She reached for him, and at the moment his fingers closed around her arms, Gabe’s hands gripped her waist. The two of them hauled her over, and being caught between their bodies made heat flame across her cheekbones.
Lore scrambled through the open culvert and onto the street beyond, not turning around as she listened to Gabe and Bastian make their way out behind her. Bastian grunted; Gabe made a sound like a swallowed snort. When they walked into her field of vision, Bastian was shaking out his fingers like they’d been stepped on.
They walked in silence down the nearly deserted street, the orange glow of the harbor lights and the distant sounds of shouting heralding when they grew close to the boxing ring. “Eyes peeled,” Bastian said, then they were in the crowd.
It was thicker tonight than it had been before, far more bodies pressed together around the hay bales, and they all seemed more intent on getting closer. The night Bastian fought Michal, the boxing ring had seemed more like a convenient meeting place than a draw in and of itself, with spectators lurking on the fringes in groups, talking and laughing and barely paying attention. Not so tonight. Tonight every eye was fixed on the fighters, and the stares were intense.
When the crowd parted, Lore saw why.
Two femme-appearing figures fought viciously in the center of the hay ring, hair braided back and breasts tightly bound. Blood dyed one’s pale hair nearly pink, and the other wiped at a split lip with the back of one linen-wrapped hand.
“Lightweight Night!” bellowed a man who saw her watching, clearly on the fast dip toward drunk. “Fancy a spar? You’ve a bit too much curve to be a lightweight, but we could find someone about the same size to make it a fair match.”
“I’m fine, thank you.” Lore backed up until she hit another warm form—Bastian. She could recognize the hand that came to rest on her shoulder.
The drunk man shrugged and turned back to the ring. The blond fighter launched at the bruised one, fist curving through the air to connect with a kidney. The other fighter fell to the hay-covered cobblestones.
Lore whirled on Bastian. “Did you know it was Lightweight Night?”
“Truthfully, I didn’t know such a thing existed.” Bastian grinned beneath his mask, craning his neck to see over the crowd. “How marvelous.”
She cursed under her breath and turned away from the ring to scan the masses of people who’d gathered to watch. It was harder to get a feel for the crowd when there were so many of them, but most were focused enough on the match that it should be easy to spot someone slipping off for a whispered conversation. Gabe slumped a few feet away from her and Bastian, facing the fight, but with his one blue eye scanning back and forth through his mask.
The boxer with the bruised lip feinted to the side. The blond one stumbled, a punch overthrown.
“There,” Bastian said.
He didn’t point, but angled his chin toward the shadows on the far edge of the ring, a place between streetlights where the dark was deepest. Three figures huddled, angled away from the match. The one whose face Lore could see looked like he was listening intently to whatever was being said. The figure speaking had their back turned.
Bastian and Gabe exchanged a look. Gabe nodded, then started moving toward the group, pushing through the crowd like a shark through a school of fish.
“Come on.” Bastian took Lore’s arm and tugged her after him. “I don’t think our pet monk will need any backup, but we should stick close, just in case.”
A roar went up from the ring. When Lore looked back, the blond boxer was on the ground.
The group in the shadows broke apart before Gabe could reach them, the figure who’d been speaking fading into the crowd without Lore getting a good look at them.
Gabe approached one of the men who’d been listening, struck up a casual conversation. Bastian and Lore stopped a few feet away; from what she could hear, it sounded like Gabe was talking about sailing weather.
“Bleeding God,” she muttered, and Bastian snorted.
A few more inane words about northwesterly winds, and Gabe nodded in the direction of the now-disappeared speaker. “You all wouldn’t know about any job opportunities opening up around here, would you? I’m looking to make some extra coin.” A pause. “Something that could be done in one night would be ideal.”
“Laying it on a bit thick,” Bastian whispered. Lore dug her elbow into his ribs.
The man Gabe spoke to—very small and slight, if it weren’t for the thick stubble on his jaw, Lore would think his voice still hadn’t cracked—glanced at his companion, then rubbed at his neck. A constellation of bruises bloomed there, deep purple and new. “I might,” he said slowly. “But the details aren’t mine to share.”
Gabe’s jaw tightened, and the slight man stepped back, eyes widening in brief alarm. Lore didn’t blame him. Gabe didn’t look like the kind of person you’d want to anger.
“How could one find someone willing to impart details?” Gabe asked.
The man’s companion—larger than he, but still young looking—let out a harsh laugh. “Lose,” he said, cutting a hand toward the ring.
Lore looked back. The blond fighter was up again, but blood trickled steadily from a cut across her forehead, dripping into her eyes.
“Lose?” Gabe’s confusion drew his brows together, wrinkled the black domino mask.
“Lose a fight,” the slight man mumbled, rubbing at his fresh bruises again. “They only approach people who lose a fight.”
“Why?”
“Gods damn me if I know,” he replied snappishly. “I guess because you have to buy in to fight a match, and those of us who just lost money are more likely not to ask questions.”
Another roar from the crowd. The blond fighter was down, this time for good. A huge man with a tangled black beard stepped over the hay bales, laughing, and lifted the other fighter’s arms over her head. Her eye was blackened, her smile viciously triumphant.
Gabe looked back at Lore and Bastian, then sighed. “Who do I talk to about getting in the ring?”
“You can’t.” The bruised man looked Gabe up and down, then shook his head. “Not tonight, anyway. It’s Lightweight Night.”
Three eyes turned to Lore—Gabe’s one, Bastian’s two, a question in them all.
“Fuck,” Lore muttered.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The past will always have its last word.
—Eroccan proverb
Ten minutes and a handful of Bastian’s gold later, Lore, the Presque Mort, and the Sun Prince stood right at the outside edge of the hay-bale ring and waited for her opponent to arrive.
“I know the point is to lose,” Bastian said, wrapping white linen around her knuckles. “But do at least try to give them a show. I doubt anyone will approach you about cargo running if you go down at the first punch.”
“I’ll do my best.” She was too nervous for wit.
Next to her, Gabe stood glowering, jaw set tight enough to bristle his reddish beard stubble. “I don’t like this.”
“I’m not exactly thrilled myself.” Lore bounced on her knees, nervous energy imploring her to move. “Shockingly, I’m not very good at fistfights.”