“…not ships, no,” I said, my voice starting to settle into a monotone. “Planes. They’re giant, like, hunks of metal that use aerodynamics and jet propulsion to move forward.”

There were a dozen nobles in front of me, many carrying slender glasses filled with champagne. Each had given me their names, but after almost an hour I couldn’t remember many of them. Most of the nobles in attendance were women and the few men I’d seen didn’t have the bearing of warriors. Odysseus had mentioned that these were businesspeople, but from the trend I’d gotten, almost everyone here wanted to find someone to marry with most people eyeing Baroness Samantha who had recently lost her husband.

I hadn’t thought about it before, but it was starting to hit me that I was back in time, and that the value systems of this world had also regressed. Even in my time women were undervalued most of the time, how much worse was it now?

This world’s problems were not mine to fix, what was important right now was my own survival, I thought, pushing all else aside.

The lights had changed, becoming colder, silver-edged, giving the space a feeling of night. I had to work to keep myself from getting distracted because the scenery was more enthralling than the people I was supposed to be entertaining. The lamps along the pathways were alight, low and yellow; the oranges now glowed a golden colour; and fluttering between the trees were butterflies whose wings shone in different colours with each flap.

“And how do they fly?” a woman asked, in her thirties and with a more conservative style to her dress — a high, lacy collar, large, dominating gems, and a tight corset. “Do your people have gravity magic?”

“The science is lost on me,” I said. “I’m a scholar, but that wasn’t my field of study. But like I said, it mostly has to do with aerodynamics — a lot like wind magic except they use what’s there instead of creating it — and thrust, which is just shooting out fire so it can propel you forward.”

“You mentioned yourself to be a scholar,” a man said, chubby with straight, brown hair; his face was covered by white make-up and his cheek dotted with red to make them rosy. “What was your scholarly field?”

Saying I studied stuff to make me a better businessperson down the line didn’t sound cool so with a shrug I said, “Making money.”

One of the servants walked close, a tray filled with sparkling champagne in a glowing green colour. I gestured and picked one up. It tasted like green apples but airy, dancing on my tongue with fizz — is this just an alcoholic cooldrink?

I let the confusion disappear from my features.

“Apologies, ladies and lords,” said Surefoot from my shoulder. “But Sir Sebastian beckons.”

Before anyone could get in another word Surefoot and I walked away, leaving them talking between themselves. Our path took us further into the garden, towards a wall that had been painted so it looked like the foliage stretched on, elves in silks dancing in the middle of a clearing; between the clusters of trees were stone stools, people sat, sharing low conversation.

“What’s the deal with this Sebastian guy?” I asked. “Do I need to know anything before I meet him?”

“Sir Sebastian is a euphemism for the privy,” he said.

My head tilted as the gears turned, I was too tired to work through the peculiarity. “Why?”

“Who can say why certain euphemisms develop, Champion,” he said. “Nor why they would be acceptable when saying I need to piss might be considered crude?”

“Society seems like a grand artifice sometimes,” I muttered, taking another sip of the apple flavour alcoholic cooldrink. “Where is the privy, anyway? Unless…we do what bears do?”

“What bears do?”

“It’s a euphemism too, I think.” I shrugged. “It’s an American thing. Bears are one of those things I haven’t seen before and sometimes — when my brain feels like being stupid — believe isn’t actually real.”

“The privies are at the corners, you’ll find the doors there,” he said. “You should take a moment. I can hear that you have lost your enthusiasm.”

“Did I have enthusiasm in the first place?” I asked and it sounded like a mutter.

“Perhaps not that, but…emotion,” he said. “I do not know if you know it, Champion, but the way you speak is emotive, utilising your entire range of motion. The longer you spoke, the more you lost that. I thought it might be the exhaustion setting in.”

I hummed. “I do need a few moments to myself,” I said. “Just to recharge.”

“I will be about,” he said. “Excuse yourself by telling whoever has your attention that you are trying to find me.”

