The next morning pulled an exceptionally warm sun over the canyon city. Shriveled greenery draping over the cliffs above sent a hushed rustling out into the air when Rasalas woke up. He twitched back from Challis' face staring right at him.

She still had sleep lines pressed into her cheek, and sat fully dressed on the parapet that enclosed their tiny rooftop space. Even the air around her was still, empty of flux, so she had been sitting unmoving for a while.

Her staring turned into glaring, and Rasalas felt his neck go hot.

"What's wrong?" he mumbled sleepily, trying not to look as moronic as he felt. Somewhere nearby, a pushcart wheeled over cobblestones toward the market street with a continuous clatter that made Challis' silence even more prominent. Rasalas huffed and rolled over. "Are we playing deaf, dumb, and blind? You know that stopped being fun six years ago."

"Does father know, Ras?"

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and mulled over the question. The bruise on his cheekbone was still sensitive. "Urgh. What are you talking about."

"You snuck out," she said, leaning back on her hands. "And when you came back, you were muttering something about those 'damn Haske mutts'."

"So?"

Rasalas wormed into his shirt and then sat holding a boot. It was still caked with dried mud. One perk of being fired, he wouldn't be needed in the mud barns anymore.

"So," Challis pushed, "you went out drinking with those two?"

"Don't be stupid," he said, almost laughing out loud at the idea. Drinking, no. He stood and hefted a ladder over the side to lean it against the edge of their rooftop. Challis followed him down, her voice still going.

"Then what were you doing? Don't pretend that you didn't already know Lakko when we talked to him yesterday. What's the deal with –"

Her throat jumped when Rasalas appeared behind the ladder, looking at her between the rungs. His hands closed around hers to stop her from taking the last step down.

"Alright, fine," he whispered, almost a hiss. "If you're not going to let it go, I'll tell you. If you promise to shut up."

"Alright, fine," she said, mimicking his tone. Rasalas glanced around, his eyes pausing on the open window of the lodge before locking back onto hers.

"Yes, I know them," he went on. "I've been helping them almost every night for maybe four months now. This whole maccoton plan that Drunnel was talking about, with the flux shortage? They're going to blow part of the cliff to make room for a reservoir, rerouting the whole river. And I've been helping them set that up. And no, father doesn't know. You know what he would say if he found out I was –"

He stopped, but only by clamping his teeth together. Challis raised her eyebrows.

"You were what?"

Something told her he hadn't been going to say "lying". Rasalas shrugged.

"Nothing. That's it."

Challis gave an unexpected little laugh. "So you've lost sleep to work on this cliff project? That just makes you ambitious, not a criminal."

He didn't answer right away, but when he did, the voice had changed from serious to almost jovial. "Haven't lost sleep. I don't need as much sleep as you do."

"Since when?"

He released her hands and came around the ladder, rapping his knuckles on the back of her head as he walked past. "Since that, dimwit. I'm a night prowler. One of those gray foxes."

"Ow." Challis swiped a hand back at his hair. "More like one of those fluffy honey bears. They're nocturnal, aren't they?"

They continued talking away the tension as they climbed up the canyon wall along multiple rampways and ladders. Several of the wide balconies lining this side of the canyon had multilayered fountains, though half of them were dry and the other half were sadly depleted. They chose one past the lodges that left behind the smell of the stable yards. Water dripped down to the fountain from the stingy rainforest-topped cliffs, trickling from pool to pool before it vanished into a series of pipes that climbed down the cliff and into the buildings below.

A small spigot opened from a filtered tank, and after pulling a long drink from this Challis sat back against the fountain, letting her hair soak. Rasalas washed up his arms and face before dunking his whole head in. The water was lukewarm in the fountain but cool on his skin in the breeze, and a morning splash was more refreshing than heated water in the bathhouse anyway. He shook out his bear hair, scattering droplets.

A returning patrol flew into the canyon, thrikes coasting down the shaded side of Polescos before wheeling around above a courtyard where they touched down out of sight. Challis listened to their squalls as she tried to completely relax her muscles.

"There they are," Rasalas said, leaning on the railing as he stared down. Challis knew he would watch the animals like she did whenever he had the chance, and she closed her eyes to send her awareness over into his head. The city sharpened into clear lines and shadows, and she looked down at the myriad of stonework and puffs of dust wherever there was movement. But Rasalas wasn't watching the thrikes. In piercing detail, even in the shade, he could see both FHF agents at one of the public tables. Drunnel was absentmindedly rubbing his knuckles. Lakko was leaning forward as he talked, and the cord had slid out from beneath his collar to hang down on either side of his neck, the knotted ends swinging slightly.

