“You seem certain he’ll lose.” Lore shrugged. “He looks like he could be a good boxer.”
“Oh, does he?” Gabe’s voice was low and pointed.
Lore scowled at him.
“Hopefully you’re wrong,” Gabe muttered. “If he gets knocked out in a boxing match, maybe he’ll forget the last hour.”
“He also won’t be able to get us into the vaults.”
“We could ask Anton—”
“No.” The very thought made her fingers curl to fists, some cell-deep instinct recoiling. “If something went wrong with that body, I don’t want them to know.”
If something went wrong, Anton and August might stop thinking of her power as an asset. They might start thinking of it as something too dangerous to keep outside a cell.
Maybe too dangerous to keep alive at all.
Gabe’s lips pressed together, his blue eye assessing. Then he nodded.
Bastian ambled easily down the street ahead of them, showing no sign of apprehension. Clearly, this was a regular activity for him. Lore wondered whether he really was a good fighter—people who lost boxing matches on the docks weren’t generally eager to return, and tended to carry physical proof of their failure.
And what if she saw someone she recognized? What if her very fine, albeit out-of-fashion, dressing gown, scrubbed face, and clean, brushed hair weren’t enough to hide who she was? She didn’t look that different, even in an aristocrat’s nightclothes, and more than one acquaintance of hers spent time at the fighting rings.
She’d just have to lie low. Keep close to Gabriel and Bastian, not make eye contact, hope she didn’t attract too much attention.
They exited the mouth of the alley like a reluctant parade, Bastian jaunty in front, Gabe glowering in the back, Lore listlessly caught in the middle. The alley spit them out between two derelict buildings near the harbor front, gas lamps slicking orange light on dark water. A collection of lamps illuminated a shipless dock, the gathering crowd already smelling of beer and sweat. Every one of them wore a mask, some more comprehensive than others. Lore found herself looking at them closely, wondering if she’d passed them in the North Sanctuary.
“Stay close,” Gabe muttered, coming up behind her as Bastian went ahead.
She did. The mass of the Mort next to her was comforting.
The crowd parted for Bastian as he approached the hay-bale-lined ring, but not with any reverence that suggested they knew who he was. They wouldn’t—beyond the walls, the royal family was an abstraction, something that existed but had little day-to-day bearing, regarded with ambivalence bordering on lazy hostility. There was no reason for them to know what Bastian looked like, and in his simple clothes and wrapped fists, stubble on his jaw beneath his simple black mask, he looked just like them.
Now, if there were any nobles in the crowd, they’d be able to spot their prince. But no one spoke up, and Bastian moved with the surety of someone who’d done this many times before. The Sun Prince did what he wanted, and if what he wanted was to get beat up by commoners, no one was going to stop him or blow his cover.
Bastian peeled off his shirt as he walked, handing it to a rather eager-looking man near the edge of the ring with a wink. The prince was as well muscled as Gabriel, slight scars discoloring his skin, half-healed bruises tinted yellow and faded purple.
Gabe and Lore stayed to the back of the crowd, who paid little attention to them. Thankfully, she didn’t see anyone she recognized, and breathed a sigh of relief.
Until she saw Bastian’s opponent.
He stood on the opposite edge of the ring, shaking out bound fists. Already shirtless, familiar bunching muscles, familiar rumpled hair.
Michal.
Lore made a strangled sound as she ducked behind Gabe’s back.
“What?” He looked around, as if there was some threat he hadn’t marked. “Lore, what?”
When Gabe twisted to look behind him, opening a gap between torso and arm that Lore could see through, Bastian was gazing at her, eyes narrowed. Like he’d been waiting for Michal to turn around. Like he’d been waiting to see if she recognized him.
Of course the Sun Prince wouldn’t trust a spy to tell him the truth, even under threat. Of course he’d have a layered plan, one that would show him who she really was.
Not just a spy. The girl from the market square. The necromancer who’d raised Horse. Michal knew what she was—her reaction to him would tell Bastian everything he needed to know.
The Sun Prince watched her like a hawk eyeing a mouse, waiting.
Lore bit her lip, made herself straighten. Made herself look right back at the prince like everything was perfectly fine. “Nothing,” she said to Gabe, who was still glancing around to find some unknown threat. “It’s nothing.”
Bastian kept those golden-brown eyes on her, unreadable. Then he smiled, but it wasn’t the playful, irreverent grin he usually wore. This smile was sharp. This smile was a knife that had found its mark, even if she pretended she wasn’t bleeding.
“You just keep coming back for more.” Michal already had his fists up, bouncing back and forth on his feet. There was no real violence in the words; he grinned at Bastian companionably. “Not tired yet?”
“You talk like I haven’t thrashed you the last two rounds.” Bastian made a predatory circle, with none of the fake sweeps of fists Michal used. No theatrics, just prowling.
“Luck, my friend.” Michal’s fist darted toward Bastian’s face. Bastian bent out of the way, laughing.
Michal and Bastian bobbed and weaved around each other, movements vicious but practiced. There wasn’t any malice in the way they fought, just business-like precision. Bastian avoided another swipe of Michal’s hand, ducking beneath his arm to come up behind him and land a choppy blow across the other man’s back. Michal fell to a crouch but rallied quickly, using the lower vantage to punch out at Bastian’s knee. The crowd howled as Bastian almost went down, then regained his balance. He winked at Michal, beckoned him forward with his wrapped and bloodied hands.
“We’re going to be here all night,” Gabe muttered darkly, arms crossed over his chest. “Longer, if neither one of them gets their shit together and knocks the other out.”
Michal circled Bastian, still bouncing on his feet, but his movements had grown more ragged. All his posturing was taking a toll, pointless expenditures of energy. He’d done that in bed, too, Lore remembered. Sometimes acrobatics were just unnecessary.
Bastian, by contrast, looked almost relaxed, dodging punches with ease though he barely threw his own. Still, sweat gleamed on his chest, and there was a tiny cut at the corner of his lip where one of Michal’s blows had landed.
The prince looked back over his shoulder, finding Lore again. In front of him, she vaguely saw the shape of Michal readying himself, cocking a fist. The crowd yelled, the young man still holding Bastian’s shirt practically jumping up and down, but Bastian paid no mind to their warnings. His eyes stayed locked on Lore’s as he reached up, slowly wiped blood from his split lip.
Got you, he mouthed.
Then Michal’s fist crashed into the side of Bastian’s head. The Sun Prince went down.
Silence. Michal looked almost surprised, glancing first at his fist, and then into the crowd, like he was searching for whatever had so distracted his opponent.