“Thanks, Surefoot, all of this is really appreciated,” I said.

“I admit myself curious how your meeting with Baron Owain will develop,” he said. “Let me be off.”

I found the privy and it took me aback how much they seemed like public toilets, except cleaner and more opulent; there was even a servant who sat near the door like I’d seen in some old movies. I found a stall and went inside, giving myself a moment of calm. Dealing with people had made me forget about Owain and about Jaslynn — the only other person I knew at the party; but with nothing else to occupy my mind, I couldn’t help but dwell on them. With an active effort, I cast my mind away from the pair, centring myself.

After the foible with the merchant guy, nothing similar had happened, but this night had been for a reason, and if Odysseus or Ally weren’t here, it felt like I might chicken out.

I took a breath. Slowly in and then out, eyes closed and my head leaning against the cold stone of the wall behind me. I heard sounds beyond my stall, footsteps against the floor, but I let it wash over me, not focusing on any one thing.

“Are you sure he came in here?” I heard and my eyes opened. The voice was muffled, but it didn’t have Odysseus’ cadence, it sounded a little too heated, too stern.

“Me personally, no,” said another voice, much softer, the words a smooth drawl. “But he was spotted coming here by Lady Glenda.”

“You, servant,” the first man said. “Did anyone come in here?”

Please say no. Please say no. Please say no.

“You know better than to ask that question,” the man’s friend said. “There are many things you can do, but disturbing a man while he takes a shit is not one of them.”

I heard a snort. “I would think you a warrior with how foul your mouth is,” said the man.

“Am I not the one who felled a giant spider with her brood?” the friend asked, Leonard the Mage asked. If that was so, then the speaker would be Odysseus. My heart started to beat faster. I shifted, pulling my feet up even though there was no chance they’d see me. “Perhaps I am a greater warrior than you,” Leonard continued, chuckling.

Owain let out a breath in a huff. “Let us be off,” he said, his irritation audible. “Allycea has arrived and I would like to speak to her before the night is through.”

The footsteps receded.

I let out a breath and closed my eyes again, narrowing my range until it only held the privy. Owain and Leonard became easier to separate from the guy who wasn’t moving. Slowly, I increased my range as they reached its edge, focusing on their impressions so I wouldn’t lose them in the greater thrum.

They left the privy and stopped outside.

Pretending to leave so they’d catch me unaware.

I sat back, going over what I was going to do again, my leg bouncing as I was filled with nervous energy. I’d asked for support from the prince and princess but what I wanted was tricky. I was banking on a lot of things going right for my plan to work – that Owain was predictable; that the king wanted me to succeed enough that he would be go ahead and send me off the island; and the prince and princess would be willing to speak on my behalf to push things through it if was needed.

Even if the talk with Owain went okay, there was still room for failure.

I started framing the conversation in my mind. Not specifics — I was sure that I would blank if I tried to script things out — but the abstract of what I wanted to say and do, and how I wanted things to play out. Insults would work best, but they had to press at particular buttons to make sure Owain would be too angry to think, but not so angry that he killed me.

It was ten minutes before Owain and Leonard left. I stood and left my stall, going to the sink to wash my hands, staring at myself in the mirror. The fear was clear in my eyes — dark brown, wide and almost teary. I looked like I was on edge, but my mouth was set in a line which gave me a resting bitch face.

I could almost imagine my expression being intimidating if the eyes were less wild.

Do what it takes to survive, I told myself and my eyes narrowed, losing some of the wildness. Yeah, that’s it, keep holding onto that.

I got out and flickered the filters of my spatial sense, quickly switching from only sensing the only Urocy on the floor — Surefoot — back to people as a whole. It allowed me to get a sense of where Surefoot was in relation to Owain and Leonard; they were closer than I would have liked, but since he was my only ally, I had to get to him.

There were people between us, people I wasn’t feeling up to talking to, not when my social energy was better utilised elsewhere. So I started making a game out of it. If my plan worked and I got off the island, I’d still need to sneak and I needed any practice I could get.