Rasalas watched it, his stance gone completely still.

"What did he tell you about that thing?" Rasalas' voice sounded different, lower and louder, as it would to his own ears. Challis jerked back into her own head and found herself sitting up straight. Water ran down the back of her shirt, but she hardly noticed. Until now, she had never heard his voice from inside his head, although she shared his eyesight. She squeezed out her hair and cautiously reached back into Rasalas' mind by concentrating on the flux energy filling him. This time, she felt the railing pressing hard into his forearms, and something heavy pressing into his thoughts.

"Wait," Rasalas' voice came again.

Lakko had straightened to make a surreptitious glance around him. Unaware of those watching him from high up on the canyon wall, and unaware that someone up there could even see him from this distance, he arranged the wire so it crossed in front of his throat, a knot in each hand. Before Challis had time to wonder why, Lakko yanked hard on both ends. The wire stretched taut, then with a spray of light it vanished into the back of his neck and out the front. The rope flung forward, leaving no mark on his skin, and whirled in the air between his fists. Lakko shuddered, the quiver barely visible. Then he nonchalantly tucked the cord out of sight again on his neck. Drunnel had hardly bothered to look at him, and kept talking as if nothing had happened.

Rasalas turned to see Challis with her mouth open, water dripping unnoticed into her eyes from her hair.

Challis tugged back into her own mind to see an odd expression on her brother's face.

"You saw that?" Rasalas whispered.

"What in high heaven was that?" Challis said at the same time. Her knees found the bench, and she sat down, braiding her hair to drape over one shoulder. "That's a mite more than he showed me."

"It really doesn't look like something we should, um… what are you looking at?"

A trio of thrikes had burst into view behind him, coming at them with alarming accuracy as though they had known exactly where the Gannagens were. Challis and Rasalas backed toward the fountain as the thrikes flapped up, six batlike wings narrowly avoiding each other as they and their riders landed solidly where they would block the way down to the canyon base. One thrike landed and clung to the cliffside before lowering itself onto the walkway with scraping, gangly movements.

The first rider removed his helmet and tucked it under his arm in a military stance. The fine quilted front-piece on his chest displayed a gilded symbol of status, as if the ensemble itself wasn't enough. On either side of him, the other two thrike handlers likewise took off their helmets and matched his posture, though their movements seemed much more natural. Challis took a moment to conclude that they were both women. All three stood with their thrikes' reins wrapped around gloved fists, the huge animals menacing and shifting restlessly over their shoulders.

The Gannagens turned wary eyes down to the man in the middle. His red hair was even more helmet-flat than it had been yesterday.

Rasalas let out a contemptuous huff.

"What's the setup for?"

"Don't pretend like you don't know, Gannagen," Corvin said, his voice as snappish as usual. "Old Rib-eye finally sacked you, did he? You'll keep away from the stables and the thrikes then, if you know what's good for you."

"What are you talking about?" Rasalas asked with a sigh. "Your head isn't screwed on right, Teakle."

"Shanty here saw you talking to that Eastwedgen fellow. We're not about to just let you jump into the travel program alongside those of us who've actually trained for this."

"You're blaming us? Dammit, man, it's not our fault who the agents decide to talk to."

"They didn’t know you two are just muckrakers with no flying experience," Corvin flung back. "They just saw you helping out at the exhibition and didn’t know any better."

Rasalas' voice dropped low. "So why do you care, Corvin?"

Corvin didn't meet his eye. "You’ve got no business on this expedition," he said. "Not with us. So stay out of it."

The woman on his right shifted, her eyes on Challis. "Especially you," she added in a hard voice. "I'll be damned if Little Lass Blind-Ass tries to stick herself to one of our thrikes."

That drove straight down Challis' throat and stuck there. She had been biting the inside of her bottom lip to keep from saying the first things that came to her head, but now she suddenly tasted blood. Rasalas turned to face her, putting his back to the thrikes without hesitation.

"Don't," he said simply, though neither of them knew if he was saying it to her or to himself. Challis saw the anger building up in his eyes, his brows, and realized that Shanty's words had hurt him as much as they had her. His patch was pulsing hard, with spots of red scattered among the brown. Through his eyes, she could barely see her own spot of color, brighter with emotion and matching her heartbeat.

