Lady Gray did not have the courtesy to acknowledge or react to my catchphrase. Her face was half in shadow due to the night’s darkness and most of the illumination being from the blue and orange lights of Cat Alley below us, but I saw her eyebrows draw together in confusion as her eyes flicked down to examine my feet.

Then her expression flashed in a handful of instants through realization, shock, dread, and then the blank neutrality of self-control followed by a sly little smile which I now knew she was using as a facade.

Ah, right. She was Blessed with Might, able to see the glow around the artifact boots—and also frustratingly intelligent. I probably should’ve expected she would put it together.

“So that’s how it is,” she murmured, and grabbed the hilt of her dagger.

This time I was abuzz with adrenaline and on high alert; even as she vanished I was pointing and casting.

Light Beam, Sparkspray!

And then a more prosaic incantation I decided to call Cut a Bitch.

Blinded by the flash of light and then taking a burst of sparks right to the face, she lost control of her charge at me, having to cover her eyes with both arms and veering off target. Even with the sparks lingering on her clothes, though, she was still functionally invisible and I wasn’t nearly good enough in hand to hand combat to strike such a vague target with any precision. Thus why I went for a wide slash rather than the efficient stab Goose had taught me would do much more damage. The cut wouldn’t mess her up as much, but at least it was more likely to hit something.

Specifically, it raked across her upraised forearms, slicing the fabric of her coat to reveal the akornin-backed bracers underneath and doing her no damage whatsoever.

Lady Gray hopped backward out of my range, and then, to my surprise, re-sheathed her dagger.

She stood there fully visible, hand on the hilt, semi-crouched and ready to strike again, staring at me through narrowed eyes as if watching for an opportunity. I stared back, sword at the ready, hoping my own stance didn’t reveal my ineptitude too badly. Goose and Sakin both said I was shaping up well for an amateur, but there was no question of me being anywhere near Gray’s league.

Why didn’t she stay invisible? Why sacrifice her major advantage? Well, it gave me a moment to consider my options. I was limited to non-targeted spells… A wide-focus Light Beam would blind her, Sparkspray did little damage but had utility in both disrupting her actions and revealing her position. Windburst would launch her clear off the roof and over the next brothel at this range, and I formed the spell in my mind before thinking better of it.

She’d just figured out she was dealing with something way worse than a sorcerer; the smart move for her was to flee, now that she knew she couldn’t overpower me in a head to head fight. Gray had always had the advantage over me in tactics and strategy; the balance of her organization versus mine tipped heavily in her favor. This was my opportunity, my one chance to seize the upper hand, and I had to stay close to her and find a way to finish it. If she got away, the pain in my ass would never end.

Flinging her off the roof might injure or kill her, but she was agile and armored and good at this and if it didn’t, she’d go right back to being a massive, long-term problem. I could try to blow her down into the street and hope my mob of followers could finish her off… But if she landed well and went invisible, she could potentially do a lot more damage to them than vice versa. Also, she had at least as many people down there as I did.

Then somebody shot me in the side with a crossbow.

I ripped the bolt out, cast Heal, shifted my head to see who had done that, and then saw Gray vanish again.

I hit her with another Sparkspray, and this time she kept circling around me, ignoring the sparks lingering on her coat even as I kept casting it at her. Despite the heat and the burst of air pushing at her, she darted up the roof behind us, regaining the high ground, and only then did I understand her strategy as I was shot in the back, twice.

Members of both our factions were shooting at the pair of us now; she’d stayed visible to goad them, then angled her position to be both farther out of range and using me as a shield. And also invisible again.

And now I was also shot. One had been a glancing hit but I had a bolt lodged right in what felt like my kidney, which was a debilitating level of pain I’d never imagined. I couldn’t even cast Heal without removing the bolt; sealing it in there would put me out of this fight and require actual surgery to fix.

This was exhausting. It was insufferable. I had enough power at my fingertips to massacre an entire street full of enemies, and I was losing here, because I was dealing with someone who was just…better. Smarter, faster, well-prepared, more experienced, better.

Fuck it, Windburst.

