Eulalie Brome punched me in the chest at nine fourteen in the morning.
This was not the interesting part.
The interesting part was that I had known she would do it.
I saw the weight leave her back heel. Saw the hip begin to turn. Saw her right shoulder follow. Saw the clean line between ground, waist and fist.
Chessmaster didn't even need to speak.
The punch was obvious.
I moved.
Or rather, I instructed my body to move.
My body filed an objection.
Her padded fist struck just right of my sternum.
Not hard enough to injure a healthy student.
I was not a healthy student.
Air vanished.
My feet went wrong.
One step back.
Then another.
The instructor's hand caught my shoulder before I walked out of the training square.
"Stop."
I bent slightly.
Elisabeth had specifically told me not to do that.
So naturally it was the first thing my body wanted.
"Stand upright," the instructor said.
"I know."
"Then do it."
Unpleasant profession, teaching.
I straightened.
The ache beneath my left ribs sharpened, held, then settled into something tolerable.
Across from me, Eulalie had lowered her hands.
Concern.
That was the problem.
Not mine.
Hers.
"You all right?" she asked.
I inhaled through the nose.
Short.
Again.
"Deeply offended."
"That wasn't what I asked."
"It was the more serious injury."
The instructor stepped between us.
He was a narrow man with a nose that had been broken at least once and a voice apparently designed for funerals.
"Brome. Why did you stop?"
"I hit him."
"That was the assignment."
"He's injured."
"Also known."
Eulalie's mouth tightened.
The instructor turned toward me.
"Raymond. Why didn't you evade?"
"I attempted to."
"No."
His eyes dropped to my feet.
"You saw it early."
Interesting.
"Yes."
"You shifted your head before the strike."
"Yes."
"Then your rear foot stuck."
I said nothing.
"You're reading ahead of your body."
He stepped back.
"Again."
Eulalie stared at him.
"Immediately?"
"Yes."
"He can barely breathe."
"I can breathe."
She looked at me.
"Poorly."
I smiled.
"Still counts."
The instructor sighed.
"Both of you are already demonstrating why you're here."
That did not sound complimentary.
Around us, twelve pairs occupied the training hall.
No weapons.
No active magic.
No reinforcement.
Just bodies, padded gloves, gray practice clothes and enough youthful confidence to keep the healing faculty employed.
The floor smelled of old leather, chalk and sweat.
Large windows ran high along the eastern wall, too high for students to watch anything outside when they were supposed to be learning.
Nexus understood architecture after all.
Xavier was three training squares away.
He had his own opponent.
A compact boy with a shaved head and fast feet.
I had watched approximately eleven seconds before our instructor ordered me to mind my own diagnostic.
Apparently "I am" was not accepted as a defense.
Good.
Xavier's fight was his.
Mine was currently standing five feet away in religious training clothes and watching me as if she had been assigned a particularly irritating medical case.
Eulalie raised her hands.
Not a boxer.
The stance was narrower.
Elbows close.
Hands high without clenching.
Weight centered.
Stable.
Not aggressive.
Difficult to move.
I raised mine.
My left shoulder complained.
Yesterday's physical test had not forgiven me.
Neither had the Abomination.
Some debts collect daily.
"Round resumes," the instructor said.
No bell.
No ceremony.
Eulalie moved first.
Small step.
I did not retreat.
She tested the distance with her lead hand.
I shifted outside it.
Better.
Second touch.
Parried.
Third—
Feint.
My eyes caught the shoulder instead of the hand.
Too late.
Her palm pressed against my upper arm and redirected me half a step.
Not a strike.
Position.
Smart.
She wasn't trying to hurt me.
She was arranging me.
I changed angle.
Her foot followed.
Not crossed.
Good balance.
I gave her a false opening on my right.
She didn't take it.
Another.
Nothing.
Careful.
Too careful.
There.
Her weakness.
I let the left elbow drift away from the ribs.
A larger opening.
She saw it.
Her gaze flicked down.
Then back.
No attack.
Exactly.
She knew the injury was on that side.
I smiled.
Her eyes narrowed.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"That never means nothing."
The instructor barked:
"Talk later."
Fair.
I stepped in.
Fast enough to force a response.
My lead hand went toward her shoulder, not a punch—just a touch target.