Corvin's voice came again, uncertain at first. "Listen, you two, I know it… hasn't been easy for you. But you need to see where we're coming from with this. Look through our eyes, for once, and you'd understand."

Rasalas spun around and crossed the distance between them in a heartbeat, skidding to a stop just out of reach when he remembered the thrikes. Corvin flinched back, then he was knocked forward almost into Rasalas by the powerful thrust of an outstretched wing. The thrike was tossing its head in alarm, grunts gurgling up from its throat. Corvin caught its lead line just in time. Sweat broke out over his face as he pulled and strained to keep the strength of the animal under control, and on either side the women did the same with theirs. Flux coursed outward in waves from the agitated thrikes, sizzling into the senses of the five people already on edge and giving them just that slightest push before they toppled in headfirst.

"Have you gone mad?" Corvin gritted, "rushing a thrike like that?"

Rasalas' hands closed into fists. "Get out of here. Or I'll do worse." To the side, one of the women had begun winding around behind him as if to cut him off from his sister.

"Stop it, Ras," Challis called. Her ears were ringing, and the heat of an almost primal anger cut deeper into her with every tingle of flux. But as soon as she noticed the woman, a short one with a sour face whom Challis was sure she'd never talked to in her life, moving around to threaten Rasalas from behind, the sight snapped her back into perspective. "He's all empty talk. Don't waste time on him, he's an idiot."

Rasalas' hair blew back from his forehead by the whiffling snorts of two thrikes at once. Pale, glinting eyes were at their peak of focus, swaying above the level of his head so he couldn't see the feet gliding even closer. Slaver dribbled down the soft leather straps of the bridles. Rasalas' fisted pose melted and he brought both hands up, the action as slow and reluctant as a piece of medical tape peeling off raw skin. He backed away, turning by degrees until he was close enough to Challis to grab her wrist. "Come on, Chall. We don't need this."

They started walking away.

"It's not complicated," the sour-faced woman said, her voice thin as string. Then, Challis remembered her name: Kailett. Kailett Mar-something, who had come to Oedolon only a few months back and stuck herself to Corvin like a leech. Probably for his money. "We won't need to bother you if you don't enroll for the training period."

"Who said we're going to enroll?" Rasalas said sharply. But then Challis caught his eye, and a joint determination broke over them both in that short glance. Challis looked back at the others.

"That's exactly what we're doing," she said. "And you'll stay out of our way, for once."

Of the havoc that broke loose at that moment, Rasalas only remembered one thing afterwards: the strategic positioning of a pterosaur's crest. The feel of the ribbed horn, a blunt extension of the thrike's skull out from the back of its head – that was the best way to get a thrike under control, not a loop of leather around its beak.

Teakle, his flux-engorged confidence returned, spat out a word and advanced on them. Rasalas had only just turned around when the other man bent and drove a full-body side kick at his center of mass. Rasalas folded in half with a whuff of pain, but then met Corvin's shoulder tackle with brutal reflexes, getting his arms up between them in a flash and twisting in the air so that he landed on top. Both clouted hard on the stone edge before rolling into the fountain in a stumbling flail. Corvin's jacket exploded clouds of flux particles into the water, which was only inches deep but enough to slosh at them with sheer, destructive adrenaline.

Rasalas' dominance in weight was an even match to the twiggy speed of Corvin, who was up again in a split second, spitting out curses and grabbing at, of all things, Rasalas' trousers. They grappled in and out of gasps, seizing fistfuls of each other's hair in the slippery water to fight out what hadn't been said aloud.

The thrikes went mad. Challis had been knocked back at an angle that dropped her skidding onto one hand and knee, but a shattering chorus of shrieks flattened her to the ground with her arms thrown over her head. A blow to her side came as Kailett tripped over her. Wild screaming issued from one, then both of them, as the deafening attack of two thrikes burst onto them with the kind of ferocity that Challis had only ever seen before in fear-crazed horses. Massive wings pounded shocks of flux down at her, humming with energy and feeding the emotions and momentum of everyone there at a catastrophic rate. Challis spun into a desperate roll at the side of the fountain. Claws tore at her, stomped on her, shredded away at her clothes in a hopeless blur. She whacked at a spearing beak, then another, missing each by a mile.