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I couldn’t crawl through bushes or be too obvious about it so I had to walk, straight-backed and my focus entirely forward, using how the trees clustered as cover. Some spaces were too dense to move through, and going around put me in the way of people. I spotted a guy with the corner of my eye — saw as his eyes widened and his mouth opened, preparing to close the distance between us — and I turned, walking into one of the secluded areas people went to for a semblance of privacy. The man waited and when I didn’t come out, he walked away.

With a brisk pace I left, walking in a roundabout path through the length of the garden, keeping out of the central clearing, and sometimes pretending to be looking at a butterfly or a glowing orange. I flickered my filters again when I got turned around, and used that to get a bead on Surefoot.

I spotted him, a distance away, but that was the same time Leonard the Mage spotted me.

“Ah, Champion!” he said, loud, drawing attention. Ass.

Beside the mage was Cybill who was dressed in a white dress with a gold trim at her collar, hem and cuffs; she wore a wreath to guard her hair, yellow roses in bloom set around the thing. She seemed bored.

“How long we have looked for you,” he continued.

Owain wasn’t too far away, out of his armour and dressed in the most garish purple I’d ever seen. Odysseus had mentioned how wearing too much jewellery could be gaudy and I saw it in the baron: all of his fingers had different stones, from his neck hung a necklace made of silver and lined with different gems, and every button was gold. There was just too much, without any sense of style.

Ally was with him and it struck me as odd that a part of me had expected to see her in a dress when that didn’t seem her style. Maybe it was because both Cybill and Jaslynn had done away from their usual pants and shirt gear. Ally was chequered blue and white, both ears lined with three earrings of sapphires. The look — pants, a vest and a long coat at her shoulders — the bearing, and the recently cut hair gave her an androgynous look.

She moved forward and Owain followed after her, his eyes boring into me.

“Why?” I asked.

Leonard smiled. “You have quite the penchant for running,” he said. “Who knows what idea you might have gotten?”

Guess this is happening, I thought, my heart beating quickly. I swallowed, tried to frown and it didn’t work. My eyes flickered and found Surefoot who had also come in my direction; a lot of other people were drawing close too, feeling the tension in the air.

You knew this was going to happen, I thought. Surefoot told you they would respond. Why are you surprised?

I wasn’t surprised, but there were people around, all of them looking at me, judging me.

That’s also good. There’s a lot of eyes. It’s harder to sweep under the rug. It’s why you wanted this setting.

“Are those your words, mage, or are they your master’s?” I asked, softer than I’d intended, wobbly. I really wanted to be intimidated but my flight response felt seconds away from activating.

I can’t run here. I just can’t.

Having the temporal ring helped, it meant I could panic without missing any detail. Leonard’s expression was a lot like that merchant guy, Caleb, when I’d called him out on being a commoner, he froze. But where that had been it with Caleb, a heap of emotion started to playout across Leonard’s features.

“Forgive me,” I said. “The customs of this world still elude me, but…he should be your master, right? Because you’re just a mage, with no other titles to your name. You serve those of a higher standing than you.”

It was something I’d learned pretty early on and seen play out again and again. The first child was the heir, the second the spare, but there really wasn’t much use for the third and any of the others who followed. So they chose for themselves vocations: Anthony was a knight because he had nothing else to his name; the same was probably true for Cicero because he was the son of a baron; even Odysseus, though he was a special case.

With a shocking sense of clarity an idea came to me, the right sort of button to ensure Leonard went over the edge. Hopefully Owain cared enough that he got angry too.

I willed my mouth to speak but my mouth decided otherwise.

This is stupid. This is all the stupid in the world and it could get you killed. This is the guy who killed a giant spider.

I swallowed, steeling myself because I had to do this. Leonard, Owain and his father were already enemies. This was me using that to my advantage.

“Are you even a mage?” I said dryly. “As I said, I don’t know a lot about this world, but one has to wonder. Is someone a mage if they use an artefact?”