I knew that was going to cause me bigger problems in the near future but Gray had won this round; I desperately needed to gain some distance, and so I sent her spark-spangled shape tumbling the entire rest of the way up the roof and over its peak. Then I threw myself forward and flat against the shingles to minimize my target profile.

If not for the constant buzz of rage and adrenaline I’m not sure I would have been able to yank that bolt out of my back. It came free with a tearing sensation that made all my primitive self-preservation instincts scream in alarm, but once it was out a quick Heal fixed everything. At least it was in my lower back and reachable. If it had been behind my shoulder, I might’ve been screwed.

“Biribo! No more time for subtlety. Find her.”

He clawed his way free and buzzed out into the air, darting back and forth in front of me for a moment as if trying to catch a scent. Behind and below me, all was noise, screams, crashes and the chaos of battle. People were bleeding and dying down there—my people, those I’d brought and those I’d come to help. If Gray had given me the slip I was going to drop right off the roof and start Healing—

“She landed on the other side of the roof, boss!” Biribo reported. “Just went visible again, she needed her hands off the knife to get something from her pocket, I think. Boss, we got other problems: five people Blessed with Might coming at us over the roofs to the right!”

Fucking hell, of course she had an ambush prepared. If she was planning to corner the Healer and it didn’t go perfectly on the first strike, bring in a squad of her heavy-hitters to finish him off. And getting something from her pockets? In the last few weeks I’d learned enough about the capabilities of goblin alchemy that I did not like the sound of that.

I made a snap decision, rolled to my feet, and charged up the roof. It was steep enough to make this difficult and unwise, but my Surestep Boots won out over mere physics and I crested the peak in seconds with no trouble, throwing myself down the other side in a slide that sent me sliding down the slope right at Lady Gray.

Too late. She was just discarding a tiny bottle over the edge, and now jumped back from me again, grabbing at her dagger.

“She’s chugging healing potions,” Biribo said. In the dimness, Gray directed a piercing look at him before focusing back on me; she did not look surprised by the flying, talking lizard. Yeah, she’d already figured me out, clearly.

“Potions,” I sneered. “How quaint.” Actually, this highlighted a blind spot in my knowledge; I had no idea how available and/or effective those were, since my own magic made them redundant. It did explain why she had been so spry after being shot in the arm and then flung right through a glass window. That’s a lot more dangerous than Hollywood seems to think; most people don’t get right back up after losing an argument with that much glass.

“No!” Gray suddenly shouted, pointing at me—no, past me. “Back off! He’s mine!”

I risked repositioning myself so I could see both her and what was behind me peripherally. There were the five people Biribo had predicted, coming to a stop at the edge of the next rooftop over at Lady Gray’s command. I could see the visible glow of artifacts around three of them. Why would she—

Of course. Blessed with Might to counter a Blessed with Wisdom. But she’d planned that before realizing she was dealing with somebody who could not only kill her heavy-hitters, but then take their artifacts—and unlike most people whose Blessings were of limited strength, use them all at once.

Lady Gray had practically ordered me a buffet.

I gave her a cheeky grin, then turned and dashed right at the confused Blessed on the other rooftop.

“No you don’t!” she snarled, lunging after me and pulling out her dagger.

Thanks to the Surestep Boots, it was child’s play to spin completely around while running; thanks to Gray’s own agility and speed, when I fired off the Sparkspray behind me, it hit her right in the face at point blank range. She went down, invisible but smoldering and coughing.

Immolate, Slimeshot, Immolate, Slimeshot!

Casting mentally as I ran, I managed to take down four of the Blessed hit squad before I reached the edge of the roof. The last one remaining was holding an artifact sword and seemed to be of pretty stern stuff; he didn’t react to the burning and screaming of two of his friends, retaining the presence of mind to step forward with his weapon upraised and deliver a lethal blow even as I lunged across the alley at him.

With me in midair, there was really no way to avoid it. Thanks to my own artifact, the tip of his sword wavered and he missed my heart. The blade punched right into my chest just below it, my own momentum carrying me all the way down it until the crosshilt was pressed against my ribs.