Then, one of the ravaging heads jerked back. Challis caught the vague outline of someone straddling the thrike's neck and wrangling its head from behind with both arms. She scrambled up and careened to the side, running smack into Kailett as the other had just managed to get up too. Both fell hard, then Challis was abruptly hauled up again by her arm.

Rasalas was swearing in coughs, dripping wet, as he shoved his sister forward. She floundered along the walkway and had just gotten her feet under her when a hideous scream stumbled them both to the ground as if caught by a tripwire. They spun around, expecting to be trampled at once, when a scene that colored Challis' nightmares for the rest of her life appeared in front of them.

Thrikes never bothered to kill their prey before eating it, and Corvin Teakle was being mauled alive.

The only parts of him touching the ground were one hand, swinging limply from a dislocated shoulder, and the heel of a madly kicking boot. The rest of his body was caught in a bloody three-way tug-of-war between the thrikes. One sent pieces of his trousers flying, and another huge beak was tearing at his side despite his pitifully whacking other arm. The monsters were enormous over the puny body of a mere human, and the last thrike, the biggest, had Corvin's neck between its jaws. A spray of blood, and the Gannagens thought he was gone.

Until he yowled again. In that split second of noise, Rasalas surged to his feet and rushed back in toward the beasts. What he planned to do, Challis had no idea, but apparently this was one of those times when action came first. And a leap of faith it was. Rasalas streaked in feetfirst under Corvin's head and plowed into the stumpy feet of the big thrike. Its body thumped and buckled to one side as Rasalas pushed his way out from underneath. He thrust his grip between the loosened jaws, and a black alien tongue as big around as a python convulsed sickeningly in his fists as he pulled it toward himself as hard as he could. The squalling jaws tore free of Corvin's neck. Corvin dropped down with a crunch on his bad arm and was abruptly dragged sideways by the thrike going at his leg.

In that moment, Rasalas changed from attacker to victim. He fell back against the third thrike when the first tongue-torn beast turned on him with a vicious snap. Then a surprise blow to the side of his head stunned him as if someone had thrown a stone at his ear, sending a piercing sound rebounding around his skull so he didn't notice when his knees gave way. His vision reduced to mere spots, Rasalas grabbed blindly at the attacker and found a handhold. The thrike's crest jerked in erratic motion, wobbling his joints to jelly, but Rasalas' other hand joined and he held on for dear life.

It was good to be alive.

And it was Challis who got him out of there alive.

She would have liked to say that she kept her head on, and that she snatched together a plan of action as soon as her brother had gone swooping back into the fray, but Challis remained faithful to the age-old customs of a terrified onlooker. The other women must have run when they had the chance, but for a full fifteen seconds Challis watched, gawk-eyed, as the feeding frenzy turned back into a battle. Thrikes were fitful and savage at the prick of a pin, but their bulk was a serious hindrance to their agility in close quarters. If only someone had a gun, or a zapper, or even a stupid knife might do some good if there was a free hand to hold it.

Challis tore into her pockets, flux-fed hysteria making her hands shake. Her stubnicker was tied to her belt and tucked into a pocket; maybe she could somehow get herself into the action and stab out the eyes of the creature trying to eat her brother.

A clink sounded as she felt around, and her breath caught in her throat. The little metal disc slid into her hand and of course she dropped it when she pulled it out. Challis scrabbled on the ground, at last catching the sunlight reflecting off the surface. She shoved the disc between her lips, tasting dirt and lint, and blew into it as hard as her panting would allow.

Silent but instantly effective, Lakko's ultrasonic flux bender indeed took reality and bent it out of shape. Thrikes dropped what they were doing, forgot the presence of edible prey, and began writhing in a violent head-rattling choreography that was as foreign to anyone in Polescos as a dancing bear. With thrikes acting like dogs, Exhibitions would become a different spectacle altogether.

But Challis flashed past all that, and ran in toward Rasalas who was only just lumbering to his feet. He grabbed Corvin under the armpits and heaved him about eight feet away before a disoriented thrike stepped on Corvin's shin. Challis' ears pricked up at a noise that was both a threat and a relief, though she didn't let up on the fluxbending. She blew in puffing wheezes as she grabbed Rasalas' hand and dragged him along after her down the walkway. They ran to the sounds of screeching thrikes and the overdue whistles of the Polescos patrol.