Afi was gripping my hand like she meant to break it as she stared at Edaine's card with silent tears coursing down her face. Come to think of it, I was holding every bit as tight. Twins save us, was all I could think. Twins save us.

But they wouldn't, would they? We'd set up this shitshow according to their rules, and they would follow them whether we won or lost. It was ironic: now, when I could actually see the two figures shining in their box seat high above us all, I had less faith than ever in my whole life that the gods might step in with some miracle.

"How am I supposed to do this, Hull?" she whispered, sounding scared. "She's a Mythic, and I only just hit high Rare. It's impossible."

"It's not," I insisted, putting my face in between her and the dead woman's card. "Look at me. Basil was where you are right now when he killed Felstrife. Basil! He nearly fainted at the sight of blood when we first went out hunting enemies in the wood, you remember?"

"Not that I much care for the reminder," Basil said, walking over and putting a hand on Afi's shoulder, "but Hull is correct. If I can do it, you can. I seem to recall a certain young lady handily beating both of us at the same time during War Camp. What was her name?" He lifted his eyebrows expectantly and did his cold, mechanical best to give her a smile. "I'm fairly sure it was Afi. Quite a fighter, as I recall. Not to mention that some reckless soul just gifted her with a pair of very powerful Water cards."

Afi swallowed hard. "But she's so mean. She runs circles around the rest of them, you told me so. And she hates me."

"She hates everybody," I said. "Even herself, I think."

She clutched at her stomach, looking sick. Her eyes drifted back to Edaine's card. "Fate's weeping eye, he crushed her head like an egg. Like it was nothing."

I took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. "You're not fighting him. Focus on what's actually in front of you."

Her eyes were wild. "That's not any better!"

I was nearly as scared about the upcoming match as she was, but I couldn't say that. I cast about for something to help her. I had my clawed brass knucks, but she'd never been much for using weapons, and besides, it worked best with Nether. I felt at my pockets, and a thought sparked in me.

"Hey, horse man," I called over to the older centaur, who was conferring with the others of his kind near the food table.

"Rakkoden," he said without rancor.

"Sure, whatever. Are Artifacts allowed in these matches?"

"None at all. The Twins wish to see you using their gifts, not weighed down by mortal contraptions."

I grunted. The old codger went right back to his conversation and didn't appear to pay us any more attention. As soon as he wasn't looking, I fished the heavy ring out of my pocket and pressed it into Afi's hand. "Put this in your Mind Home. If you're not wearing it when the duel starts, maybe you can slip it in during the middle of the match."

"You want me to cheat?" Afi whispered, scandalized.

"If they think it's cheating, you just won't be able to use it," I said, feigning confidence. The bare fact was that she couldn't beat Mother without help, and this was all I had to give.

"What does it do?" Basil asked quietly, curious.

"Uh…" I shuffled my feet. "I don't know. Haven't figured out how to use it. But I found it in the Legendary room in the King's vault, so it's gotta be something good."

"You don't even know," Afi said weakly.

"It kept sparking," I said, shrugging. "I can feel how powerful it is. I've barely had time to look at it twice. Duck into your Mind Home when things start getting out of hand, and maybe you can spend a few minutes figuring it out."

She fingered the ring, dubious. "Did you try pushing Source through it?"

"I…" I sighed. "No, I didn't think of that. Stupid. In my defense, I was half dead at the time."

"Well," she said, taking a quick look around. "I might as well give it a try." She blinked out of existence for no more than a second or two and then reappeared. The ring was gone. "Thank you," she said to me. "Whether the ring makes a difference or not, you got me thinking strategically, and it snapped me out of my fear." She squared her shoulders. "Mostly."

I took her hand again, hiding the chill in my gut. "You can do this. She likes direct damage Spells, and she'll try to play mind games. Don't listen. Just give her some little summons to soak up her Spells and then hit her with everything you've got. Don't give her an inch."

She grabbed the front of my shirt and kissed me hard. "When I'm done, we're going to have a chat about that demon girl you apparently spent so much time with."

She turned heel and walked toward where Rakkoden was now gesturing her toward a glowing tunnel just like Edaine had entered, head held high. Not a single glance backward. The others all gave her encouragements as she went, except for that asshole leonid, who had decided to ignore all of us. I noticed a flicker of movement on the other side of the window that peeked into the enemy waiting room. Had Mother been watching me? Probably so.

"Can she beat her?" Basil asked softly.

I glanced again at Edaine's card. No. "You bet," I said forcefully, turning to where Afi and Mother were now walking into the arena below.

Old Basil would have heard the lie and tried to comfort me. New Basil probably heard it too, but he was a hell of a lot harder than he used to be. We watched the match begin in silence, and everyone else lined up beside us to witness alongside us.