He grinned at me in malicious triumph from centimeters away, at least until I dropped my own sword and reached out to grab his face with my right hand. My fingers closed across his mouth, leaving his eyes to bulge in incredulous outrage at this.

“Thanks for the sword,” I wheezed around the blood filling my lung. “Slimeshot.”

I’d never fired one at that range before. It took his head entirely off. Blood fountained from torn arteries, splattering me, and his twitching corpse fell, losing its grip on the hilt of the rapier now embedded in me. Thanks to my boots, I stepped adroitly aside and let it tumble off the edge of the roof without tripping me up.

Incredibly, I had an urge to giggle which I barely managed to repress. Cool, so we were past bloodlust and into straight up hysteria now. A person could almost infer that constant stress and brutal violence was bad for one’s mental health or something.

I grabbed the rapier’s hilt and pulled it out of my body, which was a little challenging as it was almost the whole way in and the long, straight blade exceeded the reach of my arm; I had to yank the last few centimeters sideways, cutting more deeply into my own flesh. Oh, well, not that it mattered.

Heal.

“Ooh, nice find!” Biribo crowed. “Rapier of Mastery! That’s the same kind Lady Flaethwyn had. Hers was fancier, though.”

Indeed, this sword was plain in design compared to Flaethwyn’s—or even Lord Arider’s, which wasn’t even an artifact and was gathering dust in my room in North Watch because nobody there could teach me rapier fencing. Not that I needed it, now, if the Mastery enchantment worked the same as it did on Aster’s greatsword.

Two of the others were still burning, one was dead and the artifact glow was around his shirt, which would’ve taken way too long to drag off him right now. The last had fallen off the roof, so I didn’t know if the Slimeshot had killed her (or the fall had), but she’d dropped her artifact staff and it had rolled to rest in the rain gutter.

Nah, no matter what the staff did, there was no way I could wield one of those and a sword. And I liked this sword.

I turned to find Lady Gray having recovered during the scant few seconds all this had taken, but she’d come to a stop on the other roof, staring at the sight of me: a dangerous spellcaster, now armed with an artifact weapon that closed the gap between our levels of martial skill, not to mention boots that gave me even better footing on the treacherous rooftops than she had.

Sensibly, she turned and dashed in the opposite direction.

“No, you don’t!”

I turned, took the two steps to the steep slope of the roof I was on—steeper than that of Minifrit’s place, nearly vertical—and pressed my left hand against it.

Windburst.

The blast sent me rocketing backwards across the alley gap; there wasn’t even a chance for me to get my fancy magic boots under me before my back impacted the Alley Cat’s shingles and my momentum was translated into a brutal sideways slide along the slope.

With no credit to my own agility, the trajectory on which I found myself helplessly careening nailed Lady Gray dead on as she tried to escape. My body swept her legs out from under her in passing, the impact slowing me enough to plant my boots and drag myself to a stop. I couldn’t see what it had done to her for another few precious seconds until I could drag myself upright, Heal the damage of that landing, and turn to look. At least I managed to keep a grip on my shiny new rapier, and not impale myself on it. Again.

In those few seconds, Gray had managed to right herself, turn, and run back the way I had come. I didn’t realize what had just happened until she was vaulting across the alley to the other roof, where two of her compatriots were just now beginning to fizzle out. I didn’t put together why until she reached down and grabbed the artifact staff, which had apparently been sheltered enough by the depth of the gutter that Windburst hadn’t sent it flying.

Ugh, of fucking course. No wonder she hadn’t gone invisible; she’d wanted me to see what she was doing, so she could bait me. Hell, she might’ve even anticipated I’d repeat my Windburst launch trick, which I’d thought was so clever.

I really needed less competent enemies.

Lady Gray vaulted back to the Cat’s roof, and I moved to intercept her. She angled herself sideways, forcing me to follow, and bringing us both over the edge of the slope back to the side facing Cat Alley.

It sounded like a real mess down there, but I didn’t have time to focus on it, because Lady Gray suddenly stopped, whirled, and one end of the staff flashed right at my face.

