Jabs connect. Ginevra’s balled fists clench pseudo-leather gloves. One punch lands just beneath her ribs. She doubles over, reflexively turning, trying to hide from her opponent. Big mistake—she can’t hide in the ring. She’s there until that damned half-rusted bell rings. She’s opened herself up to a hit to the back. She’s breathless under the onslaught of yet more body work, her left shoulder going limp. These hits are illegal. What’s that referee, drunk? But it’s her fault, her coach will say. After all—she’s off-stance. Her Southpaw’s sloppy. Can you blame her? It’s not like she’s boxed before. And not in this heat, neither.

There’s that bell—that silent bell. That bell that rings without it ringing. Before Ginevra can move, she’s sat in her corner, on that simple, half-broken pure-wood bench. It’s lopsided. Wet with sweat. Her hooves haven’t moved in hours.

“It don’t matta nuttin,” Augo says to her in his cigarette-ruined Creole accent. The cornerman spits sunflower seeds from his jowls with a growl. In that thick tuft of hair on his neckline, he’s got fleas. He’s just as disgusting as when he first bought her from that procurer’s club out in Marengo Parish, the one that said Ginevra was too wily for any honest lying-on-her-back work. “Jit when I says ‘posts ta be huntin’, yous ‘posts ta be huntin’.”

She’s an investment for him—a future prizefighter that just needs a little more spit-shining.

But it’s too humid, too swampy on Robichaux. Augo’s pure-silk out-of-season periwinkle button-up is soaked with pit stains. His doggish biology’s changed—he’s not panting, just sweating. His ears are straight up. Alert, all-business, as if he were hunting. He’s younger, too. Jowls tighter, his grip on her shoulders painful. Like how Ginevra remembers him as a filly, when she was recently purchased. He’s scowling, though—he never scowls at her, even when she wishes he would.

From his palm comes the knife, the same one he uses to gut figs between swigs of pulpy beer. It’s headed for her right eye. The thing’s too swollen, she knows.

“Quit it!” Ginevra wants to yell. But she can’t, not with his fingers clasped around her bruised nostrils and cut lips. He’s rough. He’s never this rough.

“Quitcha movin’, ain’t no way yous seein’ a Gawd-damn thing witcha eye like dat,” Augo hisses. “Getton here.”

The knife at her eye turns to physical release, cutting into her eyebrow. She opens her mouth to yell, but again—nothing. Just a numb deflation, a lessened pressure, like she can breathe again. She can see, but that doesn’t mean her concussion’s subsided—that the cerebral hemorrhage isn’t growing, flooding her brain. She’ll do anything to stand for one more round. Like her opponent, the mare on the other side of the ring. The one who’s winning, the older sister of hers. See? Ø over there’s calm under the knife, the one You delicately apply. Why can’t Ginevra be more like her? After all, what’s another facial scar for a girl like her?

The taverna’s crowd doesn’t mind that Ginevra’s taking too long in her corner, nor do they mind her fatal concussion. They’re here for the violence, after all. Victims of it, too. Like the familiar Corcyran farming magnate and his mistress. There he sits, drinking, the back of his head shot full of holes and actively bleeding onto the sandy floor. He’s even leaking from those holes in his cheeks and chest, like the skeletal mares. Sure, they’re all dead, but they’ve got something else in common—they’re ready to see if Ginevra gets beat. Most of the crowd thinks she deserves it, too.

The silent bell sounds. Ginevra hobbles as she stands in the ring. Her adrenaline’s wearing off. It’s giving way to fear and nausea—lots of nausea. Hot-cold oscillates at her bruised back. Ø, that mare in front of her is her same height, same build. Same cut-through sorrel eyes. Jutting snout bruised. Ginevra’s starting to panic. She can’t breathe, again.

“Hey,” the referee juts.

His soft face is centimeters from Ginevra’s. He’s whispering but she can see him just as clearly. What’s that cologne he’s wearing? Smells like citrus.

“Wow, you doing alright? You’re looking rough. And those hits like the last few? Those’ll kill you—and that’s a fact. Probably did, already. Not you, I mean, but another one of you. You know how it is. That’s how these nightmares normally go, right?” Kelly laughs. Corners of his mouth turn. Even his eyebrows raise. He smiles. That’s his real skin, like he’s human again with his sleeves rolled up, enjoying a lip of tobacco. Ginevra’s suffocating from the stench. “Go see Bennie and get fixed up. I’m going to make us some drinks.”

Ginevra jolts.