If looks could kill I would be curled up on the ground.

“Do you doubt my power, Champion,” he said, the last word spat with disgust.

“I don’t doubt the power of your staff,” I said. In the corner of my eye Jaslynn passed through the gathering crowd; her eyes sparkled and her lips were set in a smile. She stopped instead of getting close, her arms crossed.

My hands started to fidget so I put them in my pockets, letting myself slouch.

Surefoot had said that I lost most of my expression when I was tired to my very core, and right now I felt it. I hoped that worked to my advantage.

Something must have set him off because Leonard moved. It took all my will not to flinch. Like Odysseus when he activated his pendant, Leonard made gestures with his hands and I heard hisses and pops as water started to form, coating his arms and seeping into his clothes; the display was tumultuous and erratic, it looked like the effect would falter or hurt him.

I hadn’t seen any water magic except from him and artefacts, but I got the sense that wasn’t how it was supposed to be. A snort left me and it was loud. Leonard’s lips pulled back and he leaned forward.

“Leonard!” Owain said, the word terse. The mage stopped, glaring daggers.

He can’t kill me. The political implications would be too great.

Will that do you any good if he kills you, another part of me thought, and I almost took another step back, so much closer to running.

I smiled, but there wasn’t any emotion behind it. “Your master speaks,” I said. “Obey.”

“Have care how you talk to my friend, Jordan,” Owain said, stepping forward. He put a hand on Leonard’s shoulder but the mage’s expression didn’t change in the slightest. “He is a far greater man than the likes of you.”

“Is he?” I said and my eyes flickered over to Surefoot. Closer than most, watching but his body primed to pounce. I was about to lie again and I wasn’t sure what things would look like after this. “Is he as great a man as you?”

“It seems as though you are close to alluding to something,” he said. “Speak.”

“You don’t order me around, junior,” I said. Odysseus had laughed and I hadn’t been sure why. It was apparently a button going by Owain’s expression. “But I’ll speak. Your father said something when we were in council, he called me a coward, and when I think back to our hunt, the only person who could have lied is the so-called mage. I wonder, is it he who lied, or did he do it at the behest of his master?”

“Do you stand here, in front of these lords, impugning my honour, Jordan?” Owain asked.

“That is a serious accusation, Champion,” Ally said, her expression flat, her luminescent eye a dull colour.

Everything matters, I thought. Does it matter that she called me a Champion when Owain called me by my name? I vibrated with nervous energy and my thoughts were frantic; thinking in too many directions threatened to make me trip over my words.

Focus, Jordan. Remember why you’re doing this.

“Your man called me a coward,” I said, “or alluded as such. I say these are lies spoken by a man in service of his master. Your showing in the mines was horrible to say the least, Owain junior. You were saved numerous times by Her Highness’ ladies-in-waiting; warriors who I could see, even with my untrained eye, were vastly more skilled than you could ever be. Lady Jaslynn,” I said and I glared at her, “do I speak falsehood?”

Your happiness isn’t the only thing tied up in this, I thought.

The memory seemed so attached to Jaslynn that it felt like she had said the words. She wasn’t. They had been said by Ellora because she’d been the one to stay behind, shooting the snails off the roof. But Jaslynn had made me feel the words more than anyone else.

If you’re willing to do that, then you must be willing to lie for me in service of Ally.

“No, Champion,” said Jaslynn, her words smooth. “I remember it distinctly. Your words are true. Numerous times we had to draw the spiders to attack us so they would not kill Baron Owain.”

“Lies,” said Owain.

“Have care of your words,” Ally added. “My ladies speak with my voice. To call Lady Jaslynn a liar is to throw the same accusation at me.”

Support. I’d asked and she’d given it in a roundabout way.

