RIVER

31

AS HETTY AND PENELOPE made their way through the press of people, Hetty heard snatches of conversation swirling around about the match and the bets riding on it. It was her only clue that they’d arrived in the right place. Although it was the same space Hetty had visited just days earlier, nothing felt familiar about the saloon that housed the boxing match. People packed the room to the brim leaving no space to even jut out an elbow. The crowd was different. It was still a mix of people of different means, but as Hetty and Penelope pushed their way closer, the people around them went from poor laborers to wealthy luminaries. There were quite a few white faces in the room. Hetty had not seen any of those at the previous match. Not only did they all appear to be men, they were arranged together in a neat bloc on the other side of the boxing ring. There was no barrier in place that Hetty could see, and no mixing in the crowd overall.

The combination of the betting and the illegal nature of the event would have generated excitement on any night, but add in the taboo of a Black man being allowed to beat on a white man—why, the air crackled with anticipation. Some excitement was for the money at stake, and some was for the outcome alone.

The thrill of possibilities hummed in the air, but it tempered at the sight of the police lurking in the crowd, their hands not far from the wands holstered at their sides.

They arrived late, Hetty realized, as the loudest sound jostling against her ears was the announcer speaking. His magically enhanced voice nearly drowned out jeers and cries. On stage she could see the Irishman, Jimmy Hart, his pale skin washed out under the bright light. He bounced lightly on his heels.

His opponent stood across from him, cast mostly in shadow. From where she stood it didn’t look like Benjy.

Hetty squinted into the light to see, hoping to be wrong. Hoping that someone else stood in Benjy’s place, and he was in the crowd instead.

But the announcer started to speak.

“And in this corner the reigning champ, the defender of the Seventh, the bastion of the Fifth Brigade, and tonight’s challenger, Bender Ross!”

A roar greeted his name, as well as other calls to place last bets.

Hetty gave none of it her attention. All she could see was her husband stripped to the waist, his body already glistening with sweat, and the lights above shining down at him, highlighting the scars along his back. The arc of a hook on his left shoulder, the tapering whiplashes in the center of his back, older scars crisscrossing the more recent. Here and there the skin puckered from old cuts of glass, and held even more scars she couldn’t quite make out at this distance but that she knew were there, as her fingers had trailed along them often, and as recently as the previous night.

His posture was rigid, his muscles tense, and what little she could make of his face was flat and closed off, with nothing of his true character on display.

It was him, yet not him.

This was the Benjy most people chose to see: the brute, the blacksmith, the force of nature. Not the gentle and thoughtful person she had spent so much time with.

Her blood boiled at seeing him standing there, ruining her last hopes that this had all been a mistake. Yet instead of directing her anger at him, she found better targets in the roar of the crowd.

The announcer shouted something then, but Hetty couldn’t make out what he was saying. A bell rang with authority, and it began.

No punches were being thrown quite yet, but the men approached each other in the center of the ring and were shuffling about in an awkward dance of advance and retreat. Jimmy Hart stalked Benjy, who withdrew often, barely ducking out of the way of the punches. They engaged a few times, and each time, far too easily, Benjy got himself ensnared in his opponent’s grasp.

The first time Benjy fell under a vicious flurry of blows, the sight stunned Hetty so much that she didn’t even hear the outcry in the crowd or see the referee move to break them up.

None of this was making sense. Why had he gone down in the first place? He was much better than this!

The referee pulled them apart, and the bell rang.

The fighters retreated to their corners. Hart had water splashed in his face by a cluster of attendants, while Benjy caught his breath.

Hetty hoped it was over, but a bell rang again and Benjy and his opponent were back on their feet, facing each other. This repeated several times over. Not just clinches, but grabs and punches. Hard punches that pushed Benjy staggering backwards until he fell. Every time this happened, she thought it had to be over. Thought she wouldn’t have to see him take that punishment anymore. But then the whole thing started up again and kept going—with no end in sight.

Sometime into the seventh round, a jab sent Benjy rocketing to the floor. This time instead of a gong, a new cry came out from the crowd pressed around them.

“First blood,” the referee called. “Bender!”

“I thought this was supposed to be a contest,” Penelope complained as the crowd howled around them. “Why does he keep getting knocked down?”

“I think it might be a fix,” Hetty said.

“A fix?”

“Some matches are decided before they even begin.”

“You mean they are rigged? Is it for the money?”

“Probably. There are police here. I think they’re worried about what might happen if he wins.”

“Then why do this?” Penelope asked. “Why is he even in the ring in the first place?”

Hetty didn’t get a chance to answer.

A fist collided with Benjy’s face.

He twisted, arching backwards as he fell.

He hit the floor of the ring with a thud, and the ground shifted under Hetty’s feet.

A roar went up around Hetty as she flung herself forward through the press of bodies before her, not caring who she shoved aside.

She kept seeing him fall. Saw him clinging to a tree branch next to her, grinning through cuts and bruises. Saw him jumping at the last second before a trap hex activated. Saw him handing her a gun as she positioned herself next to him in the farmhouse with only their wits and magic to protect themselves and the six others with them.

