The Verse:
Two pointed battles, two pointless wins.
Winning was not the point, the point was Wynne.
The Vision:
I’m on a combat field somewhere on Skarsia. The midday sun is hot, but my armor isn’t heavy, and I’m not holding a sword. By this, I know it’s not a death-match, but too many people have gathered for it not to be serious business. The strange thing is that I don’t recognize any of them, except one: Wynne.
Commentary by Archbishop Co’oal Venesti:
I must admit that I am rather disheartened that Her Eminence still evidences some distrust of my motivations. My loyalties were always to the church. In contrast, Admiral Almiss felt a great sense of personal loyalty to the 5th Matriarch. There were rumors that they were lovers, but I doubt the veracity of that. It was true that the 5th Matriarch had a healthy sexual appetite, but she was well-contented with her seraglio. I knew Almiss’ wife; she was a tigron. There was no way that he was going to put anything by her.
All of this is but trivia, mundane matters. Most of this story concerns itself with such worldly, political entanglements. To the devout Archonist, the important part is how the emanation Wynne demonstrates his n’aashet n’aaverti by neutralizing a potentially devastating scandal with tactful ease.
Commentary by Elma, High Prophetess of Skarsia:
There are moments like this when I feel like Tara is almost on the verge of realizing her potential as a prophetess. If only she had seen a bit more, a bit more clearly, she would not have needed Wynne at all.
But – the point was exactly for her to need Wynne. This is why I will never take the blue amrita.
Commentary by Archbishop Seth:
I asked Wynne if he wanted to write the commentary, but he deferred. I think he wanted to see what Tara would write. Wynne is more sensitive than he lets on. That should hardly be a surprise. Born winners, like Wynne and Ross, are easily damaged. It’s the ones like Jamey and Callum who are strong. I must admit some sympathy of feeling – what Wynne hides with his cavalier manner, I myself distance with my intellect.
Commentary by Her Eminence Tara del D’myn, 6th Matriarch of Skarsia:
Battlequeen Escharton came to see me at the beginning of brightshift. That meant trouble – although we occasionally saw each other socially in the evenings, a morning visit was a business visit. She was wearing full-dress armor, which was another clue.
Escharton was the eldest of the battlequeens, and as such, their representative on the High Council. But she did not come to me in the capacity of advisor. “I have a message to deliver. There is a challenger for your title.”
“What?” I was confused. The only possible challenger to the title of Matriarch was Christolea, and she was buried in a hidden dungeon in Vuernaco. My other titles, Empress of Sideria and Marquesa of Dolparessa, were completely hereditary. There was no such thing as a challenge for them. “Did someone new show up with the genetic marker?”
“The what? Oh – no, not that. For Kyrae.”
“Kyrae?” I had totally forgotten. My mother had died unchallenged, which meant her title, Battlequeen of Kyrae, went to me when I reached my majority. But I was married to Merkht before my eighteenth birthday, and under Volparnian law, all my titles were transferred to him. The only way to take that title is through challenge, and no Skarsian woman would have deigned to challenge a man. So for a long time, the title lay dormant.
“But why now?” I asked. If some ambitious upstart had her eye on becoming a battlequeen, I could’ve been challenged at any point in the last twenty-five years. I didn’t want it – didn’t care. I’d only been to Kyrae twice in my life, and once was for my mother’s funeral.
Escharton shrugged. “The challenger’s name is Venahalee. For the past several months, she’s been saying that you don’t deserve the title because you’re not a proper Skarsian warrior. You’re a strange Dolparessan priestess unduly influenced by your husband.”
“I wonder if Venahalee has ever fought hand-to-hand with Cybrids.”
Escharton laughed. “I’m just repeating it. If you want my honest opinion, and it is just an opinion because nobody tells me anything anymore, the battlequeens feel marginalized and they resent the fuck out of it. Venahalee is somebody’s puppet.”
“I would think as the representative of the battlequeens, you should be in the thick of their politics.”
“Don’t play naïve,” she said, pushing her way past me. “I’m a Dol-lan, and you know it. I’m only on Skarsia a few weeks a year.” She helped herself to some of Ailann’s scotch. “Everyone that was in the council chamber the day that Prince Driscoll shot his mouth off – that was the day the universe was cut out from under us. Do you remember Lord Emson?”
“Emson? Vaguely. He resigned from the council years ago.”
