I had never been so happy to see that smug bitch. Lirian was a lot of things—insufferable, snooty, hateful, know-it-all, arrogant, child-stabber, without moral compunctions or human decency of any kind—I could go on, but I won’t. Oh, and way less classy than she thinks she is. But the most important thing as she lunged to stab me in that murky, ghostlit tunnel was that she didn’t know how to fight.

Years of data-driven Eifni combat training had me instantly analyzing her form, her center of balance, the path the knife was going to take, and finding it wanting.

“HAH!” I half laughed, half yelled as my reflexes took over and I pivoted out of the arc of her strike, grabbing her wrist with my open hand to throw her on top of her own knife.

The rush of joy knocked me out of my absence meditation. And I felt a sudden, vertiginous shift of perception as I forgot what was going on.

“What was that?” asked Vanerel, turning back to look at me.

There was an irritating itch just ahead, on the ground. My brain stuttered erratically as the impulse to scratch something not physically part of my body kept running aground on the black hole in my thoughts. I turned to her, helpless to articulate what was going on.

“Ajarel?” Vanerel’s eyes narrowed, and she stepped into what looked like a wrestling stance.

“Fuck,” I said, finally putting two and two together. “Enemy presence! I’m cloaking!”

The itch rose from the ground.

“Don’t get stabbed!” Leaving Vanerel with that sage advice, I reached for my cloak—and had to abort because the itch was rushing me. I dove out of the way, dropping my sword in the process to avoid impaling myself.

“Where is it?” Vanerel asked.

“Fuck fuck fuck it’s on my ass!”

“Tell me where it is!” said Vanerel.

“I can’t! Fuck this! I need you to hold it off for me so I can cloak!”

“I don’t know where it is!” Vanerel shouted.

I let out a little screech of frustration and charged directly at Vanerel, whose eyes widened. She shifted her stance, one leg slightly behind, arms up with the palms out at shoulder height.

Wait, she was preparing to stop me!

“No no no not like that!” She didn’t understand. I had to abort. Moments before impact, I sword rolled to the side and felt the itch slow in front of Vanerel.

“Face!” was the only warning I had time to call.

Fortunately, Vanerel understood, because she pulled her arms in front of the vulnerable opening on the front of her helmet. The sound of clattering rings mixed with the rasp of a dagger scattering across them. Vanerel countered with a full-body shove, keeping those arms in front of her face. But the itch had already moved away and she overextended. Now it was coming for me again. Vanerel was pivoting around as if she could see where the enemy was.

I sprinted toward my dropped sword, feeling that itch on my back and letting the adrenaline pump my legs harder. It felt almost like some kind of magnetic repulsion as my body shoved me away from the dangerous thing. I reached the blade, picking it up and pivoting. I was fighting something with a knife, the reach would help.

“Fuck! Off!” I swung wildly at the presence, trying to deny it an opening. It started to back up. “Vanerel! Here!”

She inched toward me cautiously. Rather than get caught between us, the itch started to circle around toward Vanerel.

A single breath of concentration was all I needed. I dropped into the fullness of my soul, burning its essence into my mind’s eye as I prepared to go invisible.

“Night night, motherfucker!” I called, and cloaked.

The itch stopped advancing for a moment. Poor Vanerel was moving to put her back to a wall, probably couldn’t see either of the people in this fight. The itch closed in on her.

Oh, it was great to be the one with information supremacy again. Maneuver time was over. I hefted my sword and charged the fucking cockroach two-handed. It was still moving on Vanerel, blissfully unaware of my presence, unprepared for me to raise the sword and cut it the fuck in half—

It dodged the strike.

“What the fuck?!” Then, realizing that no one could hear me, I decloaked. “Seriously, what the fuck!”

The itch disappeared, and in its place was Lirian. The smug was gone, and she was panting and glaring at me.

“What the fuck yourself!” Lirian snapped. “Who are you?!”

“I’m not fucking starting with that again,” I said. “How’d you dodge the sword? I was fucking invisible!”

She boggled at me. “It was a secret. Are you stupid?”

“Why are you even here?”

She threw all the contempt she could onto her face. “It’s a secret. Are you stupid?”

We’d been so focused on each other that neither of us noticed Vanerel edging closer to Lirian. Vanerel leapt now, securing Lirian’s left hand—the one with the knife—and pushing her down to the ground with the arm behind her.

“Let go of me!”

“Yeah!” I said, stomping my foot victoriously. “Get fucked!”

“I’ll take it from here,” said Vanerel. “Falerior and Tiresia should be here soon. Hey, you. Are you the one they’re callin’ Lirian of Silence?”

“You win,” said Lirian. She was looking at me. “Get me out of here and I’ll concede defeat.”

“Don’t talk to her, talk to me,” said Vanerel.