She saw all those things flash before her eyes, but somehow none of that was worse than what she was seeing right in that moment.

Hetty pushed her way to the edge of the ring. She got a view of Benjy sprawled on the mat. She needed only to slide over a bit to reach his line of sight.

When Benjy first told her about all of this, he had explained all the reasons he had to lose. Hetty had teased him about winning matches and her displeasure about losses, but it was not an act. She meant every word. She did not want him to lose. She could not bear watching him take those strikes and blows, especially when she knew he could sidestep, could block, could dodge, and—if he dared—land a square punch that would put an end to this farce.

“Stand up, you fool!” Hetty cried. “Don’t just lie there!”

As if her words were carried directly to his ear, Benjy’s head jerked in Hetty’s direction, and—finally—he began to stir.

Slowly, Benjy pushed himself up to his knees. His other hand moved as he spat out a mouthful of blood. From the crouch, he popped up to his full height just before the bell rang out.

The Irishman, already celebrating, didn’t realize the cheers resounding around the room were not for his apparent victory. Jimmy Hart turned, jubilant, only to find Benjy standing.

The fighter’s face lost every bit of its color.

They went back to their corners. But that brief rest they had between rounds seemed shorter than it ever was before.

When the bell rang for the next round, Benjy charged toward his opponent. Striking fast, he punched and jabbed at the Irishman, the blows a blur.

It all went too fast.

One moment they were in the middle of the ring, grappling, and in the next Benjy had pinned the Irishman into a corner.

Noise exploded in the room. If she thought it was loud before, she was mistaken—only a bomb would have been louder. Men swarmed around her, blocking her view, trying to push her back as they strained to get a better vantage point. Hetty surged forward and clung to the closest part of the ring, trying to remain planted in her spot. She couldn’t miss a moment, not now.

She could taste victory in the air.

But as Benjy moved in for the kill, magic threw itself into the ring.

Like lightning it arched upward, a crack that cut into the air.

It was no star sigil. It was not a potion. It was Sorcery.

The bolt of magic arced in the air. For a moment it looked as if its goal was to knock out the light overhead and plunge the ring and the crowd into darkness. But no, it arched down, down and into the ring . . . where it struck Benjy.

It thrust him backwards across the ring. He landed, motionless, with a thud.

Police whistles pierced the air, heralding the last traces of order as howls and panic ripped through the crowd.

Hetty nearly lost her footing.

Someone stepped on her dress. Someone else pushed her back. Then the police were storming forward, whistles blowing and wands out.

The crowd was a mob and there was no time to lose.

Hetty needed to get Benjy.

She needed to find Penelope.

She needed to—they all needed to—get out.

But then she caught a glimpse of something across the ring. Illuminated by the swaying light, Isaac Baxter stood still amid the chaos, looking as grim and terrible as the sight unfolding before him.

There could be no coincidence in him being here tonight. Just as there was no coincidence at the way he’d run once their eyes met.

Baxter barreled through the crowd toward an exit, like a fox with a chicken in its teeth. Hetty moved to follow—only to have an arm stretched out toward her, catching her and halting her progress.

With a growl, Hetty drew the Sagittarius star sigil into the air and unleashed it.

The star-speckled centaur charged around the room. The man that stopped her ran even before the first of the spell’s arrows launched into the crowd.

The arrows could do just about anything she wanted, the moment she thought it. Right now, that was two things: clear a path and grab Baxter.

The first part was easily achieved with the centaur at her side. But grabbing Baxter proved difficult.

Despite the arrows flung after him, he slipped out of the room. As if to mock her, the last arrows struck the door frame as he left.

While ideas of giving chase blurred in Hetty’s mind, the fire went out of her.

She could follow Baxter, but it wouldn’t change what had already happened.

Hetty climbed up into the ring without even really realizing how she’d done it. No one stopped her, no one called to her, and if they did it wouldn’t have mattered.

Her entire focus was on the crumpled form that hadn’t moved at all during all the commotion.

“Benjy,” she whispered, patting his face as hard as she dared, trying to avoid the blood spreading from the wound at his collarbone. “Stay with me.”

Hetty ripped the bottom of her dress, and pressed down.

His eyes flickered open for a moment. “Hetty,” he managed to say. “I . . . I need to tell you something.”

“It can wait,” Hetty said, as she searched her pockets for a set of sewing needles she didn’t have, her eyes fixed on the scrap of cloth in her hand already saturated with Benjy’s blood. “It will wait. Because it’ll be a garbled mess, and nothing important should be told when—”

“Hetty.”

The voice she heard this time was not her husband’s, but it was familiar. A voice she missed all these months, that held warmth and comfort.

A voice that she shouldn’t be hearing.

Yet when she looked up and saw the bit of a grin that tugged at the deeply scarred side of his face, she knew she was not mistaken.

“Thomas?” she whispered. “Thomas, by the stars, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Texas!”

“Penelope said the same thing,” Thomas said. “I’ll explain later. Which one of you girls is going to give me a hand? I can’t carry the big guy on my own.”