She’s awoken back on the Disagio. Her heart’s racing. Even out of her nightmare, she still can’t breathe. Her fingers trace to her neck. It’s stifled beneath Kelly’s forearm. He’s snoring, delivering a blissful sort of headlock, half-crushing her lungs with his weight. She heaves him off, savoring the full breath of recycled oxygen as she rises to plant her back against the berth’s wall.

The Lamanon gives up on putting Ginevra back to sleep. Her half of the bed’s automatic hot-cold cycling ceases. Circular mechanical massagers cut their routines short, their incessant jabbing ceasing. But only for Ginevra’s half of the bed—Kelly’s continues along.

It’s pitch black in Kelly’s berth. Ginevra notices there’s no windows, so no stars, either. So no stars, either. Nor any clocks—what time is it? There’s no humming from the engines. They’ve been cut, as Bruto must have declared they’ve reached his desired speed. No need to accelerate any further and waste more fuel, he must think. Cost-efficiency must be high on the little blemmo’s priorities.

She can barely see Kelly’s outline in this darkness. But he’s the same as he was last evening: lying on his left side. At peace, almost silent. His sinuses breathe easy from all that surgery of his. He’s got no scars cutting up his chest. No identifiers—he says Bennie takes care of him too well. Not even tattoos, but he said that’s just a personal preference. But all the sleep in the galaxy can’t stop that left arm of his from snaking beneath Ginevra’s pillow. She doesn’t need to ask him if that’s where he stashes his gun—she feels him cradle it in between playing with her hair.

Ginevra’s hooves hit the wood floor. She wipes at the side of her face. It’s greasy, half-matted, smelling of sweat and drool. She leans towards her left for leverage, searching for a side table that isn’t there. Her hooves clack obnoxiously as she catches herself from falling. The sound’s too loud for her hungover mind.

So she’s thankful that the drawing room’s silent. Thankful, too, for the bar she raids, and even the couch where she slumps. She’s alone—just her and her drink, her highball glass overfilled with lukewarm soda water. Some of it spilled on the hardwood floor in front of the weapons. It’s sizzling, loudly, in her Kanapaha’s shadow. Her headache isn’t helped by the garish overhead lighting, too dim to be useful, too bright to be comforting. Cheap bulbs, no doubt. As the carbonation on her lips subsides, she places a hand on her clammy head. She’s paying for all the drinking she’s done, and the silence only worsens her headache.

She wipes her eyes, digging a nail into the gunk that’s caked between her eyelids, wiping it onto her nightgown. No, the garment’s not from Kelly. It’s not his style of gift, unlike the flimsy black pure-silk kimono that hangs in his closet, the one with the hand-sewn embroideries of garish peonies and peacock feathers, the pink-green clash jumping from the arms and down the back’s waterfall design. The one hung carelessly, sash lost, probably worn open for easy access. Handmade, too, the only brand indication an artist’s simple hanko hidden beneath an unfurling flower. The outfit’s hidden just out of view, sized no doubt for that same special someone who douses his penthouse bedroom with coconut-milk-pistachio perfume.

No, the ruffled pure-silk metallic-gold neckline trim that catches at Ginevra’s mane is hers. She may not have paid for it, but she owns it. The white-yellow chiffon drapery combination is too formal. Stuffy, the chiton dress cinched at her waist, succeeding in showing off mannish shoulders, incentivizing her to pair it with the off-pink see-through shawl with cigarette burns at the breasts and wrists. More importantly, at her aching stomach sits the Bergeret in its small, custom-sewn pocket, all snug.

It’s an alteration she made herself. A size increase, to fit more than just the usual pill bottle. She hinted to Kelly that Augo would have never let her make such a change. He always said that sleepwear was meant to be unarmed—an idea that Ginevra believes will get him killed someday. He’s just not that sharp when compared to hunters like her, like that plastic-faced man sleeping in the berth.

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But she’d rather not think of Augo. Nor Kelly, either the plastic one or the dreamlike one made of real skin. It’s just a shame there’s not much to do at this hour—whatever hour it may be.

After all, Kelly keeps all his records in the berth. And that damned blemmo isn’t much for conversation. Not like Ginevra is, either, but at least keeping busy would scare away some of this headache.

Her fingers dig into the black fainting couch, scratching at its ridges, fidgeting as each scratch of her nails along pseudo-leather lowers its future resale value. She’d rather not stand, but she has to. Her hooves take her back to the cart to refill her empty glass. Midway through another half-spill, she reaches for the clutch of oranges, retrieving one with a subconscious need for nutrients.