She parried outward.
I expected it.
My other hand caught her forearm.
One foot outside hers.
Turn.
Not strength.
Leverage.
For half a second, Eulalie's balance came forward.
Chessmaster flashed cold lines through my vision.
Shoulder.
Hip.
Knee.
A chain.
Pull here.
Step there.
Her center would pass beyond her base.
Easy.
My mind finished the movement.
My torso did not.
The twist reached the damaged ribs.
Pain.
A short white pulse under the skin.
My grip weakened.
Eulalie felt it.
She pulled free.
But instead of countering—
She backed away.
Again.
Concern.
Again.
"Stop protecting me," I said.
She stared.
"I am not."
"Liar."
That cost me.
She stepped in.
No warning this time.
Lead hand occupied my guard.
Her shoulder turned behind it.
I moved back.
Too straight.
Her foot entered the space I gave up.
Pressure.
Not hard.
Continuous.
I parried.
She returned.
I angled right.
She matched.
She wasn't faster than my perception.
Nobody here had been.
She was simply making me move more often than my body wanted.
Different problem.
My shoulder tightened.
My lungs shortened.
Sweat gathered under the support wrapping.
She saw none of that.
Or perhaps she saw all of it and was finally choosing not to care.
Good.
Her next hand came high.
I slipped left.
Wrong side.
The ribs caught.
My breath stuttered.
Her other palm touched my shoulder.
Clean point.
The instructor lifted two fingers.
"Reset."
Eulalie stepped back.
I wiped sweat from my jaw.
"You're smiling," she said.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"You finally stopped apologizing with your feet."
She frowned.
"You're irritating on purpose."
"Frequently."
"Why?"
"People reveal useful things when annoyed."
The instructor closed his eyes.
"Raymond."
"Yes?"
"Ten push-ups if you keep conducting psychological experiments during my diagnostic."
I considered.
"With my ribs?"
"Twenty."
"Remarkably persuasive."
Eulalie almost smiled.
Almost.
That annoyed me.
---
The first round ended two minutes later.
Not with victory.
Diagnostics had no winners, the instructor informed us.
A suspicious philosophy.
They had observations.
Those were apparently worse.
"Brome."
Eulalie stepped forward.
"You maintain structure."
"Yes."
"Your balance is good."
She waited.
"You cut your attacks short."
Her expression changed.
"Control is required."
"Control is choosing how hard to hit."
He tapped two fingers against her glove.
"Hesitation is choosing too late whether to hit at all."
She said nothing.
He pointed toward me.
"You had at least four clean opportunities."
"He's recovering from an injury."
"And?"
Eulalie looked genuinely irritated.
"And I am not going to worsen it for a school exercise."
The instructor nodded.
"Good."
That surprised her.
Then:
"Now learn the difference between refusing unnecessary harm and refusing necessary commitment."
Something in her face closed.
Not disagreement.
Recognition.
That interested me.
I did not pursue it.
Progress.
The instructor looked at me.
"Your turn."
"I'm prepared for praise."
"Your perception is far ahead of your current movement."
"Thank you."
"That was not praise."
"Then your delivery needs work."
"Your stance shifts to protect the left ribs. Your shoulder rises under fatigue. You know where Brome is going before she moves and still arrive late."
Less charming when summarized.
"Your technique isn't the issue."
"Wonderful."
"Your ego is."
Eulalie looked toward the windows.
Coward.
The instructor continued.
"You keep choosing movements your body performed before the injury."
That landed.
Marduk's forge.
My legs heavier than wet timber.
Thirteen hundred strikes.
Falls until falling became movement.
My body had once obeyed.
Not perfectly.
Enough.
The Abomination had rewritten the contract.
I had not accepted the new terms.
"You're fighting from memory," the instructor said.
"No."
"Yes."
He pointed at my feet.
"You see an opening from an old range. You issue the old response. Your current rotation is slower. Your shoulder mobility is reduced. Your recovery step is short."
His finger moved between Eulalie and me.
"If this were uncontrolled combat, Brome wouldn't need to beat your mind."
He tapped my chest lightly.
"She'd only need to survive long enough for your body to betray it."
No one spoke.
I disliked him.
A lot.