Artifact-given instinct took over; I flowed into stance, whipping up the rapier to parry it. The sword was light and the staff capable of delivering heavy blows, so I caught and deflected it near the base of the blade where I had the most leverage. Even if I hadn’t learned fencing the proper way, I understood that much.

I was less prepared for the fountain of sparks and miniature arcs of lighting which flashed between our weapons when they connected. So that was what the staff’s enchantment did. A jolt of electricity like that would stun anybody it struck—or if they were small or had a heart condition, possibly kill them. Luckily my new artifact sword was an Ephemeral classic, crafted of akornin. Had it been a metal blade that would’ve fried me.

Having lunged forward for that deflection, I was within range to go for a killing stab, which I did before I could even think about it. Gray had a two-handed grip on the staff, though, and could reverse it much faster, managing to deflect my strike with another flash and fountain of sparks.

She forced me back; I fired a Sparkspray at her and lunged in again. She deflected, I parried, stabbed, dodged, took advantage of a feint to lunge at her midsection. She parried that…

We danced along the roof’s edge, blade and staff flicking and crashing against each other, surrounded by the flash and sparkle of the lightning enchantment and my own spells. Apparently matched. I was running on the power of three artifacts and augmented by spells and she was holding me off. No wonder this woman had been giving me such a hard time. She was way out of my league.

Biribo dived in to grab the edge of my hood so he could speak right into my ear, low enough that Gray couldn’t overhear him.

“Boss, her Blessing isn’t strong enough to run all three of those artifacts at the same time! She’s stuck visible unless she gives up the staff; if she draws that dagger all three will lose most of their power.”

Good to know, though I couldn’t spare the focus at that moment to reply to him. I had barely enough spare room in my head to wonder why she was engaging me in a duel; in her position I’d have relied on the invisibility dagger to try to put a quick end to this. She probably knew something I didn’t, as usual.

At least nobody was shooting at us now. Most likely they were all occupied shooting each other. I didn’t dare take my eyes off Lady Gray to check.

No sooner had I thought that than she bounded back, holding the staff forward to enforce a distance between us, and suddenly an object soared through the spot where she’d been standing. It shattered against the shingles, splattering foul-smelling sludge.

Someone had just thrown a chamber pot at Lady Gray.

Being mutually out of the range of each other’s weapons, we both turned to look incredulously across the street.

In an upstairs window of the Jostled Jugs, Gannit herself let out a braying cackle, turned, bent over, and waggled her bony old ass at Gray.

“You have to realize there’s no way you can actually win, here,” Gray called at me, shifting sideways up the slope of the Cat’s roof. I kept pace with her, rapier extended to point at her heart while she held the quarterstaff in a defensive position. What was her angle? She appeared to be moving us onto terrain which would favor me in my artifact boots, which meant something else was going on here. “Your best case scenario is…what? Liberate all the whores? Trust me, boy, the next thing you’ll learn is exactly how far gratitude will get you. There’s no loyalty to be had from people like that.”

“Ah, yes, that must be right,” I said sagely. “You’ve never managed to inspire loyalty in anyone, therefore it can’t be done.”

Lady Gray laughed, loudly and bitterly. “I have seen and done more than you know, you arrogant brat. Loyalty? Oh, I know loyalty. It lasts until someone has an empty belly, or a splinter. There’s nothing to be gained by gathering Gutter trash under your banner. I don’t know if you’ve got some grand dream of raising up the downtrodden classes to overthrow the unjust rule of the Clans or what, but did you ever stop to think they might be downtrodden for a reason? Those cretins will shatter the second they have to face off with real soldiers. They’re all just people, and in the end? People are selfish, craven, greedy, and stupid. I could almost wish you victory here, just so you’ll be doomed to deal with herding these witless fucking livestock until you learned how badly Sanora fucked you over by bringing you here.”

She had stopped moving, keeping the distance of two rapier lengths between us. Now, as her little speech paused, I let my outstretched blade fall to my side. Lady Gray narrowed her eyes suspiciously, bracing her feet but not yet trying to take advantage of the opening. She smelled a trap.

“You’re doing it wrong.”