“He took his family and went back to Sideria a week after Driscoll made his announcement. He understood then what the rest of us didn’t. I’m not a Skarsian anymore. I’m an immortal. My interests and theirs are fundamentally different.”
“I see.” I had never considered the matter in this way before. I wonder if Ash had.
“Venahalee is not completely wrong when she says you are unduly influenced by your husband. But everyone in the goddamm Domha’vei is unduly influenced by your husband. She’s got that traditional Skarsian way of looking at the world: male=inferior. She looks at Ashtara and all she sees is a male. She doesn’t see that he’s not fucking human. He’s a nau’gsh, a tree. He’s a mothman. He’s a god. His gender is irrelevant. He provides the energy to power our worlds. He protects us from all invaders. And, for an elite group of us, he makes us live forever.”
“Are you converting to Archonism?” I said, a bit amused.
“I’ve already converted to pragmatism. If I have to bow to your husband, so be it. If the battlequeens talk behind my back, so be it. I’ll be at their funerals before the century ends.”
Well, if she was going to drink, I might as well. Vodka and redberri for me. Come to think of it, it was a bit much on an empty stomach. I rang a servant, asking for a basket of puddins. “So what do you think I should do, ignore it?”
“Can’t. You’ll look really weak. You have to fight her.”
“Great. And if I lose?”
“Do you plan on losing?”
“Fuck no.”
“Well, then. But whatever you do, don’t bring Admiral Whelan.”
“Nonono. I was thinking maybe Callum or Evan.”
Escharton nodded. “Submissive toyboy will send exactly the right message.”
*****
I arranged to go to the surface of Skarsia a few days later. Lady Madonna supervised packing while I prepared myself for the trip. When I returned from the bath, Wynne was there. “Hello, sweetness.”
“Um,” I say. “Submissive toyboy sends the right message, Ash.”
“No can do. The big guy has determined that you need me on your side.”
“I need you? How tough is this bitch, anyway?”
“I don’t think Venahalee is the point.”
I ran my brush rather violently through my hair. In the mirror, I could see that Wynne was amused. He’s always amused, the smug bastard. “Do you have any idea how much I’ll lose face if you start flirting with other women?” I paused. “Actually, if you flirt with the wrong one, she’ll claim you, and I’ll have to fight her. And if I lose, she’ll haul you off to serve in her harem.”
“Do you plan on losing?”
“I’m getting sick of that question.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t allow myself to be put in a harem.”
“Too late.”
“Sweetness, you can be a bitch.”
I stood to face him. He was really pissing me off. Then I smiled. “You’re baiting me. Another game.”
“You’re the feisty redhead, and I’m the jaded and cynical grifter with a heart of gold.” He pulled a pack of cards from his coat pocket and began to shuffle them expertly with one hand.
“Let’s try I’m the Skarsian battlequeen, and you’re the member of the inferior sex.”
“Skarsia sounds like as much fun as Volparnu.”
“Well, the weather is nicer, but yeah. Why do you think I spend so much time there?”
“When was the last time you were there?”
“Uh…” I really had to think about it. “The Duchess of Treival invited me for her 35th birthday. That was back in, um, it was right before the volcano erupted…”
“Four years ago.”
“That long? You know, I don’t really want Kyrae. It will be another piece of useless property that I’ll have to maintain, like Vuernaco.”
“But you’ll fight for it anyway. And you’ll win.” Wynne stopped shuffling the cards; he looked thoughtful. “Who is maintaining Kyrae now?”
“Who knows? My mother had a retinue. I never displaced them. Sort of like all the hangers-on in my father’s palace on Vuernaco. I guess she must’ve left a provision in her estate.”
“I had a thought. But let’s wait and see how this plays out.”
*****
By tradition, the challenge-match had to take place on the disputed domain. Originally, all land on Skarsia was subject to combat-claim. The 4th Matriarch put an end to it, saying that the instability caused by land-squabbles was a distraction from the War of the Sexes. She linked the estates to hereditary titles, except for the twelve battlequeens. Commoners were allowed to challenge the battlequeens – it was their way into the aristocracy. But the title of battlequeen was quite respected, and a battlequeen’s daughter could well expect to marry into the hereditary aristocracy – as my mother had.