"Second diagnostic," he said.
"Different objective."
He placed a narrow strip of white cloth behind each of us.
"Do not touch the opponent's head. No strikes to Raymond's left ribs."
I nearly objected.
His stare stopped me.
"Goal: force the other person across their cloth line or establish a three-count control on the mat."
Eulalie looked at the floor.
Ground work.
Wonderful.
My ribs sent a letter of resignation.
"No active skill use," the instructor added.
I looked at him.
"Define skill."
"Anything magical, system-derived or supernatural that substitutes for physical movement."
Chessmaster?
Intrinsic cognitive skill.
Grey area.
He looked directly at me.
"No Chessmaster."
My smile disappeared.
"How do you know the name?"
"Your admissions file."
Of course.
Nothing remains intimate once a school owns a cabinet.
"Is that confidential?"
"Yes."
"And yet—"
"Position."
I filed the irritation for later.
---
Eulalie and I faced each other again.
No Chessmaster.
That was stranger than expected.
I had lived with it long enough that shutting it down felt like removing one eye.
The world remained.
Less annotated.
Her shoulder was simply a shoulder.
Her weight merely something I had to infer rather than see arranged into lines.
Good.
Bad.
Useful.
The instructor raised one hand.
"Begin."
Neither moved.
Eulalie had learned.
So had I.
She waited for me to manufacture the exchange.
I smiled.
"You know, I once knew a card dealer in Marseille who could sit absolutely still for nine hours."
"No stories."
"That was the instructor's rule."
"It should be everyone's."
Cruel woman.
I stepped left.
She mirrored.
Right.
Mirror.
I dipped my shoulder.
No reaction.
Better.
Then I committed.
One step in.
Hands met.
Forearm against forearm.
Her frame was firmer than I expected.
Not strength.
Alignment.
Her skeleton carried the pressure instead of the shoulder muscles.
I changed angle.
She followed.
She tried to clear my arm.
I resisted.
Bad idea.
Static strength belonged to the healthier person.
My forearm began to tire.
I released first.
Her hand caught my sleeve.
I turned the grip against her.
She let go immediately.
No stubbornness.
Better.
We separated.
The class faded.
Breath.
Feet.
Cloth line behind her.
Mine behind me.
Eulalie's breathing remained quiet.
Mine didn't.
I heard the faint rasp on the longer inhale.
She heard it too.
Her eyes changed.
Hesitation returning.
I used it.
I stepped forward deliberately loose.
A poor guard.
An obvious chance to drive me back.
She did nothing.
One step.
Another.
She gave ground instead.
Her cloth line came closer.
I advanced.
She looked down.
Two feet.
One.
I could almost hear her thought.
If she drove hard into my torso, she might worsen the injury.
So she would retreat.
I smiled.
"Check."
Wrong word.
Chess.
Old habit.
Her eyes hardened.
And I understood my mistake one second before she corrected it.
Eulalie stopped retreating.
Her foot planted.
Not behind.
Underneath her.
I had expected another step back.
My weight was already moving forward.
She didn't punch.
Didn't need to.
Her forearm met my upper chest, her other hand controlled my arm, and she turned with the momentum I had volunteered.
No magic.
No brute strength.
Just a door disappearing from where I expected it.
My feet scrambled.
The cloth line wasn't behind her anymore.
It was behind me.
I tried to recover.
My left foot landed.
My torso rotated.
Too much.
Pain stabbed beneath the ribs.
My balance rose.
Fatal little error.
Eulalie stepped close.
Hip against my center.
She redirected.
The floor vanished.
Not dramatically.
No flying body.
No theatrical throw.
One moment I was standing.
The next my shoulder struck the mat first, then my back.
Air punched out of me.
The ceiling flashed white.
Eulalie followed down.
Controlled.
One knee near my hip, weight distributed so she didn't crush the injured side.
My right wrist trapped to the mat.
Three-count position.
I knew the escape.
Bridge.
Turn.
Clear the arm.
Or—
Gravity.
A whisper.
Barely anything.
Change our weight by a fraction.
Her balance would—
No.
The instructor had prohibited it.
More importantly, I needed to know.
Could the body escape?
I shifted my hips.
Pain.
Wrong.
Tried another angle.
