Coming face-to-face with Han again was nerve-wracking. Rix felt an overwhelming desire to turn and bolt as the man strode across the mess hall with his entourage. But he clamped down tight on those fears.

Be someone who never has to hide again.

Rix was seated at a table in the back of the room. It wasn't the Shadow Runners' usual section. That didn't mean much in reality, but it was a symbolic thing. This was neutral territory. He had two of his gangmates with him — Wing and Huan. As per the meeting Wing had brokered, Han brought the same number, including Yuri.

The Iron Hand members came to a stop at the other side of the table, though they didn't sit. Han preferred to loom, it seemed. Around the room, the guards stepped forward, their eyes wary, though for now, they let things play out.

It was the evening of the day Han and Yuri had been released, and there seemed to be a stark difference between the way the two of them had tolerated their solitary confinement. Han looked a little rough around the edges. His expression was pinched and he moved with a certain sense of tenderness, though he tried to mask it. Yuri, on the other hand, looked haggard. Her eyes were sunken, her skin pallid. She clutched her arms around herself like a scared child. Rix couldn't help but take a little pleasure in that. He shot her a wide smile.

Han sized Rix up, his mouth twisted into a scowl. "Is this you presenting yourself to me, runt?" His eyes flicked to Wing. "Or maybe your guard dogs have gotten tired of protecting you and have decided it's better to just hand you over?"

"You're not getting me today," Rix replied.

Han scoffed. "You're right here. You think you can stop me?" He laid his palms down on the table and leaned in close until he was just a foot away. Rix could feel the man's breath on his face. Next to him, the other Shadow Runners tensed. "You think your heroic guards will be able to step in this time before I can snap your neck?"

"Easy, Han," said Wing, laying a firm hand on the man's arm. "You agreed this would be just talk."

The man's nostrils flared, but after a moment, he drew himself back up.

"What do you want?" he spat.

"Three months," said Rix.

"What?" asked Han.

"Give me three months to get ready, then I'll fight you for real. No guards, no friends. Just you and me in the Fractured Realm."

Han barked out a laugh. "Now why would I agree to that? I nearly got to you last week. I can do it again any time."

"That might be true," said Rix. "It might not. Be either way, it's going to cost you more. This has gone too far, Han. How many of your members have you lost so far chasing me?"

"That's on you!" he snarled.

"No, that's on you," Rix replied, eyes darting momentarily to Wing. "You made the decisions, and they followed. And that will be doubly true next time, now that I'm offering you a bloodless way out."

Han's scowl deepened. "This is just some trick to buy time so you can tier up and run off to the Cauldron to hide."

Rix nearly laughed out loud. If only the man knew how little he wanted to run. But there was no sense overplaying his hand. "I'm not even Peak Whisper," Rix replied instead. "Do you really think I can make that kind of progress?"

Conventional wisdom said it took even the strongest Martial Soul at least four months to climb from the bottom of Peak Whisper to the top, which was where you needed to be to progress to Spark. Truth be told, Rix thought he could do it more quickly now that he had Breaker's help, but he wasn't about to admit that.

Han seemed caught between his own question and his desire to mock Rix's potential, so Rix decided to hit him in a spot he knew would hurt. "Last week in this room you told me you wanted to fight me one-on-one. I'm offering you exactly that. Surely you're not scared that three months will make any difference?"

Han's expression twisted, and he slammed a fist into the table. "You could have three years and you still wouldn't be my equal, runt!"

"Then what are you afraid of?"

Han's eyes were wild, but he didn't seem to know how to answer that question.

"You must have got the same speech as me, Han," Wing interjected, her timing perfect. "And you've already suffered for it once. Our benefactors upstairs are watching us properly now. Another situation like the other day and we're all going to be in for a really bad time. Taking a few months to cool off will be better for us all."

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Rix's eyes darted briefly to Yuri. The woman met his gaze for a moment before looking away. "You might be able to handle whatever they do to you in solitary," he said, "but do you think the rest of your people can? You think she can take it again?"

Han glanced at his second. She tried to project an air of strength, but the way she seemed to hunch in on herself was hard to ignore.

Han drew a long breath. "How do I know you'll keep your word?"

"You have mine as well," said Wing, eyeing Rix sceptically. "I'll see that he's there."

It had taken a lot of work to convince her of this plan, possibly because Rix wasn't entirely convinced himself. The brawl had shown Rix firsthand exactly how much of a monster Han was. Regardless of his prep time, handing himself to the man felt like certain death. But he couldn't see another option. He was tired of people dying around him. Tired of being the centre of this chaos.

