“Raz!” Chep exclaimed.

Avvin’s eyes went wide, looking like they were about to pop out of his head, staring right into Raz’s own, and his scruffy brown fur stood up all over him until he looked like he’d been hit by a shock spell.

“Tell me, Avvin,” Raz said, lowering the knife so he could tap the blade against the open palm of the other hand, “What exactly made you think it would be a good idea to set me up?” Fifteen pairs of eyes watched each glimmer of light on the blade as it moved.

Whispers came from the other boys scattered around the room. Avvin narrowed his eyes and growled, but Raz could see the fear shiver through him.

“I didn’t set up shit, Raz. You grabbed a bad bike.”

Raz snorted.

“First in the city in fifty years. But I’m not here for a confession. I’m not some ringshoulder lookin’ for more evidence. I know you set me up Av. If you’d like to keep your skin, start talkin’.”

Avvin’s eyes dropped to the knife in Raz’s hand.

“I don’t like insults, Raz. You messed up. Drew a bad hand. It ain’t my fault.”

Raz sighed and slid one foot back so that he was in a basic fighting stance aimed at Avvin.

“Raz,” Chep said. “Calm down! We thought you were dead...”

“I didn’t,” Ordale said.

Chep shot Ordale a look that said ‘shut up’ as he kept talking.

“Avvin didn’t try to kill you. How the Rot would he break a skybike?”

“Step back, Chep,” Raz said. “I just fell out of the sky and had half the Powers come down on my head. Had to make a deal for fifteen years to get down alive. I’m not in the mood to be nice.”

He held Avvin’s eyes and the other boy slid into a fighting stance of his own and drew a dagger from under his coat.

“Avvin! Raz!”

“Shuttup, Chep,” Avvin said. “Raz here’s got it in his head I’m at fault. Gonna have to show I’m not one he can pin his crazy ideas on.”

“Guys!”

“Back up, Chep.” Ordale grabbed the small catfolk boy and dragged him away from Avvin and Raz.

“I already know who paid for it, Av,” Raz said. “I even know why. I just wanted to hear why you took the money. But if you want it like this, I’m fine with it. I’ve been lookin’ forward to stickin’ you with a knife since my feet got back on dry ground.”

“Hmmph,” Avvin began to move to the side in a sliding gait. “Seems I remember puttin’ you into a wall last time we fought. Seems that’s what always happens.”

Raz flowed to the side, staying fixed on Avvin so that they moved in a circle, watching each other. Out of the corners of his eyes he could see the other boys moving to surround them, shouting, jeering, and calling out for blood, but he didn’t take his eyes off Avvin. The smell of unwashed bodies, sweat, and fear filled the air. Trash and pieces of paper slipped under his boots as he moved, but he kept his steps firm.

A niggling sensation that had been poking him since he pulled the knife out finally came to the front of his mind. Carried in it was the thought that he could very possibly end up with a knife in his ribs for no reason other than pride. Or end up in jail if he won. He tracked it back and realized that it was coming from that new blessing.

Nissaya’s Basic Sense.

Famously it helped people realize the reasonable consequences of their actions before they dove in. Here it was helping him see how badly the fight could turn out. But the push was weak. He had two whole tiers on Avvin now, and an actual combat class. Even if Avvin was bigger and stronger, with better reach, Raz had the advantage. It was also unlikely the lawkeepers would care too much about one dead streetboy in the river if Raz took it that far. Falling skybikes in the middle of the city was one thing. Another dead urchin was another.

They’d also been grappling last time, something Raz was terrible at. He was trained with knives. It would all be okay.

He pushed the thoughts away and focused on the fight.

“Last chance, Av. Fess up or I pry your thoughts out with steel.”

Avvin snarled. “Show me what you got, dancer.”

The insult sizzled past Raz, raising his irritation, but not much. He’d heard it a hundred times, a familiar jab over the last two years after he’d let it drop to Ordale what class he had. It had always gotten him riled before, but the class had saved his life earlier that day. He still didn’t like it, but he’d find a way to live with it. He settled into slow time and moved his eyes to a slightly unfocused view tracking Avvin’s center torso. The cold burn of adrenaline coursed through him and he moved his knife to a low forward guard, ready to intercept or attack. A touch of mana sent a surge of strength through his muscles. He felt the need to move.

Avvin closed, a blur of red-brown, ears back tight. The tip of his dagger caught the light as it went for Raz’s gut.

Raz dodged the thrust.

Not the fist to his head.

The world flashed black and he stumbled back. Kept his feet and his knife in guard. He ducked the next swing and fell back as the world focused.

Dodged a slash by inches.

Blocked its return with his knife and kicked Avvin back.

Space. He needed some space.

Avvin came back in hard. Thrust, thrust, slash.

