The shadows lengthened as the evening deepened.

I walked alone through the gates of the arena. My mind was occupied—racing, even. Thoughts of Baltazar, his support, his promises, flooded my mind. My father’s intensity... no, not intensity. The only right word was desperation. It weighed on me. The man might not have been a bastion of love. He may, in fact, have been a force that subjugated my life, making it an accessory to his own. But for all the things he was and wasn’t, my father had always been cool. Unflappable.

That veneer was peeling away now. He had extended himself too much. In doing so, he risked everything he had built.

As I approached the arena, I saw movement. Men were carrying tools and lumber, the sounds of construction echoing from within. I could hear the whining of electric motors and the rumbling of engines. They were hard at work on some project for the coming challenge. Order had been elevated. The city, normally miserly with its Flows, had made the Choosing important enough to warrant some expenditure.

Then I saw Katya, and all other thoughts fled from me. Her petite figure loitered near the workmen. She seemed utterly serene. Even from this distance, I could tell there was no tension in her, despite being alone among so many strange men. She leaned against a wall, apart from the world.

"Are you trying to bed her?"

My heart leapt in my chest, and I spun at the sudden noise.

Zeb had appeared, walking alongside me. The man’s feet made no sound. He barely raised an eyebrow at my reaction.

I gathered myself. "You’re too big to move so quietly."

He barely changed his expression, just the hint of a thin smile. Then he narrowed his eyes at me. "Well, are ya?"

Zeb’s accent was strange. He hailed from the far North, where they bred men tough. They had to be tough. Fiends were more common the further north you traveled, and up there, slaying a fiend was a rite of passage, not a once-in-a-lifetime horror like it was for the common man down here.

My cheeks reddened. "We’re training."

Zeb nodded. It was rare for him to speak at all. The man was silence itself. He was constantly around me, watching for my safety, yet I barely knew him.

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He said, "She’s a daft one. The daft ones can be the best for bedding, but mind you don’t put a baby in—"

I hissed, "Zeb! Shit! It’s not like that."

He lazily raised another eyebrow and leveled his eyes at me.

"It’s not," I insisted. "We’re training. She’s a competitor. I’m... we..."

Zeb said, "And what about all that marriage talk? Bed the daft ones, lad, don’t marry ’em."

"You heard that?" I said, flustered. "What am I saying, of course you heard everything."

Zeb just nodded, his face placid.

"I don’t know about any of that," I said, stumbling over my words. "It’s just joking around, I think... I’m sure... I think so."

Zeb said, "Well, I’ll be gone again. Just remember what I said."

He turned, not even waiting for a response, his broad back drifting away.

I called after him, "Remember what?"

He turned his head, that faint humor twisting his mouth again. "Don’t put a baby in a daft one."

My cheeks reddened again. Katya was still a ways off. I cringed at the thought that she might have heard that.

As I mounted the steps, she seemed to notice me. I realized that she had truly been distant, as if rising out of a state like sleep. But obviously not sleep, because she had been perfectly aware of my approach, despite all the noise and activity around her.

She said, "You’re ready, then?"

I said, "Uh, yeah, but where will we practice? It’s kind of busy around here."

She smiled and gestured with her hand. "This way, I found a place. I like to go there sometimes to meditate."

Her small frame turned, and she moved that beguiling little body away from me, back down the steps. I followed. Her form may have been small, but she had no problem setting a pace that made my longer legs work to keep up.

We moved around behind the arena. There was a cluster of shrubs and trees there. As we neared, I could see that the center of the cluster was free of foliage, the dense canopy of the little stand preventing any light from entering, smothering other growth.

"In here," she said, smiling oddly, as she always seemed to do.

"In there?" I asked. My mind wandered a little at the thought of entering such a secluded, dark, and private space with her. Just me and her.

"That’s right," she said, eyeing me as though she was examining me for discomfort.

Then she stepped through, and I moved to follow her. Just as I did, I caught sight of Zeb. Zeb was like a living ghost—you didn’t catch sight of him unless he wanted you to. But there he was, standing about twenty yards away. And the bastard was smiling, less thinly than before.

I understood the look. He was letting me see him seeing me—seeing me climbing into a dark, secret place with this exotic beauty.

I pursed my lips as I regarded him.

Then I climbed through the branches into the darkness.