My mother couldn’t have been entirely common though, not with the blood of the matriarchs in her. What a little surprise I had been to the 5th Matriarch! Or perhaps not. It occurred to me that I didn’t even know that woman’s name. For hundreds of years she had been simply “the Matriarch,” as if title and woman had been wedded immutably. Knowledge of her parentage and family history had been obscured by time.
The truth is, I knew little about my mother. We had lived at Court Emmere, with occasional visits to Vuernaco. Then my parents died, and I spent my time between Court Emmere, Vuernaco, and the training camps on Skarsia. I can recall Mother’s face, but I don’t know if it’s a real memory, or just an image I’ve composited from old holograms I’ve seen. I’m afraid I don’t have a branch to store it in.
I have one memory of her, something that she told me which, at the time, meant nothing to me. She said that she was going to reveal a secret. Her secret was this: “Loving is more important than winning.” Later, it just seemed absurd. I wondered for years how a battlequeen could say that. Any Skarsian history book would call it indoctrination: The way men kept control of women on Earth was by playing to their superior compassion. They tricked women into believing that feigning a loss was a virtue because women were strong enough to handle it, and men, in their inferiority, could not. Because the women accepted that self-sacrifice was a virtue, they were swindled.
But now I know the truth: my parents died rather than stop loving each other. I look over at Wynne, who is glancing at an article from the media push. But he isn’t really. He can absorb that information instantaneously. He’s really watching me, but pretending disinterest.
Wynne is here to make certain that I win, but if I win, it won’t be because of Wynne. It will be because of my constant training with Mickey, who throws the match every time he fights me.
“Do you believe that loving is more important than winning?” I ask.
“Absolutely. In theory that is,” he says, putting down the datapad. “In practice, I’ve never actually lost, so it’s impossible to tell.”
*****
The Kyrae stronghold was much the same as I remembered it: cold, unforgiving, rooms too big for the furniture. It stood in vast contrast to my father’s ornate palace at Vuernaco, which was piled with antiquarian bric-a-brac in every conceivable space. I understood why my parents wanted to live at Court Emmere, with its organic exoticism.
I was met at the gate by the entire retinue – my retinue, whom I had never even met. Well, apparently that wasn’t entirely true. An old crone in her eighties introduced herself as Lady Livia. She was the house manager. I remembered the name vaguely from my childhood. She had been one of the ladies-in-waiting back then. I had a foggy mental image of her; a stately lady with rich brown hair and an elegant gait. Now her hair was white, and she was somewhat hunched over. It seemed like half the retinue was related to her – her consorts, her children, her grandchildren.
It had been more than half a century since I had last seen her. She had gotten old. I hadn’t. Suddenly, I felt extremely self-conscious.
She greeted me effusively. They all did. They seemed delighted to see me. I glanced over at Wynne, to get his reaction. He shrugged. There seemed to be no insincerity, no danger, no plotting, and my instincts told me that was wrong.
After dinner, a hearty Skarsian meal of sucksow stuffed with apples – real apples, not nau’gsh ones – we retired to the royal chambers. The bed was surrounded with curtains and covered by a stiff brocaded quilt in a matching pattern. It struck me as a little medieval, a little bit much. The whole stronghold had the atmosphere of being plopped in the middle of an ancient culture fair. At any second, I expected the jousters to arrive.
Then I realized that I was one of the jousters.
I turned to Wynne. “Observations?”
“My hunch was correct, but it’s not really the root of the problem. There’s still something we don’t know.”
“What was your hunch?”
“Your retinue desperately wanted you to come back. They’re hoping you’ll take them with you. Each one of those people has bought a ticket for the immortality lottery.”
“Wonderful,” I sulked. In other words, I could trust all of them – but I couldn’t trust any of them.
The battle was to take place at the stroke of noon. I needed to get a good night’s rest – but first there was something I had to accomplish. I shoved Wynne back on the bed. “I’ll be expected to take you – and to make a lot of noise about it. Otherwise, the household will think that my womanly vitality is lacking.”
“This place may not be so bad after all,” said Wynne.
There was no problem about the noise. Wynne was a violently passionate lover, and oddly, the frisson of antagonism between us added to the spice. “You know, in all these years, this is only the second time I’ve had you. Maybe Ash doesn’t use you much because you don’t love me.”
Wynne pulled away from me, saying nothing. He rolled onto his side. For a long time, he was silent. I didn’t know what to make of that. Was it tacit agreement? Sulking anger?