As before, we could hear everything between the competitors. "I prayed to the Twins that I'd get to be the one who killed you," Mother said idly. "Nice to know I still have their favor."

"Don't listen to her," I whispered. Afi couldn't hear me, but I had to say it anyways. My insides were twisting like a basket of snakes. I was about to watch my mother murder the girl I… liked? Loved? I still didn't know, but as of now I was pretty sure I'd never get to find out.

Their soul cards flashed over their heads, magnified for all to see. Under normal circumstances the rich folk held their soul abilities secret, but apparently the Twins didn't care about that shit. I smiled to see Afi's, but Mother's made my blood run cold.

The way her ability was phrased, I was fairly sure she could have stolen my Uncommon soul card even if I hadn't made the deal with her. It made me wonder why she'd gone to the trouble. Had my willing participation in her experimentation been all that important? Or did she just love to fuck with people so much that she did it without thinking? I was fairly sure I knew the answer to that.

Then the ante cards flashed overhead.

I'd seen Mother use that Legendary to help kill my father. Afi's card was one of the ones Basil had taken from Felstrife and had given her. Now was no time to be selfish with cards we couldn't use. I wondered what she'd taken out of her deck to make room for the Legendary. We hadn't had much time for lolling about and chatting duel strategy in recent days. I hoped she'd taken advantage of the Queen's cardsmith to upgrade whatever cards she could during the time she'd been running missions out of the City Watch headquarters.

"What would happen if she simply hid in her Mind Home and refused to come out?" Esmi asked the centaur. "She has the ability."

"The Twins rule as the Twins will," Rakkoden said, approaching to watch. "They might allow her to slip away thus if they find it amusing, or they might find it boring and revoke her Mind Home access for the duration of the match."

"So they do whatever they feel like?" Gale said, sounding offended. "For gods with such strict rules about how everything works, that sounds like a terrible thing to do."

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"They enjoy exploring the boundary conditions of the immutable laws they set," the centaur said, unruffled. "There are few things that bring the Great Ones more excitement than discovering and debating some interaction or condition that has never before occurred."

"Only the rankest coward would hide from a match before the gods," Titus sneered. "She looks the type."

I found myself imagining what a broken lion nose looked like, but Esmi spoke before I could do anything about it. "Honored centaur, why is this mangy pile of filth grouped with us? He holds no love for us nor we for him, and I cannot help but notice he is matched against one of our own. Should he not be in the other room?"

"Those with loose affiliations who are swept up in the grand contest are placed randomly both into competitor booths and the contest bracket. Though they have never said so, I believe the Great Ones appreciate the entertainment of a little conflict in the waiting rooms. And besides, in a winner-takes-all contest such as this, it becomes increasingly probable that friends will face friends on the field as we progress. You are encouraged to give a good showing no matter whom you face. The gifts given to winners will increase in both value and glory as we reach our final matches."

I grunted. Like hell I'd beat up my friends just to give the Twins a good time. We'd cross that bridge if we came to it. I'd only been paying half an ear's attention to the discussion anyway. The match was well underway, and I was watching every twitch, wishing at every moment I still had Intervene and could hop down onto the field to give a hand.

Mother was dithering, not summoning any Souls as she kept throwing verbal barbs at Afi, calling her a street-corner whore and a child out of her depth. Afi, her face increasingly grim, said nothing as she brought out a full trio of her lesser Souls.

Their Dying Breaths would likely go to waste without any enemy Souls out, but Afi was wisely holding them at bay. Sending them to attack Mother would just get them killed, given her high Attack.

Instead, Mother lazily summoned a Spell.

All of the Ice Knights shattered, and Afi hissed as she discarded a card from hand. Mother did likewise.

"You shouldn't have touched him," Mother said. "I don't like it when people play with my toys."

"Ignore her, ignore her," I muttered. Thankfully, it seemed that Afi had. She was focused on Mother's next move instead, but Mother seemed content to circle and peck at her with insults. I had the bad feeling she was toying with her. With admirable calm, she summoned two Souls over the course of her next two turns.

When the Mirror Knight came out, she paid the price to have it copy her Nüwani Warrior, and then sent them both in to attack. With Flurry on the two Nüwanis, it could be a killing blow. She was making a big move.

With a laugh, Mother faced the two Nüwani – one black-skinned, the other the silvery sheen of the Mirror Knight – and met them with a matched pair of Spells.

They both glittered away into nothing, and Afi grunted as she shed a distressing number of cards from both her hand and her Mind Home. Her hand was now empty.

"Fortune's balls," I growled, slapping the balustrade before me. "She's got too damn many Spells."

Mother gusted a sigh. It was her turn, but all she did was circle slowly and let her Source refresh. She's toying with her. "He's going to be one of the great ones, you know. What would you do with a man like that? You'd forever be a weight slowing him down. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life wondering where he is? What better woman he's sleeping with?"

