“Fine, I’ll accept your duel,” I said aloud, taking care to keep my words and thoughts separate.

Internally, I told Aerde that I wasn’t going to be maiming or killing Mallory. Aerde sent an impression of Orykson’s dissatisfaction with that, but I ignored it.

Mallory was a pain in my thrice-cursed side, sure, but that was hardly a reason to kill her or maim her. Even if I did something relatively ‘minor’, like take off her ear, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to look at myself in the mirror at the end of the day. If it was self-defense, that was one thing, but to go for it right away?

No.

And even if I did look past the moral objections to attempting to maim or murder someone, I was pretty sure it’d be a violation of the contract I’d signed with Meadow to use magic for what I genuinely believed to be right, and use what I learned to help people, rather than hurt them.

“What are the terms?” I asked. Hesitation seemed to hit Mallory, as she said nothing for a long moment, but it cleared up a second later.

“They’re pretty standard. Duel is in a week’s time, each round goes until surrender, first considered injury, or knockout, as declared by a referee. Maiming or killing is strictly off the table. We both get to examine our opponent’s mana-garden now.”

“How many rounds?” I asked. A long, drawn-out fight would favor her. She could afford to heal and recharge in between rounds, while I’d just be relying on what Dusk and I could manage.

“Best of seven,” she said.

“I want a month before the duel, and one round.”

“One week, five rounds.”

This went back and forth for a while, before we settled on two weeks and three rounds, and then came to the external resources part of the duel. I argued heavily in favor of being able to use a familiar, while Mallory argued heavily for the use of elixirs in between rounds.

Dusk arguing in favor of her joining actually hurt us some – Mallory was easily able to point out she didn’t have a familiar, and press me for more elixir use.

In the end, neither of us were satisfied. We would both be allowed the use of one healing potion and one restoration of our mana, but there would be no bringing Dusk into the fight.

Magic items were allowed in the fight, but only if they were at or below our gate. I’d managed to put a limit of one magic item per person, though, which was lower than the standard three allowed in duels.

My staff, luckily, was considered a standard part of my mana-garden, and wasn’t counted as a magic item.

I was actually surprised just how fair and reasonable Mallory was being with the fight. Given the way she’d ambushed me once and let her anger get out of her control, I’d kind of expected her to be awful towards me.

Finally, there would be a doctor on standby to treat us after the three rounds were over, and the fight would take place in an enchanted ring, which should help cut down on the trickery. Both would be paid for by the loser of the duel, which gave me even more of an incentive to win.

I still suspected that she was going to pull something. Maybe she’d pay off the ref to look the other way for her injuries, or something along those lines. Whatever it was, I’d just have to be better than it.

With the terms settled, I signed off on the dueling paperwork and added a drop of my blood. A moment later, Mallory did the same.

Then we waited in an awkward silence. Neither of our paddles had lit up yet, and Mallory was going to need to give me the Dott’s Draught. Neither of us had a potion to let us view each other’s mana-garden on us either, so we’d need to run to the drugstore for that.

“It was the Nightheart Guild,” Mallory said as the silence stretched on.

It took me a second to remember that I’d asked her if the guild she’d gotten into was the Nightheart Guild.

“Why that one?” I asked. I was genuinely a little curious, but also wanted to break some of the tense atmosphere.

“It specializes in helping non-humans, or those with non-human magic. The guild master’s a cavern dragon, and his three officers are a hag, mermaid, and unicorn. Do you know what it’s like, to have everyone around you following the normal rules, while you stick out?”

I let out a dry, unamused laugh.

“More than you may realize,” I said.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Why?” she asked, arching an eyebrow. Her tone was sharp and defensive.

“Mallory… Have you ever cast Analyze Life on me? I’m pretty sure a werewolf could cast it. Heck, Werewolf’s Senses could probably manage it.”

“Only once, when I was trying to figure out if you were lying,” she admitted. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Cast it, and smell me. My sweat glands, especially.”

These things would start to change, once I ingrained my full-gate spells. Ed had remarked on how drastically different Liz smelled after even only a few months of hormonal spells, and he had a human nose. For a werewolf’s senses, I figured it would be pretty obvious.

I didn’t really like to think about the fact that to a sensory spell, it was obvious that I was trans. But in this case, it might – might – help.

Mallory stared at me for a moment, then realization dawned on her face.

“Oh,” she said, a moment later. “I… Hadn’t realized. The one time I was in wolf form, we were both rather distracted, and just now…”

“Yeah,” I said. I let out another humorless laugh. “I definitely know what it’s like to not quite fit in with your peers. For the entirety of childhood, into teenage years.”

“I just thought you were short and skinny,” Mallory admitted. “Never really thought more about it.”

In a weird way, that made me feel good, or at least better. At least she’d treated me fairly for her weird vendetta, when it came to gender.