I thought of how the others would have responded. Cillian, to use his terminology, would’ve chewed me a new compost bin. Patrick would have sought to mollify me. Callum would have done something outrageously mortifying to prove his love.
I would never have said something like that to Ari. It would push him to the verge of immolation.
I touched Wynne’s shoulder; he turned back to me. Tears streaked his face. “I guess I lost this one,” he said. “Big time. It hurts.”
I didn’t know what to say. I brushed the tears away. “You think that I and I can do anything, but the one thing he can’t do is make an emanation who doesn’t love you,” he continued. “If you don’t know that by now, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
I fell back on the pillow. “You were right. I can be a bitch. I was trying to provoke a reaction from you.”
“You were playing a game. I thought you hated games.”
“I hate this game. I hate any game that pits me against Ash.”
“That game doesn’t exist. I and I is always in your corner, sweetness. I’m a gamer and a gambler. I think the reason I and I doesn’t play my hand often is because even after all these years, you still don’t trust him enough to take the risk.”
I lay my head on his shoulder. I had to think about that. Trust him? My inner landscape was complicated, and divided by a knife’s edge. On one side of it was reason, the understanding of what Ash was, the knowledge of his need for me, his power, his unfailing support. There was also a bit of blind faith, a point where reason gave way and I was certain that he was really a god, that he was never wrong.
On the other side, there was a stew of insecurities. The sense that I wasn’t good enough for him. The fear that I had no way to understand his alien motivations. Years of defenses shored up by pain.
Trust him enough to take the risk. Even when he abandoned me for two years, it was for my sake. The thing that he cares about more than anything – that vision of me he calls my destiny – he was willing to let go of it in order to assure himself that it was my choice, that he wasn’t forcing me in any way to conform to his desires. It hit me then – “The mystery of free will” – found in so many religions. I’d always thought it seemed like some kind of mean-spirited trap. Now I understood that it was supposed to be a measure of a god’s love for his creations.
Ash was a god.
But that isn’t what he wanted, my blind faith. He wanted the trust of my woman’s heart. He wanted me to know how he felt, even if it was too much for human language to handle, and so he kept trying to come up with new ways to say it. He kept coming up with new men to say it with, hoping that each new piece of human understanding would give him the key to the lockbox of my heart.
Wynne must’ve seen the look on my face – of course he did, as he never took his eyes from me – because he said, “When are you finally going to get it, sweetness?”
“I’m a fucking moron,” I said. “Most humans are. We have to learn the same lesson a dozen times before it sinks in.”
*****
Venahalee and her party showed up in the early morning hours. I caught a glimpse of her in the courtyard. My warrior’s instincts took measure of her immediately: she was tough. Not an idiot poser like Guinnebar, who I had played with and disposed of with a well-placed kick. Not a seasoned warrior whose ego left a blind spot the size of a supernova, like General Panic. Venahalee was lean, alert and all business. It would not be easy to beat her.
There was also something about her which seemed vaguely familiar. Then I saw it – the dignified gentleman behind her. He was dressed somewhat severely in deep brown dur-canvas and suede, rather unfashionable for a man on Skarsia. Wynne, on the other hand, looked much more properly masculine in a flashy pink satin sport coat. But the important thing was the man’s serious face, whose features echoed Venahalee’s.
“You didn’t know?” asked Livia. “Her name is Venahalee Almiss.”
The man in brown was Payter Almiss – formerly Admiral Payter Almiss. He had been one of the 5th Matriarch’s most trusted advisors. Upon her death, her other close advisor, Archbishop Venesti, had offered his loyalty to me, professing a deep desire to serve the Archonist Church in its evolution. Personally, I think he has a deep desire to keep his bread buttered on the right side, but that’s beside the point. Almiss, on the other hand, had retired from his position as Grand Commander of the Skarsian fleet almost immediately. It had suited me fine: within the year I restructured the military, putting the Skarsian fleet under Rear Admiral Naveeta, with all military operations in the Domha’vei under the supervision of Unified Fleet Admiral Whelan. In short, I didn’t give two thoughts to the departure of Admiral Almiss.
Apparently he had; his daughter was thin and sharp as a Tobrian katana. I turned to Wynne. “Here’s the point,” I said. “Almiss has nourished a grudge all these years. If Venahalee can defeat me, he’ll use it as evidence that I’m not as strong as the 5th Matriarch.”