“Your ladies-in-waiting, and indeed yourself, Your Highness,” said Owain. “You are all skilled warriors, this I will admit. But the Champion bends the truth so far it is closing to break. The terrain was unfamiliar to me, as I said before—”

I thought about Flitter and threads I’d seen there, where nuance was often dismissed so a person could bolster their point. Simplicity was easier to swallow than the complex.

“Excuses,” I said, low, almost a whisper.

He stopped and glared. Then he slightly, seeing our assembled crowd.

This is about them more than it is about us, I thought.

This was why I’d wanted it to be a party, because audiences would form their own conclusions, when they retold the story it would be to bolster the side they enjoyed the most. Owain had standing and maybe that would work for him, but — at least using the internet as a reference — people liked to see those in high positions brought low.

“You ran, Champion,” he said, likely getting the same idea. “Twice you ran. You are a coward.”

“And so the master repeats the words of his dog,” I said, confidence finding my voice. This was where I’d wanted things to go and now I hoped things continued to go that way. “I challenge you, Owain, for besmirching my honour.”

Owain and Leonard grinned, ugly, making my stomach drop. Ally, Cybill and Jaslynn’s expressions fell.

You know more than they do. Don’t let them get in your head.

“A hunt,” I continued. “That is where all this started and that is where this will end. I cannot ride and I am still unfamiliar with my weapon of choice, but given a fortnight and I’m sure I’ll outmatch you in skill. And since the mines were so unfamiliar, I will give you the right to choose the terrain and our game. Do you accept, Owain, or will there be more excuses?”

“Why not now?” he asked. “Why not tomorrow? Why do you stall, Jordan?”

I froze, looking him in the eye and thinking, using the ring to give me five seconds for every second so I could find an answer that would sound right, that wouldn’t force me to cut down a reasonable timeline.

There were skills I still needed to learn, even though there was the chance of me being off the island, escape wouldn’t be simple or easy.

Could I bullshit in a way that would change minds? Could I be clever?

I still wasn’t good at that sort of thing so I decided to be direct. “Like I said, I’m untrained. Do you so fear my potential that giving me two weeks terrifies you? You who has trained since you were a child? I have to wonder what that training was even worth,” I finished dismissively.

“Your insults mean nothing to me,” he said. “They only prove you are nothing but a child. I will give you your fortnight and when it is done, we shall go through with your challenge. I will show you why the lords of Harrengrove are highly respected.”

He ended the words with his chest puffed up and an air of righteousness.

Undercut and dismiss, I thought.

I snorted and turned. “Ja, sure, whatever, guy,” I said with a sense of boredom.

Keep walking until the elevator, I thought. Don’t look back.

I kept walking, back held straight even though I felt tired. Someone started walking after me but I didn’t turn back. They caught up — Surefoot. We reached the elevator and the doors opened.

Odysseus stood on the other side and his eyes opened in surprise. He was well dressed, hair done up, but he looked frantic.

“Champion,” he said. “I have been looking for you.”

“I’m leaving,” I said. Odysseus started to frown. “You got here too late. It’s already happened. I’ll explain everything, just not here.”

Odysseus looked past me into the party — I didn’t glance back — then he nodded.

Surefoot and I got in and the door closed. Odysseus pressed a button and the elevator started to glide up. Silence stretched between the three of us.

We reached my floor.

Odysseus and I got off. Surefoot stayed inside.

“Champion,” he said. I stopped and turned. “You are becoming quite the actor.”

The doors to the elevator doors slid closed and I stayed standing there.

I’d lied, not for the first time, and that had strained my relationship with Surefoot. My stomach shifted, a tumult of feelings running through me. Surefoot would have had me tell the truth when it didn’t help me, but it felt much bigger than that even if I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.

As much as I liked Surefoot, as much as hanging out with him felt normal in a place that felt like it was grinding me down, I couldn’t forget that the greatest objective was finding a way home.

And if that meant doing things I was uncomfortable with, that was the price I had to pay.

Survival is the ultimate goal, I thought, making that my mantra.

I turned away from the door, following Odysseus.

The challenge had been issued, but that didn’t mean the work was done.