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“She who chases two rabbits catches neither.”
“And she who talks to the voices in her head gets locked up,” I muttered back to my mother’s ghost as I wound my way through the unsavory streets of the Warren on the way to my ultimate goal. I’d tugged on as many investigative threads as possible without straying far from my path over the last couple of hours. And, no, I hadn’t come up with any blinding flashes of insight in the process. But it was better than trying to do the same work while dragging around two gruffly overprotective werewolves. Plus, I still held out hope that some of the seeds I’d planted might bear fruit...after the upcoming fight.
Now I paused in a shadowy alcove just outside the Arena, hasty fingers running through tangled hair while my magical senses performed the more important preparation—materializing my sword within the sheathe along my spine. The match was due to begin in a matter of minutes, and I didn’t need a Japanese proverb to know I’d better get my head into the game before dashing through that door.
So, pushing away Mama’s memory, I closed my eyes and focused on Dad’s voice instead. My father had fought in the Arena as long as I could remember, and he’d passed along many of his tricks to me. The most important, he’d always asserted, was preparation. “Before you start fighting,” he’d always told me, “remember to center on your breath.”
Closing my eyes now, I obeyed the oft-repeated admonition. Sucked in a deep lungful of air through my nose then gently relaxed the carbon dioxide away between loosely parted teeth. Whoever Ma Scrubbs had chosen as today’s opponent would be more bark than bite. As long as I ignored their bluster, chances were good that I’d win...and pay the rest of Kira’s tuition in the process.
“Darkness lies one inch in front of your nose.”
My eyelids burst open at Mama’s shrill interjection, breath coming faster as I peered around the dim alley in search of potential danger. Her words had seemed so ominous at first blush...but now that I thought about it, I was pretty sure that proverb was merely telling me to expect the unexpected. Perhaps this was Ghost Mama’s attempt to help out?
Whatever the reason, I wasn’t quite in the zone when I slipped in the back entrance of the Arena moments later. Sure, my sword was in my hand and my muscles were loose and ready. But the roar of the crowd made me wince as I left the shadows behind and walked out under the blinding floodlights.
Meanwhile, the words of the announcer didn’t help matters either. “Please welcome Wednesday’s competitors back to the Arena! Ladies and gentleman, introducing Mai Fairchild and Ransom Atwood!”
***
IT WASN’T RANSOM, THOUGH, who appeared on the other side of the small cage as my eyes adjusted to the over-illumination. Instead, resembling his brother enough to make the false identity work from a distance, Gunner greeted me with a grin that did odd things to my stomach. Then, taking advantage of my unconscious lean in his general direction, my opponent opened the fight with a forward lunge transitioning into a slashing stroke of the sword clasped in one long-fingered fist.
In response, I dropped to the ground and somersaulted past him, rolling upwards even as the alpha spun to trace my path. I told myself it was just Mama’s unhelpful words of encouragement that made Gunner’s reappearance hit me like a punch to the gut the moment I set eyes upon him. But his verbal greeting both deepened my reaction and illuminated my lie.
“I was worried,” the big, scary alpha told me, a subtle tightening around his eyes suggesting he was actually telling the truth even though his sword continued to parry mine stroke for stroke. “Crow and Tank called two hours ago. Said you’d slipped your leash. The whole pack’s been tearing the city apart ever since. I figured you could take care of yourself. But...”—he feinted then struck at my knees, a blow I easily blocked—“...I’m glad to see your face.”
“Aw, you missed me,” I countered, finding it easy to keep my words light when my feet felt as if they were walking on rainbows. Taking advantage of the emotion-fueled energy, in fact, I transitioned into one of Dad’s favorite combo moves then. Bing, bang, boom. Feint, parry, attack. Gunner must have had more experience with swordsmanship than I’d expected or he would have ended up with a game-ending scratch right then.
Instead, the male proved his prowess by nearly catching me on the rebound, swiping low a second time and forcing me to leap to evade his sword. “I did miss you,” he agreed, not even out of breath as he offered a stab that could easily have pierced my stomach lining. “And I’m glad to be back. Not least because we have a mystery to solve.”
I inhaled as I twisted sideways, windmilling my arms then using the change in balance to launch my own attack. “I could have told you Ransom’s feet weren’t that little,” I puffed, finally losing a bit of my composure as Gunner’s blade caught mine and nearly ripped said object out of my grasp.
The scrape of metal against metal provoked a cheer from bystanders I’d nearly forgotten, widening my tunnel vision at last. The crowd members were standing on their seats now, pounding fists against the cage that locked me and Gunner in. Calls of “Ransom” and “Mai” rang out across the Arena in equal measure, and I wasted half a second hoping Ma Scrubbs was right and fewer watchers had bet in my favor this time around.
Because I was going to win. Never mind what a smirking Gunner thought as a flick of his wrist ripped my sword away to send it flying toward the chain link behind my back. My opponent might be bigger and stronger. But I needed the cash far more than he did...and I’d never promised to fight fair.
So even as the sword left my fingers, I sucked as hard as I could against the retreating magic, feeling icy tentacles sliding into the darkness up my sleeve. The shell of my former weapon clanged dully against the cage wall even as I formed a slightly smaller rapier in the same sheathe the original sword had occupied five minutes earlier.
“Never bet against a Fairchild,” I told Gunner. At the same time, I reached behind my back to grab the replacement blade even as I danced forward to swipe the tiniest pinprick of a line above my opponent’s brow.
If he’d seen the move coming, he could have dodged or even parried. But Gunner had thought I was out of weapons. So he stood like a rock, the widening of his eyes nearly as satisfying as the adulation of the crowd.
Unlike Gunner, I knew how to play to my audience. So I turned, bowed, turned again. And I would have bowed yet another time had I not caught a glimpse of an unexpectedly familiar face pressing up against the chain-link door.
“She’s gone,” Allen mouthed, face as white as mine was suddenly growing. The accountant didn’t need to elaborate for me to realize he referred to the girl I’d left in his charge several hours earlier.
Someone had snatched Kira right out from under my nose.