“Nope,” said Wynne. “We haven’t scratched the surface yet.”
I greeted my rivals with formal expressions of respect. Venahalee returned them; Payter Almiss grunted contemptuously. “I suppose we’ll see,” he sniffed, “if you’re really as soft as the media push makes you seem.”
“I suppose I might seem soft to one who served under the 5th Matriarch,” I replied. “I never would’ve frozen Hindirben.”
His eyes narrowed. “You even saved Ventosty. An act which I would not quite call soft – perhaps treasonous is more appropriate.”
I was starting to understand what the game was. I hate fucking games. “Such hatred of Volparnu,” I said, smiling. “It surprises me to hear it from a freddiegrl who took up the sword.”
Venahalee’s hand flew to the hilt of her blade. Almiss placed a restraining hand upon her shoulder.
“Avail yourselves of the hospitality of the household,” I said dismissively. “Prepare as you need. I’ll meet you on the combat field at noon.”
I was hoping perhaps that Mickey would join me for some battle exercises, but Wynne excused himself, saying he needed to look around a bit. I was about to scold him, saying that he was running off at a time when I needed his help to defeat Venahalee, but I stopped myself. Ash trusted my ability to defeat her. I had to trust that Ash knew exactly what he was doing, too.
Wynne returned shortly before noon, when I was kitting up in my mid-weight battle armor. It was going to be strictly martial arts – no weapons allowed, so no need for the heavy stuff. He placed his arm around my shoulders and said, “I need to talk to you.” He escorted me onto the balcony over the courtyard, where we were alone. “The Lemonzaid set out for the challenger’s party was poisoned,” he said quietly. “It was too dilute to be toxic, but could easily have made someone very ill. I took care of it with alchemy.”
“Poisoned?” I said incredulously.
“How else would you handicap a rival you weren’t sure of defeating?”
“Surely you don’t think…”
“Of course not. I think someone was trying to frame you. Not Almiss – he wouldn’t poison his own daughter. I briefly considered someone in your retinue who desperately wanted you to win, but they’d have to be pretty stupid not to see who the blame would come back to.”
“This whole thing is pissing me off more by the minute.”
“Well, go down there and kick ass. The odds are against you.”
“Against me?”
“Yep. The bookies don’t have any confidence. They think you’ve gone soft, too.” He kissed me. “Don’t worry. This is great. I’ll get a better payoff when I win.”
*****
I knew Venahalee was going to be fast. She was young, and she was thin. I’d never been fast, but I was strong. I was also accurate, so my way of fighting was to take damage until I could assess my opponent’s weakness, then strike hard and sure.
She was fast – precise, efficient. Every movement was sharp, with no wasted effort. But as she came at me, I could see that she was using Emgan-fahlik, an IndWorld style that had developed around five centuries ago. I knew that because Mickey had memorized over 20,000 martial-arts manuals.
Yeah, she looked surprised when I blocked her at the last minute. She hadn’t expected me to be familiar with such an obscure style. But it was good news for me. Emgan-fahlik was very formalized in its attacks. The best counter might be to go with a soft style, or…
Or go back at her with exactly what they all thought of me. I grinned, swayed, stumbled. Venahalee looked startled. I could see the confusion on her face: surely, I wasn’t so inept and unprofessional?
My gamble had paid off: she was unfamiliar with Shaolin zui quan style. I laughed, reeled. pretended to take a drink of an imaginary cup. As she came at me, I slipped to the ground, rolled under her strike, recovered into a crouch and blew out her kneecap with a low kick.
She crumbled, howling. Shit, that was almost too easy.
I could see the look on Wynne’s face. Too easy. What was the point of all of this?
My retinue was overjoyed, with the exception of Lady Livia, who was strangely downcast. “What’s with her?” I asked Wynne. “Did she bet against me?”
“No, she placed a large bet that you’d win after ten minutes. I had money on you in under five. It was a killing – I made six mil. You know,” he mused, “it was a rather slow acting poison. Venahalee would have just started to feel the effects during the combat.”
“You think Livia was trying to rig the contest?”
“Well, she didn’t know you enough to have confidence you’d win. But she didn’t care that you would eventually be accused. She should’ve – if it came out that Venahalee had been poisoned, all bets would’ve been off. Now you’re going to have to make a decision – get rid of her, and maybe provoke a scandal, or buy her loyalty.”
