees. The action reminded her of Gram, her mom’s mom, who was constantly gossiping and throwing shade when permitted to be in public. The wrinkled and heretofore utterly forgotten face was now sharp in her mind.

“Is it that guy?” She nodded to a robed figure sitting at the far end of the bar. Their hood was not magical like those of her congregation, simply hiding the person in shadow.

“I don’t know, is it? It took me forever to track them here since they could register anonymously.” Brandon asked. “I don’t know what they look like, though.”

“The soul has a… a…” Timbrelle struggled to find the word. “It has a bad smell for the eyes. Like it emits a spectral stink that I can only sense with my sight. Does that make sense?”

Adna and Davian squinted at her, silent.

She went on. “Anyway. I can see your soul too.”

This broke him out of his confused silence. “What does it look like? Sounds like a deep foghorn when I got it tested last.”

“Intensely sparkly. Mostly silver and a nice, neat black. Not a bad looking soul.” She summed up. “Maybe a little too severe for someone who reincarnated from a golden retriever.”

Brandon pulled her into a side-hug. He laughed, “You’re the only one who thinks that. I like that oblivious side of you. Stay away from Tellushra as much as you can manage. She’s not a good person and you won’t stand a chance if she locks onto you. Oh, you and Adna will come to the Earther mixer, right? You have a ton of people to meet. That’ll be more difficult to do after the coronation and Reaping. It’s like a great big reunion… sort of. Maybe more like the Olympic Villiage, if you know what I mean.”

“We’ll be there.” Adna assured before Timbrelle could get a word in, having picked up on the provocative tone. “What should we wear?”

Brandon got up from the table, stealing Timbrelle’s cider. “Earth casual. Don’t worry, I’ll send something along. My buddy has a silkscreening ability—well, pretty much. They’re a spider.”

He winked at Adna and gave Timbrelle a brotherly smack on the back. The kind that hurt a little too much to be fun for the receiver.

Adna watched him slink sneakily out after the Jir worshipper. “I think I’ve decided on my conquest.”

“Gross. He’s like a brother—no, an uncle—No! A ‘brunkle’. Plus, he’s like the soon-to-be queen’s personal guard or something. Do you really want that kind of attention?” She asked.

“No, actually. That’s a very good point.” Adna conceded. “Plus I need one who isn’t likely to murder me when I dump him. I wanna try a crazy one without getting killed after. Have you heard that guys reputation?”

“Not much, but I’m starting to think I should look into it.” Timbrelle was beginning to worry about Brandon. Everything she had heard insisted that he was some manner of monster.

“He’s called Tellushra’s Black Hand, The Hidden Sword, The Spector—don’t you know how Tellushra took power? She’s not being crowned because she’s the heir. There’s just no one left to oppose her. The whole thing was more like a Florentine succession, it was that bad. Everyone got killed by that guy, the happy, sexy one.” Adna said.

“…I knew some of that.” Timbrelle lied.