Another long moment of silence passed, this one less tense, before Mallory spoke again.

“You really left the sociopath?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I found someone better. She’ll probably attend the duel, if I know her. She’s a sweet older lady. And I’m pretty sure she’s sixth gate, maybe even seventh.”

Mallory whistled and nodded.

“I’ve met more seventh gate people than most, but… It’s still impressive. What’s her name?”

“Meadow,” I said. “Apparently, she has a simulacrum that teaches at Lledrith University.”

“Huh,” Mallory said, before removing something from her suit jacket and taking a long sip. It smelled sharp and bitter.

“Why did you try to kill the Slipshark, really?” I asked. Mallory flushed and took another long sip.

“I got angry,” she said. “I was hurt and angry, and my mom had just been thrown in jail, and…”

She trailed off into silence, and I wrestled with myself for a long moment. There was a good chance that I was just going to get her angrier if I said it, but it also was true, and even if she got angry in the short term, if it planted the seed for later change, that would be good.

Then again, she’d already attacked me once, and challenged me to a legal duel. Did it matter if she got a bit angrier?

“I never got to know my mom,” I said. “But that sounds stressful. I had a… Friend… point out recently that my issues were strong, and suggested I go to a mentalist for it. One of them gave me an alchemical treatment, but the other… We just talk. You may be surprised how much it helps.”

“You don’t know my life. You and Qwin said the same thing,” Mallory spat before she seemed to deflate. She let out an oddly dog-like whine. “I’m fine, though.”

I said nothing, letting the silence stretch long. To stop myself from getting bored, I went back to practicing my mana meditation.

Eventually, Mallory’s paddle lit up and she left the box. She returned after about fifteen minutes and passed me the draught.

My paddle lit up not long after she got back, and I headed downstairs.

“Sign here,” the attendant said, “and here, and… here.”

I signed off on the waivers, then made out a check for the two purchases I’d managed to make. I handed off the first gate healing potion to an appraiser who checked over it. They grumbled a bit about it being an amateur’s work, but accepted it and handed over the wine gourd and book.

I tucked them, alongside the draught, in Dusk’s realm, and she insisted that we put it in her treasure room, which was fine by me.

I returned upstairs to Mallory, who rose from her chair.

“Ready to get the potion then get out of each other’s faces?” she asked.

“Yep,” I said, nodding.

We left the function and emerged out into the service tunnel of a mall, and took an elevator into the first floor.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the theater of the whole thing. The secret auction house lit in crimson and cerulean, hosted by a man who called himself the Avatar of Sin was in a hidden part of a mall?

Then again, the illusion of secrecy probably made the rich people feel cool. But what did I know?

We grabbed a pack of potions from a nearby drugstore, which was very awkward, as Mallory still seemed to be brooding from my earlier suggestion.

We sat down on the bench outside of the store, with Dusk watching over us to make sure nothing bad happened. She wouldn’t be a deterrent on visuals alone, but anyone who underestimated her magic would be in for a surprise.

“You first,” Mallory insisted. I downed half of the inky potion, then passed it to her and fell into my mana-garden.

I walked her through the garden, pointing out each of the spells I had mastered or ingrained, as the agreement specified, and then we shifted into Mallory’s mana-garden.

It was… intimidating. Her walls were built much, much higher than mine were. Instead of the staff that hung inside my ungated mana, she had a moon hanging high over the sky.

“The Nascent Truth of the Moon,” Mallory said, a touch of pride entering her voice. “It’s a pretty good one, if I say so myself.”

I couldn’t deny that. Lunar magic made up a good percent of werewolf magic – more than vampire, that was for sure. And on top of that, the association between a werewolf and the moon probably helped a lot.

From there, we headed into her first gate, which wasn’t any less impressive. She’d ingrained a harvesting spell, as well as her Werewolf’s Senses and Wolfen Aspect spell. She didn’t have to explain what each spell did, and she didn’t bother, so I resolved to visit the library and look them up.

But if that wasn’t enough, she’d also mastered Least Regeneration, Ice Dagger, and Bones of the Wolf.

And her walls were high here too. Way higher than mine, and higher than Ed’s too. She’d definitely have the advantage in terms of raw mana, and she wasn’t too far behind me in quality, if she was at all.

She’d come far from relying on two spells, it seemed.

In the second gate section of the mana-garden, I saw her Summon Shade Wolf and Shadow Claw spells, which I’d expected, but she’d added a Cloak of Shadows spell, and a Binding Ice spell, both of which were mastered.

She had one more spell that wasn’t mastered, but I wasn’t able to really guess what exactly it was.

Once I’d committed everything to memory, I left her mana-garden and gave her a nod.

“Well, I suppose I’ll see you in two weeks,” I said.

“I suppose so,” Mallory agreed, then we both turned and began to walk in different directions.