“She’s old,” I said. “I’ll bet she was planning on retiring. After all those years of serving a mistress who never showed up, she probably felt abandoned.”
“But there’s still something not right here. It wasn’t like Venahalee was unprepared. She and Almiss just massively underestimated you. Why was that?”
“Media, I suppose. Let’s get some refreshments. Drunken styles always make me thirsty.”
*****
“Leaving already?” said Livia, looking even more depressed.
“In reward for your long, patient service, I did a little work on your telomeres,” said Wynne. “It will take a few years to notice the full effect, but you should regress in age about four decades. Just promise me you’ll give up poisoning. And gambling. You suck at both.”
For a moment, her face was all large circles which said I was that transparent? Then she recovered. “Men are such wily creatures,” she said to me. “Oh well. I suppose Battlequeen Escharton will be vindicated.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, she’s always having to defend your actions in the Queen’s Circle. She was the one who finally told Almiss that his daughter had better put up or shut up.”
“And that’s it,” said Wynne, pointing his finger like a gun and cocking his thumb.
*****
I confronted her when we returned to Eirelantra. “Had to happen sooner or later,” Escharton said. “For all their stupid talk, they have no idea what’s going on up here.”
“You set me up to prove a point,” I said. “You provoked a battle you knew I would win.”
“I’ve seen you. I’ve seen Mickey. Venahalee is good, really good, but she’s no match for a sixty-one-year-old woman in a thirty-year-old body coached by a god.”
“Thirty-three,” I said, “to be precise.”
“They don’t understand that youth isn’t an advantage anymore. They don’t understand much, mired in tradition. That’s what the battlequeens were supposed to be for – revivifying blood. But they’re not. The only real challengers these days are ingrown aristos like Almiss.”
I nodded. Ingrown aristos, like my mother, who somewhere down the line had been related to the line of Matriarchs. “What about you? Did you win your title, or inherit it?” It occurred to me then that I was strikingly ignorant of Skarsian politics.
“Inherit. I’ve never even had to defend it. Talk about soft. The way some of those bitches run off their mouths, you’d think they were still in the middle of the War of the Sexes. They don’t understand that the enemy isn’t Volparnu anymore. They’ve never fought in an actual battle. All the combats are games, like this one. The 5th Matriarch used to set them at each other’s throats, but you don’t even bother. Now all the real battles are fought for them, in space, by career soldiers like Naveeta. Skarsia hasn’t seen an invasion in over six hundred years – not like Dolparessa.”
“Tradition and prejudice are powerful forces,” I said. “You were underhanded, but you have a point. I need to make more of an effort to reach my people – or I’m going to leave them behind.”
*****
Wynne wasn’t in our chambers, but I had an idea of where he would be. This time, I didn’t bother to disguise myself. I just marched straight into the casino. The patrons stared. One of the waitrons dropped a drink.
Wynne was at the poker table, a blonde bimbo sitting on his lap. I shoved her off. He smiled at me. Fucking gamer.
And then she hit me over the head with a beer glass. I fell forward; by instinct, I struck out behind me with a fist. In a minute, we were rolling on the floor. I could hear the hum of minicams: at the top of duskshift’s media push would be exhaustive coverage of Her Eminence the Matriarch in a catfight.
The bimbo fought dirty, scrapping and digging with nails. She even tried to bite me. She was a lot tougher than Venahalee. In the end, the bouncers ripped us apart, and Wynne escorted me out. My hair hung loose on one side, torn from its braided bun, and my silver brocade tunic was ripped down the side.
“I could’ve beat her,” I said, as we exited into an alley behind the casino. “So how much did you win?”
“Winning wasn’t the point,” he replied. “I’m a bastard. I was trying to even the score for the other night.”
“That fight was all for show. I wasn’t really jealous, but I do have my pride. I’m not about to let you go running around in public with cheap floozies.” I took his hand. It was starting to grow dark, and the atmosphere was vaguely threatening. It was that part of Eirelantra which was designed to look like the skids, so that the wealthy could go slumming. In reality, it was a safe as anywhere else on the station.
He nodded. “I’m still here,” he said. “You must be starting to trust me.”
He shoved me against a wall coated in fake-filth. “It’s ruined anyway. Might as well finish the job,” he said. With one strong yank, he shredded what was left of my top.