Her nails split the outer rind with a fearsome squelch. The acidic white-yellow veins coat her chest. Her bite is more like a scrape, jutting teeth draining the liquid pockets into her maw. It spills over her lips, coating her décolletage, getting caught in her facial fur. When she sits up again, she feels that cold, disgusting drip one feels after a night of drinking with a partner like Kelly.

Something needs to take her mind off this headache.

And she sees it in the distance. A temporary solution: an investigation. Bennie’s over there, lurking in the shadows. Now he—he hums, unlike the engines or Kelly’s sinuses. It’s not a conversation, sure, but it’s something to look at. He’s a nearly silent object for her to focus on. She’ll do anything to stop that spinning that begins whenever she closes her eyes for more than a few seconds.

Ginevra’s hands are full. In one, half a sticky orange. In the other, two-thirds a glass of soda water. She balances each side, guiding each hoof in front of the other, careful to not step onto her nightgown and tear it. One clack. Another clack. It’s a ten-meter tightrope into the cargo hold. She’d tiptoe if she could.

By the time the orange at her hand is fully excavated, she’s within swinging distance of the revered Dr. Bennie. It’s the closest she’s come to a medical professional in the past three years—since Marcello showed (whoever that is). He may not be living, breathing, but Bennie’s humming. Churning, too, by the sound of it, as if ankle-deep water splashes against the insides of the tube.

Ginevra tenses. The grimace she wears should be enough to tell anyone that it’s a sound she hates—sloshing. No matter how often Kelly mixes a drink, it still agitates her. The sound’s petulant. Uncouth. Uncontrollable in a disgusting sort of way. She’s reminded of water lapping at the edges of a certain Saracen’s castle. Or the way liquid sounds at the top of a cloning tank, in that few-centimeter gap between the sealed top and red liquid she’d be suspended within.

For her, being stuck inside those tanks, constantly poked and connected with medical instruments, is childhood. Constantly, all on instinct, her snout would reach for the tank’s ceiling. She’d attempt to swim upwards, towards what she assumed was oxygen. Her legs would kick away the medical tubing and catheters. And she’d be successful, grateful for the few breaths she could suck down. But then the tank would be refilled, the instruments refitted to her body. She’d once more go unconscious through a continuous cycle of drowning and re-drowning, her synthetic comas induced once more. The last thing she’d hear would be that churning.

And she represses the memory, preferring to focus on Bennie himself, her headache is overtaken by a murderous interest.

As usual, she expects some sort of trap. Her left thumbnail cuts X’s into that orange peel. She nervously twirls it, sliding it between her fingers, pressing it against palm. It’s a little trick she learned as a filly—a quick way to judge security systems both synthetic and organic. When she was at her youngest, she’d use rocks or pebbles, to Augo’s disgust. But now, the killer that she is, she uses ingredients pilfered from the bar cart. With her process, hopes for some sort of reaction from Bennie—and thus, something to react to.

She bends her knees. One hoof in front of the other. She won’t be caught flat-footed, that’s for sure. Her mannish shoulder stretches, swinging forward and back, cupping the orange’s skin like a trébouchet’s sling. Momentum from such a toss starts at her frogs, traveling up her calves and thighs and flanks, the swaying of her whole body, nearly doubled-over, refined through years of Augo’s mandatory pétanque games with the other Sant-Sarninites. Tipsily, she whips the orange peel into the machine with a vicious underhand.

And Ginevra’s rewarded.

Bennie’s vibrations grow more violent. The churning grows. The liquid in there has raised in pressure. It’d be up to her chest if she were in there, the way fluids have begun to circulate. As expected, Bennie’s mass of tentacles uncoils like whips, dragging across the floor, pawing the air, as he attempts to find the external input that woke him from slumber. It’s not long until one, two, five of those tendrils hone in on the pelted orange peel and all its little pieces, sweeping them into a pile. Unsurprisingly, as Ginevra watches, the probing begins: little needles from a few of the tentacles, strangulatory coils from others assault the fruit’s remnants. Bennie investigates the fruit as he would any other half-living creature, collating the data in its external inputs, the screen lighting with a few messages delivered in a pleasing cursive:

INPUT DETECTED

He churns, flashing his lights at random—white-yellow like Robichaux marsh gas set alight,

SUBJECT: CITRUS (NONHUMANOID)

ASSESSMENT: NON-SENTIENT; NUTRIENT DEFICIENT; POSSIBLE FROSTBITE VICTIM

RECOMMENDATION: COMPOSTING PROCEDURE #8; OLD FASHIONED

Ginevra brings the glass to her lips, satisfied in her investigation, grateful to have wasted her time. The soda water is fizzy on her tongue. She finishes it with an obnoxious gulp. As she shuts her eyes, though, another sound. Ding. Like a ringside bell. Her headache pounds anew.