"You talk too much," Afi said stonily, summoning the first card that came to hand as soon as her turn began.

The Kraken stood as tall as a building.Two massive Tentacles broke through the arena floor and reared up twice as high as a man.

My fist clenched in desperate hope as Afi sent the pair of suckered Tentacles lashing down at Mother's face. Surely she was running low on tricks by now.

Mother never flinched by so much as a hair. More Spells flared in the air.

One of the Tentacles veered from its course and crashed into the other, smashing it to sparkling motes before it could land its blow.

The misdirected Tentacle misted away itself, and Mother flicked a card out of hand to absorb the damage. Must have been an expensive card. She then regarded the Kraken that shadowed the entire arena. "Finally, something interesting."

"Nothing I can't handle," she said lazily, "but interesting. Though I didn't much care for it blocking my view." A storm of scattered light from the dead behemoth showered the arena like falling stars.

My racing heart stuttered and sank. For a second there I'd thought Afi might do it. I'd thought she had a chance. I'd been wrong.

Afi, breathing heavily, blinked out of the arena. She'd ducked into her Mind Home. Mother looked up toward our box and spoke levelly. "She's not good enough for you, Hull. I'm doing you a favor."

You don't get to choose! I wanted to scream down at her. The fact was, though, that she could. Afi wasn't going to beat her. She'd just thrown her best cards right in a row and Mother had handled it without so much as a yawn. Basil was the exception that proved the rule: Rares couldn't handle Mythics.

"How long are we all going to sit here with our thumbs up our asses while she hides?" Mother called up to the Twins. "Is this enjoyable for you?"

"Dunno about Them," Afi said, reappearing, "but I think I'm going to like this part."

She held up the ring I'd given her and pushed Order Source through it. An unbelievable curtain of lightning crashed down on the arena, covering every square inch of space except where Afi was standing. The light was blinding and the sound of thunder was the loudest gods-damned thing I'd ever heard. My ears rang and I blinked furiously to try to see what was happening below.

Afi was stumbling back to her feet, unharmed. The force of the rain of lightning had knocked her on her ass. Mother, on the other hand, was smoking from her fingers and horn tips, her skin blackened and her lips peeled back in a snarl. A huge storm of card confetti was settling to the ground around her.

My heart leaped. "Yes!" That had to have done 15 damage or more. Thank Fortune she'd figured out the ring. She'd always been the smart one.

"All right," Mother said, her voice tinny in my wounded ears. "I think we've had our fun."

Afi flew across the arena and slammed against the wall. Card shreds flew from her in a cloud, and I heard a loud crack as her left arm was caught behind her body and broke. She slumped to the ground, coughing up blood.

I felt arms holding me back and realized I'd been trying to climb out of the box to get down to the arena. Basil and Esmi were both speaking, but I couldn't hear what they said. My heart was hammering, and rage like I hadn't felt since my days on the street filled me. My Soul strained and cracked, and I felt a new Nether grow in my heart. My hate for Mother knew no bounds.

Below, the awful woman sauntered over to her fallen foe. "This much I still share with my brethren: the weak deserve to fall. Why do you spend time with her, Hull? Even Xemris would be better than this one. Her death will strengthen you. You'll thank me one day."

She leaned down and grabbed Afi by the shirt front. Her head lolled. She was awake, but she was struggling to clear her head.

Mother looked right up toward our box again. "Don't look at me like that. I can't even see your from this distance and still I know the expression on your face. Ugh." She let Afi slump to the ground. "You vex me, child."

She squatted and peered down at Afi. "Is it because you're pretty? You're not that pretty. What silliness. I should help him see past such surface concerns."

"Stop," Afi said weakly. "Shut up."

"No thanks," said Mother. "But just for that, let's make this more interesting. I think maybe I won't kill you. This will be better. Yes." Looking back up toward me, she said, "I have never tried so hard to help someone, Hull. This is a mother's love."

With that, she shifted.

"That's you," Basil asked, aghast. "What is she doing?"

Ice formed in my guts. "The worst thing she can."

A purple nimbus of Nether shone around Mother's – my – hand as she leaned over Afi. "Wounds given with Nether don't heal right," she said conversationally. "So here, my dear little strumpet: something to remember me by. May it last you until a very, very old age."

With stiff fingers she slashed Afi diagonally across the face. From the Fated damage on my Uncommon soul and the edges of my ragged fingernails, a deep gash opened from Afi's right temple, crossing the bridge of the nose, and trailed crookedly down her left cheek.

"Who's the pretty one now?" Mother whispered, still wearing my face. Then she stood up and walked away, leaving Afi crying quietly on the arena floor.

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