Raz dodged, sidestepped, leapt back. The world spun around him as he moved, the frozen, shadowed, jeering faces of the other boys a lurid background to the one pursuing him.

Avvin locked his dagger Raz’s blade, guard to guard. Raz struggled to keep the blades away from him as the bigger boy shot two punches into his gut with his free hand. Pain exploded in his midriff.

He fired back a fist to Avvin’s temple. His hand screamed at the impact, but Avvin stumbled.

Raz kicked him away.

Avvin moved back several steps, shaking his head and touching his hip where Raz’s kick had landed.

Raz struggled to catch his breath, keeping his knife up. His free hand hurt, but it moved. His midriff spasmed where he’d been punched.

“Good shot, rich boy,” Avvin said.

Raz twitched and narrowed his eyes.

“Yeah. I know. I followed you.” Avvin smiled, fangs bright. “’Where does Raz go when he isn’t here?’ Wondered, right? Know where Or goes. Chep, Rip, Flit. We all got someplace. But yours isn’t in the ring.”

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Avvin tossed his dagger from one hand to the other. Then back. He got his balance and moved back into a fighting stance.

Raz swished his tail and shifted his stance to be ready to dodge again. The other boys had gone quiet, all listening.

“So I followed you one day. All the way to the core. All the way to the clan rocks. The nice ones.”

“Didn’t go all the way,” Avvin continued. “Guards in front of all the fancy gates kept eyeing me and I got scared. But I did see you put on your fancy clothes. Razzy’s daddy isn’t some work’n’up floorboss. He’s a big man.”

The other boys didn’t look betrayed or angry, but they did look surprised. Raz had been running around with street kids for years, so he knew the language and the attitude. He’d done a good job keeping his home life secret. Not all of it. He’d said his dad was a manager. That had explained the fact that he had an education and some money to throw around now and then. He’d let them fill in the idea that “manager” meant floor manager and not the guy managing all the factories together.

He’d done a good job. And now it was gone.

He glared at Avvin.

“Yeah.” Avvin moved closer, taking small, smooth steps that let him keep his balance firm. “You don’t live out here, do you, Razzy?”

Raz felt his lip curl up. He set his feet, working against the anger that was pushing him. He knew not to jump in, but he needed to close. Needed to find an opening.

He saw Avvin step wide. Drop his dagger a little low.

Raz leapt in, knocking Avvin’s blade out of the way with his own.

Slash.

Blood sprayed from the arm Avvin brought up to block. The boy grunted.

Raz felt the steel sink sink into his chest. His lung exploded in agony. He stumbled back, staring down at the wound bubbling out red as Avvin’s blade withdrew.

He gasped and clutched at the gushing wound, but he couldn’t breathe right. Got his knife up, but Avvin didn’t press the attack. Just moved into a guard and watched.

Gods it hurt. His chest was on fire and he couldn’t get enough air.

“Thing is, Raz, we do,” Avvin said. There was blood on the blade of his knife. “This ain’t a game to us.” He shook his head. “We don’t need some rich boy comin’ down here and playin’ with us.”

Raz stared. That was why. That was why he’d done it.

Because Raz was playing.

Betraying bastard.

Literal betraying bastard. Avvin’s dad was some overseer who’d already had a wife when he slept with his mom. Hadn’t wanted a second wife, so he’d fired her from the factory when she got pregnant. Family connections and all that had let him get away with it. Raz had heard the story plenty of times.

The lawkeepers didn’t do family law. At least, not in Takara.

He couldn’t believe he had gotten screwed over by a literal bastard.

It was hilarious.

Or maybe that was the lack of air getting to his brain.

He focused. Pushed through the pain until it helped.

Avvin was a bastard. But he was right.

Raz had been playing.

Playing like he didn’t have money. Playing like he didn’t have power. Playing like he didn’t have an education, or responsibilities, or some halfway decent family. Most of the women were awful, but he had two good sisters, a dad that provided, and Valen. Plus all the servants who kept his mischief to themselves.

Playing. Like there wouldn’t be consequences to his actions.

If there was one thing falling out of the sky had shown him, it was that there were consequences.

He needed to stop playing.

“You got me, Av,” Raz said, his voice a groan. “I’m just a fancy boy, down here playin’ in the mud.” He reached inside, wrapping his mind around one of the enhancements his father had bought him after his mother died. Power surged through his body as he channeled mana through the healing booster. Magical force clamped the wounds in his lungs closed and sealed the tissue back together. Blood stopped flowing where it shouldn’t, though he was still going to have a tough time with the stuff already in his lungs.

Suddenly he could breathe again.

He straightened up. He hadn’t even realized how much he was hunching over the wound. It still hurt, still burned from the magic working on it, but it wasn’t the screaming pain of air rushing across nerves that should have never felt that. He could move again.