“Is she telling the truth?” I asked Vanerel.

“Not the time! You want a statement witnessed, you come by the Javeiron and you pay the fee like everyone else!”

“Ajarel,” said Lirian, lying calmly on the floor. “Get her off me. Hands find their way.”

“That fucking phrase again,” I said. “You gonna find more kids to stab?”

“I can destroy your eye-truths with a handful of sentences,” said Lirian. “Get her off me and I’ll leave.”

“Don’t you dare, girl.”

I looked uncertainly between them. Was she threatening my cover? What did she have on me? She hadn’t been in a position to learn anything truly compromising after we’d installed the MDOs everywhere.

“Last chance,” said Lirian.

So I could either help Lirian and fuck myself over with the Oathkeepers, or I could keep my deal and Lirian would fuck me over with the Oathkeepers anyways. Fucking typical.

I was so sick of the cloak and dagger bullshit. I was so sick of hidden meanings and information warfare and invisible fucking knife girls. And I was sick of ending up in these situations. I’ll be the first to admit I’m maybe not the best at them. I’m a soldier, not a spy. So maybe it was time to turn this into a soldier situation.

“Alright, look,” I said, and Vanerel looked at me warningly. I shook my head a little to keep her off guard. “Give me a moment to think, yeah?”

“The moment your backup arrives, I destroy your life,” said Lirian. “Let the Oathkeeper witness the truth of my words.”

“I keep telling everyone, pay the damn fee.” Vanerel’s face didn’t give anything away, but even that was telling. If Lirian was lying, Vanerel would have told me.

“Just—stop talking,” I said, and cloaked myself.

“Stay away!” said Vanerel. “You made a promise before an Oathkeeper!”

Maybe that would have swayed a normal Therian. Maybe not. It didn’t stop me in any case. I walked toward my downed enemy, hefting my sword. There wasn’t really a clean angle to strike. I considered, shrugged, and tossed the sword aside. Both of them flinched at the clatter as it hit the cobblestones next to them. In the opening that provided, I pulled my leg back and kicked Lirian in the face.

I’d have preferred to be wearing steel-toed boots for this, but the local fashion was sandals, so instead I went for the soccer kick, like I was trying to knock her head off. Lirian screamed; there was a pop as Vanerel’s grip on her arm dislocated her shoulder. Lirian’s knife fell to the ground.

I decloaked, trying to shift directly to absence meditation and failing. I was too caught up in the anger.

“Fuck you,” I said, kicking her in the head again. The point of impact was right on the buckle of my sandals. That was going to bruise tomorrow, but there was a nice bruise forming on her forehead now.

“That’s enough, Ajarel,” said Vanerel. “You’ll kill her.”

I went for another kick but she grabbed me.

“Feet find their way, asshole,” I said as she yanked me out of kicking range.

Lirian’s eyes were unfocused, but she was clumsily trying to get to her feet. Vanerel shoved me back, moving to reclaim her prisoner. She kicked the knife away as she did so.

“Ajarel, you do anything else to harm her and the deal is off, understand?” she said.

“I understand,” I said through gritted teeth. Hopefully I’d given her a bad concussion and she’d die from internal bleeding or something. They thought the brain was an organ for cooling blood around here, there’s no way they could save her. But she was pretty solid for that slim frame. Maybe she was more durable than that.

I heard the clink of chain mail behind me. The cavalry had arrived. Falerior took in the situation with a glance and nodded to us both.

“Excellent work, Sister Vanerel,” he said. “You as well, Lady Ajarel.”

“All yours, guys,” I said. “Ignore anything she says about me. I’m sure she believes it, but she’s full of shit. Oh, and Lirian?” She looked blearily at me, tears pooling in her eyes. I flipped her off with both hands.

“Seeya soon,” I said to the Oathkeepers, leaning over to pick up my dropped sword. “Or, you know, hopefully not.”

The adrenaline high was definitely fading by this point. I strode past Tiresia, ignoring the skeptical glance he sent my way, and patted Falerior on the shoulder. Bemused, he returned the gesture.

A ragged voice spoke up from behind me.

“She knows what happened to Salaphi!”

I drew in a sharp breath. For a fleeting moment, I felt the bite of my knife into flesh and saw Arguel’s dying expression. I looked up at Falerior, knowing that he’d seen, that he knew.

I finally understood the meaning of that stupid look on his face. It was the look of a man who knew that everything was connected, that all he had to do was pay attention and the truth would come to him. It was the patience of a spider who’d finally trapped me in his web.

Falerior’s grip on my shoulder tightened. He lifted an eyebrow. He was giving me a chance to explain myself.

“None of your business,” I tried.

“Oh, Lady Ajarel,” he said, that look of affable interest drilling into me, “I think we both know that’s not true.”