SECONDARY INPUT DETECTED

Bennie corrects himself,

SUBJECT: CAVALLA-CLASS BESTIAMOIDE

ASSESSMENT: PALOMO-MARENGO SYNDROME (THIRD STAGE), GINI DISORDER TYPE II, JUCCI DISEASE (EARLY ONSET)

RECOMMENDATION: FURTHER DATA NEEDED

Ginevra flinches. Third stage? That can’t be right—something like that takes decades to progress. Last she heard, it wasn’t that serious. But that assessment was from years ago when she was still on Sant-Sarnin, choking down pills by the fistful. She hasn’t seen a doctor since. Only pharmacists. Her free hand reaches for her flanks, instinctively looking for another one of those anti-psychotics.

All she finds is her loaded Bergeret.

There’s that churning again from Bennie. Another flash of lights—yellow, like a Sant-Sarnin windstorm. He groans as if he were mulling over his data. The purring Ginevra hears is closer, though. Mechanical. Those limbs of his crawl like vines along the cargo’s floor, the tubes criss-crossing in patterns like the white roots of an orange’s pith. She’d step backwards if she could will her legs to move—but it’s just like that dream of hers.

It’s like she hasn’t walked in hours.

Bennie’s tendril touches light on her hoof. It knocks against her, like the machine’s never touched keratin. He’s soft on her fingers, too, tracing down each phalanx, one needle meeting at her middle knuckle and pressing it into the highball glass. Another coils around her hock, creaking as its metallic head connects back to its body. It squeezes, lightly, determining heartbeat. The needle at her finger enters the space between her ring and middle finger, as if it were a mosquito burrowing for blood. Must be nutrients, she gathers. Dextrose. Saline. It’s the only reason her headache and nausea have begun to evaporate.

The prick at her fingers is numbing and uncomfortable. Not because of the sensation—as she feels nothing from the shoulder down, only the other tentacle brushing against the soft robe that hides her clavicle—but because it reminds her of something. Being poked and prodded, the viscous churning that would be neck-high if she were back in the tube. More importantly, it reminds her of someone. Augo, the way he’d hold her, his digits interlocking with hers, able to pin her in place with just a passive touch at the inner ankle.

She swears that she smells his nightmarish sunflower seed breath.

Another ding:

SUBJECT: CAVALLA-CLASS BESITAMOIDE, PREVIOUS GENETIC DATA LOADED

Bennie sneers,

MODIFIED ASSESSMENT:

STRESS: MODERATE; RECENT SPOUSAL SEPARATION, HIGH TENSION CAREER

PREDISPOSITION: SEVERE; SOCIOPATHIC PERSONALITY DISTURBANCE, DYSSOCIAL REACTION TO UPBRINGING; ANANKASTIC TENDENCIES PRESENTING AS SEXUAL DEVIANCY; ‘LEMON’ OF A GIRL

IMPAIRMENT: SEVERE; CAN’T HIT THE BROAD SIDE OF A BARN—HAVE YOU SEEN THAT SHOT GROUPING OF HERS, KELLY?

RECOMMENDATION: VOCATIONAL CHANGE, ATTITUDE CORRECTION; CONFINEMENT TO SANT-SARNIN WITH THAT BRAT OF HERS—

Ginevra whips at the neck. The needle at her fingers becomes unfastened. Blood painfully spits from her right hand. Her frustration manifests in a circular motion at her shoulder. That empty highball glass splits through the air, striking Bennie right at center mass. It shatters into chunks across the floor. In this light, dripping with the last sips of sparkling water, blobs of glass must look like the stars outside the Disagio. And as Bennie’s tentacles reposition, scraping against the glass shards, Ginevra reaches towards her pocket, unholstering her Bergeret.

One. Two. She fires at the machine’s center mass, on either side of where she assumes a sternum would be. Then three, at where a head should be. Bennie spits fluid, leaking opaque liquid in rivulets. The fourth shot—now the fourth is tricky for Ginevra. Just as tricky as the fifth, too.

She turns back towards the drawing room, contorting at the hip, remembering that she needs to be light on her hooves to avoid any more punches to the body. But she slips, planting onto her nightgown. It tears at the base, pure-silk stretched too thin. But still, she fires off the shots, directing them towards that figure in the doorway—that new figure that’s snuck up on her—the one that reminds her so much of Augo.

Except Augo never was one for a nightcap.