Avvin nodded very slightly as Raz met his eyes again.

He’d guessed that Raz was holding back.

Playing.

Raz still didn’t want to use everything he had. He didn’t have the wind powers yet, he’d have to put a point into air affinity for that, but he did have mage armor. A flicker of thought confirmed that. He also had body boost, was even using it a little, but not nearly as much as he could. He could just armor up, pour power into his body, and kick Avvin around the room. He had the mana for it, and a dagger and a fist wouldn’t be able to knock his mage armor out faster than he could put it back up.

It was a knife duel, however. It was as much about skill as anything else. He didn’t want to beat Avvin into the ground with brute force. He didn’t want to be just a tier 3 bully knocking a tier 1 street kid around.

It lacked style, if nothing else.

He sighed internally. It had been so good feeling like he belonged to the group. Like he didn’t have to keep his eyes out in case the people around him put a knife in his back. Like his place was his own, something he’d built.

If he wanted to win and not be that bully, not smash Avvin with the power he’d inherited, he needed an edge. Something that wasn’t pure brute magic. Training in knife fighting wasn’t going to be enough. Avvin had grown up on the streets. He knew fights. Raz hated that he was that stupid poncy noble in all the stories who took his fancy training into the real world and got gutted, but he was smart enough to know it was true. At least, now he was.

Avvin started to close again. He knew one of them was going down. Broken at least, maybe dead. Raz saw it in his eyes.

An edge.

What did he have besides power that could beat the tough street fighter in front of him?

A half smile pulled at his mouth. Grew into a cocky grin.

Raz flipped the knife in his hand, one revolution, and caught it again. Slid his feet into a new stance and began to bounce on his toes. It would have been better with rhythm, but it was made to be used without.

Of course she’d taught him. An art as much as it was a battle. A performance with live steel. The possibility of blood as much of a draw as the graceful bodies of the women who spun and twirled in sinuous struggle, slivers of silk streaming off into the air as they slipped around each other’s steel. The skill she’d passed down to him extended far beyond his own, built by generations of dancers, but the foundation was his own, learned in the last year before she died.

He remembered the knife dance, the bloody twisting whirl of blade and body. Both sides. For show, and for survival.

The grin got wider.

Avvin’s eyebrows went up and his ears popped up for a moment. He took a step back.

Raz felt the tension between them. Watched the whole motion of Avvin’s body. Felt the ways around, the ways between. The flowing motions trained for fights with fluid professionals and forward criminals both.

Raz closed in a blur. His blade caught along the edge of Avvin’s, grated as it locked and pushed, guiding his opponent around and away. Raz rolled around his side and came away, the elbow to the back of Avvin’s head the only strike he made.

Avvin stumbled, shaking his head, obviously trying to pull his world back together. He spun to face Raz and lunged in, aim off, but accurate enough.

Raz met the thrust with his blade, guiding Avvin’s arm up and to the side, blocking the punch he had been about to throw with his other.

Raz sidestepped and slid, dropping his arm down in a slash along Avvin’s leg.

Stepped back as Avvin spun again and clipped the boy’s ear. Drops of blood flew through the air as more red ran down Avvin’s leg.

Avvin leaped back.

“Are you dancing with me?!” Avvin was panting, his eyes locked on Raz and his dagger hand shaking.

“You could call it that,” Raz said. It wasn’t all his own, but the core was, and at least it had style.

Avvin glared and lunged in, mixing up his footwork and moving his free hand to slap Raz’s guard aside. It seemed like he did know some fancy stuff, and, like any good knife fighter, he was willing to get cut to get in a good hit.

Raz went with the blow to his hand, advancing into Avvin’s thrust. He felt the speed, the steps Avvin was taking, the weight of intent and where he had to go.

Raz moved just along that path, turning toward Avvin, the boy’s dagger sizzling by his belly as he skip-stepped past.

As Avvin’s arm reached full extension, Raz slammed his free hand into the elbow. Hard.

The arm flexed past straight and the dagger flew out of the boy’s grip as his hand spasmed. He spun with the force of the blow.

Three perfect steps in time to the spin.

Side. Back. Forward.

Avvin took the elbow of Raz’s knife hand right between his wide, surprised eyes as he came back around to face him. Raz threw his whole weight behind the blow.

Avvin’s feet flew up off the ground as his head went down to it.

The thud of his body hitting the floor and his breath exploding from him came at the same moment as his knife struck the stone and skittered across the room. The breath exploded from him and he stared at the ceiling in shock.

Raz followed through, stepping forward and spinning around to face back at the downed boy, now staring wide eyed at the ceiling. Raz flipped the knife to a downward grip and dropped down in one smooth motion with all his force behind it…

Steel blade aimed right at Avvin’s throat.