"We're almost there," Effie said excitedly. She loosed an arrow, from around a different tree than she'd been hiding behind, worming her way on her stomach below the sightline.

  "Nearly," Dalliance said dutifully.

  The Knights [Challenge] was like thunder.

  "It wouldn't be much of a challenge, little wizard, if I just let you hide behind the trees!" Sir Worth bellowed, his voice booming like a war drum. "Face me like a man!"

  The Knight’s skill battered against Dalliance's willpower like a tempest at a flag. It hooked into the deepest, rawest parts of him: the parts that wanted to be a man. To be seen. To be impressive and respected, treated as an equal. One-on-one against the Knight himself, with nothing but a bow and rocks? It was madness. But he wanted it.

  He wanted it so badly that he stepped out from the safety of the pines, ducking instinctively as a rock whizzed past his ear. He pulled back a shot and loosed.

  He knew it was a waste of time. He knew he couldn't win, and it wouldn't hit, even before Sir Worth batted it out of the air with his sword. But that’s what men did. They traded blows. Standing there, staring and waiting in the shadows? It felt suddenly contemptible. Beneath him.

  His father raised a hand. Dalliance vaguely processed the reality that Cadence Rather was back in the game.

  Beside him, Effluvia moved. Two arrows, shot from the same bow at the same instant, streaked toward Cadence Rather.

  Sir Worth didn't even pause, simply flicking a piece of gravel with his thumb. The tiny stone intercepted one of the arrows mid-flight, popping it directly out of the air in a cloud of splinters. Cadence stepped lazily to the side to avoid the other.

  This isn't a fair fight, Dalliance realized with a cold clarity.

  But he already had an arrow nocked. So he went ahead and loosed it, standing his ground as a real Archer would. He’d been given two sacks full of arrows. Forty-eight count. He’d never use them all, so he might as well start spending them now.

  The action brought an instant of extra time as Cadence sidestepped, but Dalliance’s finger stumps burned from the flexion of his palm, the strain of holding the bow steady trembling in his arms. He tore his eyes from Cadence. Why would he want to look? He hated that man. He was unimportant. He readied himself as the Knight picked up another rock.

  This isn’t a fair fight at all, Dalliance realized.

  "What are you doing?" came Earnest's voice, faint at this distance.

  An instant later: I don't want this.

  The realization broke the spell. It was a spell.

  But breaking the mental hold didn't stop the rocks. Two of them whizzed toward him, one to either side, cutting off his escape. There was no way to dodge but to drop.

  He threw himself flat.

  The Knight's stone sheared the air where his chest had been a moment before and struck the top of his bow instead. It snapped the wood cleanly at the top third, jarring Dalliance’s hand with the violence of the impact. The bowstring, suddenly released from its tension, whipped around with the speed of a lash. It struck Dalliance across the small of his back.

  He screamed in pain, writhing in the dirt.

  Da already had a second stone ready.

  [Redirect], Dalliance thought furiously, pouring his pain and panic into the skill. He chose Sterling’s father as the target. Look at him, not me!

  The skill failed.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Cadence’s arm shifted, almost imperceptibly, as another two arrows zipped by from the trees. He missed, though Effluvia’s arrows passed harmlessly over Cadence Rather’s head.

  Dalliance crawled to his feet.

  In unison, the two titans—his father and the Knight—stooped and gathered two more stones. They were huge.

  This was stupid. Dalliance wasn't a warrior; he was smarter than this. He cast [Redirect] again, pouring the last dregs of his will into the flight path of Sir Worth's stone. He knew where he wanted it.

  It worked. Sir Worth's stone slammed into Cadence's stone in mid-air with a sparks-flying crack, sending both projectiles spinning wildly off into the grass.

  Dalliance didn't wait to see them reload. He scrambled to his feet and ran.

  [Experience Gained! For withstanding the Knight's challenge, and standing strong against not one but two foes of superior skill, you have gained two (2) experience points!].

  He swiped the notification away mentally. He didn't care. He was empty. There was no Mana left. He couldn't do it twice. The point in Agility was almost an afterthought, though it sped his feet.

  He hit the windbreak. The shade felt like safety, deep in his bones. He'd survived. But he didn't slow down.

  "Run," he panted as he passed Effluvia.

  She didn't argue. Together, they sprinted up the road, lungs burning, leaving the Green and the madness of the Games far behind them, not stopping until the roof of the Best estate rose into view, the Green small in the distance.

  Tomorrow would be the hunt, but that was tomorrow’s problem. Today, they'd more than fulfilled their duty—

  Dalliance wasn’t sure when the [Prediction] had worn off. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes ago—just enough time for him to relax his guard.

  The rock hit him in the back.

  It wasn't a warning shot. It slammed into his shoulder blade with a sickening crunch, spinning him around and dropping him to his knees in the dirt. He hadn’t expected it at all.

  "Shit, shit, shit!" Effluvia hissed. Her teeth were bared in a grimace of pure rage. She hauled him to his feet, her hand slipping on his arm where the blood was already soaking through his shirt. "My father will hear about this!" she spat back towards the treeline. "You hear me? He'll hear about this!"

  Dalliance realized he was sobbing. He was weeping for every breath, terrified that the next one wouldn't come. He cast [Prediction] again, scraping the bottom of his reserves, desperate to see the next blow.

  He didn't see anyone there!

  There was nothing. The attack had ended. The woods were silent.

  They were safe.

  "You shouldn't be here," he gasped, his chest heaving as they stumbled up the path to the schoolhouse.

  She glanced at him impatiently, still holding his arm to keep him upright. Every step brought them closer.

  "I sleep here," he explained, feeling foolish. "It's . . . it's like my room." I can't possibly have a girl in it.

  He expected her to either dismiss his concern with a haughty wave or simply abandon him on the porch and leave. To his surprise, she did neither.

  "You're injured," she told him firmly. "The others will be along presently, and then I shall leave—unless I make you uncomfortable?" She added it as an afterthought, a flicker of genuine uncertainty in her eyes.

  He shook his head. He didn't know when, but at some point, she had joined the ranks of those whose presence was simply expected. Like Earnest. Like Charity. She would never be Whimsy, of course. But.

  He thought about what Topaz had said about friends. It was a nice idea.

  "I need to lie down. The closet."

  She pulled his cot out of the comforting closeness of the closet and set it beside the teacher's desk.

  He lay on his stomach in the empty schoolhouse as she watched in silence, lying face down on it for comfort. After a moment, she awkwardly pulled up the dunce stool and sat on it nearby.

  "They tell me it gets easier, you know," she said thoughtfully, to the air. "That the tumult of our youth leads to surety of purpose for our majority. Just . . . for you, as for me, the path to the eventual is—"

  "—A mystery"

  "That doesn't quite fit my metaphor."

  "You don't know where it is. Bracken's over it, or fog, or someone's got their hand over your eyes and asking you to walk it."

  "That last. Over a tightrope."

  Shared agreement, shared silence.

  "We're nearly there. They'll run out of hoops for us to jump through, and then we'll fly free."