More than that though, Rix could no longer tolerate simply reacting. Somehow, he'd found himself a minor character in his own story, blown from one conflict to the next like a leaf in a storm. He'd come here with a mission. It was time to reassert his control over it.

Apparently, Wing's reputation as a woman of honour preceded her, because her support seemed to tip Han over the edge.

"Fine," he growled. "You can have your three months, for all the good it will do you." He stabbed a meaty finger at Rix. "But know this: when that time is up, I will have your head. There will be no more running, no more hiding. There will be no cave or corner where I won't find you."

With that, the Iron Hand turned and left.

The Shadow Runners let out a collective breath.

"I hope you know what you're doing, kid," said Wing.

"Me too," Rix replied.

He'd got what he came here to get. Three months. Three months to reach Peak Whisper and master his style. Three months to open his Mountain Gate and finally make something of his qi. Even with the possibility of Breaker's aid during the fight itself, he didn't know if it would be enough, but the dice was cast. He'd bought himself some time. Now he had to use it.

He had to become a man capable of killing monsters.

***

After the meeting, he flagged down Tolson in the kitchen and pulled him into the storage room. It was starting to feel like all Rix did was have clandestine meetings back there, but some topics should simply not be overheard.

"I take it that went smoothly?" Tolson asked him. As always, the man seemed to know everything that was happening in the Farm.

Rix nodded. "As smooth as it gets with Han. I've bought myself some time."

"But now you're committed to fighting him," Tolson replied flatly.

"That's the plan."

Tolson considered him, his brow furrowed. "I understand there's more to this story than you're sharing," he said eventually. He gave a little shake of his head. "I'm not going to dig. I just hope you know what you're doing."

Rix chuckled. "That's exactly what Wing said. Trust me, I've got this under control." He injected those words with as much confidence as he could muster, though whether it was for Tolson or himself he wasn't sure. Not that it mattered. He'd committed to this path. Now he had to walk it as best he could.

"Well, okay then," Tolson replied. "In that case, what's this all about?"

Rix grinned. "I want to tap into your decades of institutional knowledge."

"That might be the nicest way someone has ever said 'I need your help, old man,' to me in my life," Tolson said.

"You said you'd been here twenty years! If anyone will know the answer, I figure it might be you." He hesitated. "I'm not sure there's a subtle way to ask this, so I'll just come out with it. Has anyone ever broken out of Spiritlock?"

Tolson's eyes widened fractionally. "Now that is a bold question."

Ever since the day Rix had learned about Xu Sho's influence in the prison, his mind had been turning over the new problems that created. By that stage, there was no avoiding a battle with Han, so any ramifications stemming from that were also inevitable. All Rix could do was take them in stride. When he'd bought himself three months to get strong enough to kill the Iron Hand leader, he'd also been buying time to come up with a way to stop Sho seeking retribution immediately afterwards.

And this was the best thing he could think of.

If the battle happened in the Fractured Realm, nobody in a position of authority would be able to prove Rix was to blame. Not immediately, at least. With any luck, it would take Sho time to react. But eventually, there would be investigations and interrogations, and the truth may well come spilling out

Rix needed to be gone by the time that happened.

"I thought you wanted to fight Han," said Tolson, "but now you're asking about running away?"

"I'm not trying to run," Rix replied. "What I'm trying to do is avoid his father rolling in here after I kill his son, hurling me into solitary and then throwing away the key."

Tolson gave a concessionary nod. "You know what, that's a fair concern. I've heard the apple doesn't fall far from the tree there." He chewed the inside of his cheek for a few moments. "But getting out of this place isn't exactly easy. That's kind of the whole point."

"I didn't expect it to be easy. But has it been done?"

"Not recently," Tolson replied carefully. He glanced around, though there was clearly nobody else in earshot. "But there have been a few Sparks that have found a way out of the Cauldron over the years. Last group was maybe a decade ago? I'm not sure on the specifics, but the way I heard it, they managed to sneak their way into some network of tunnels that wasn't properly sealed."

"Why would a prison have anything like that?"

Tolson shrugged. "It's not from the prison. It's from whatever this place was before. The Cauldron is built on top of the old bones of this place. If I had to guess, I'd say budgets didn't stretch to a complete rebuild, though they probably took some effort to plug the gaps once the breakout happened."

Rix took this in. "What about from here in the Farm? Has anyone made it out?"

Tolson shook his head. "Not to my knowledge. A few years ago, a group tried to break out through the citizens' portals in the arena, but those things take you straight into Ironguard headquarters, so they were just walked right back with a few thousand extra stones on their sentences."

Rix grimaced. It sounded like the Cauldron was the only option. It wasn't much to go on, but at least he knew it was possible.

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