“I beg your pardon?” she replied dryly. “Do correct me, I’m sure this will be fascinating.”

“I can’t put my finger on how, exactly, but…that’s all wrong. It’s all true, but for some reason when you say it, it just sounds…pathetic, and gross.”

“Awww.” Gray’s mouth twisted in a grin that was more than half a sneer. “Poor little Hero. Have your sterling ideals been challenged by the sight of life in the Gutters? Get used to it, boy. It’s all downhill from here. If you think I’m bad, wait till the Viryans start—”

She had to break off, to her visible annoyance, when I burst out laughing.

“Ahh, so close!” I congratulated her. “Really, I’m impressed you put it together—nobody else has had the wits to do it so fast. But it’s funny, my dear Lady Gray, how even the cleverest person can be so very wrong. Shall I enlighten you as to your one teensy little mistake?”

With the rapier still pointed harmlessly down at my side, I stepped toward her. Gray backed up, staff at the ready, clearly unsure what I was up to. While I passively pushed her back with my mere presence, I reached up with my free hand and lowered my hood, just so she could see me grin, and wink.

“Sanora didn’t bring me here.”

I stopped, smiling a wolf’s smile, and watched the composure drain from her face as the final realization set in.

“I’ll tell you what,” I said, after giving that a moment to settle. “Despite all the enormous pain in my ass you’ve been, Lady Gray, mine is a game of organization-building, not monster-slaying. As skilled a character as you is a lot more valuable serving me than bleeding to death in some alley—as satisfying as that would be to watch. What do you say? It’ll be difficult, given how much hatred you’ve earned from…well, basically everyone. I’ll have to do quite a bit of damage control and persuasion to keep everybody happy with having you on the team. But I think have enough credibility to pull it off, and you just might be worth the effort.”

I spread my arms wide, rapier pointed harmlessly at empty space, smiling magnanimously.

“All you’ll have to do is kneel before the Dark Lord.”

We stared each other down, the night wind tugging at us and the noise of battle still drifting up from the street, though even that was starting to peter out. When she answered, it was quietly enough I almost had trouble hearing.

“Really, now, Seiji. After all the games we’ve played, you can’t think I’m that stupid. My feelings are hurt.”

Of course, if our positions were reversed, I’d have to assume this was a ploy to make me lower my guard for the deathblow. Truth be told, I wasn’t actually sure whether I was serious about my offer—whether I might immediately put the blade to her back as soon as it was turned. I was high on battle fury and bloodlust, thrumming with adrenaline, and let the spotlight run away from me a bit. Sometimes, you just had to follow the performance where it took you.

“You’ve had a long and interesting life, I’ll bet,” I replied, just as softly. “It must be a great story. But you haven’t begun to know what hurt is. Even if you die before I can teach you, you’ve placed yourself in Virya’s way. By the time I see you in hell, you’ll be ready to spend eternity licking my boots.”

She bared her teeth at me, and suddenly threw the artifact staff. I instinctively caught it with my free hand; fortunately it seemed the enchantment only activated when someone holding it struck someone else, so my reflexes didn’t get me electrocuted.

The momentary distraction was all she needed to reach into her pocket with one hand and grab her dagger with the other. I lunged forward with the rapier, even as Gray hopped nimbly backward and threw something to the ground between us. Whatever it was impacted the shingles with a sharp pop and a huge gout of acrid white smoke, which swelled up directly around me thanks to my own forward momentum.

Coughing, I frantically backpedaled out of the worst of it. That stuff lingered heavily despite the breeze; I had to cast a Windburst to get rid of it.

There was no telltale thump of a body being caught in the blast of wind, even as it effectively cleared the smoke away. She’d gone invisible, dodged to the side, and done who knew what other bullshit to get out of there. Not a trace of her to be seen.

After all that, Lady Gray had managed to escape me. And that meant that this wasn’t done with. Worse, she now knew exactly how cornered she was. As if she wasn’t a dangerous enough animal to begin with.

I didn’t even spare the time to curse, turning and dropping off the roof into what remained of the melee below. At least there was something to which I could put an end tonight.