Eulalie adjusted.
One.
I caught her forearm.
She lowered her center.
Two.
Chessmaster screamed behind the closed door.
Let me in.
No.
I drove through the right leg.
Too late.
Three.
The instructor slapped the mat.
"Done."
Eulalie released immediately.
I remained on my back.
Ceiling beams.
Dust in the light.
My pulse hammered in the bruised cage of my ribs.
The sensible thing was to sit up slowly.
So I remained there.
Eulalie knelt beside me.
"Raymond?"
"I have suffered a profound injustice."
She exhaled.
Relief disguised poorly.
"Can you breathe?"
"Yes."
"Any sharp pain?"
"Yes."
Her face changed.
"My pride."
She stood.
"You deserve worse."
I held out a hand.
She stared at it.
Then took it.
She pulled.
I assisted.
The room tilted for half a second.
She felt my grip change.
"Sit."
"No."
"Sit."
There it was.
The same tone she had used with the clerk.
I sat.
Humiliating.
The instructor crouched in front of me.
"Dizziness?"
"Brief."
"Nausea?"
"No."
"Vision?"
"Unfortunately functional."
He looked at Eulalie.
"What changed?"
She answered without thinking.
"He made me retreat."
"Why?"
"I didn't want to drive through the injury."
"And?"
"He knew."
I smiled.
She glared.
The instructor nodded.
"So?"
Eulalie looked at me for a moment.
Then:
"I was letting him decide my actions by deciding what I was afraid to do."
That was annoyingly precise.
The instructor looked at me.
"And why did you fall?"
"Gravity."
His eyebrows rose.
"Not mine."
Good recovery.
"My expectation. I assumed she would continue backward."
"Why?"
"Because she had."
"Not enough."
I knew.
Eulalie answered for me.
"Because he thought he'd solved me."
Silence.
The instructor's mouth twitched.
Possibly satisfaction.
I disliked everyone.
"Yes," I said.
He stood.
"That is the diagnostic."
"That I'm arrogant?"
"We did not need mats to establish that."
Eulalie laughed.
Actually laughed.
A short sound.
She stopped when she saw me looking.
Good.
Balance restored.
The instructor addressed both of us.
"Raymond: you don't need more techniques."
I was offended.
"You need a body map that reflects the body you have now."
Less offended.
More annoyed.
"No fast rotational combinations until medical clearance. No unsupervised ground work. You rebuild stance, step recovery, breath under pressure and exits from compromised angles."
Wonderful.
"Brome."
She straightened.
"You need commitment drills."
Her jaw tightened.
"Meaning?"
"You decide before contact whether the action is justified. Once you choose, you execute it under control. No half-attack because guilt arrives halfway through."
Eulalie's eyes dropped.
Only briefly.
The instructor continued.
"Restraint is not fear of consequences."
Something passed across her face again.
Her order?
Her vows?
A past incident?
Unknown.
Keep it that way.
"For the next two weeks," he said, "you two train the first half-hour together."
Both of us answered:
"No."
The instructor looked delighted.
"Excellent. Tomorrow."
---
Xavier found me sitting against the wall after class.
He was sweating.
His lower lip was swollen slightly.
He looked happy.
Unacceptable.
"You lost."
I looked up.
"How could you possibly know?"
"Eulalie told someone."
"She did not."
"The entire class saw you on your back."
"Circumstantial."
He sat beside me.
"I won mine."
"Congratulations."
"You don't want to know how?"
"No."
That caught him.
"Seriously?"
"You'll tell me eventually."
He considered.
Then smiled.
"I lost the first round."
I closed my eyes.
"You couldn't last eight seconds."
"There you are."
"What happened?"
"My opponent figured out I keep reacting to movement before it finishes."
Flow.
Of course.
"He started feinting."
"Yes."
"And?"
"I stopped using Flow."
I turned toward him.
He shrugged.
"Instructor told me if I couldn't fight without it, then it owned the fight."
Interesting.
"What happened?"
"I got hit twice."
"And?"
"Then I won."
No need to correct.
No lesson to steal.
Just information.
I nodded.
"Well done."
His expression softened.
Then he ruined it.
"Still did better than you."
"I regret encouraging independence."
---
Eulalie was waiting outside the hall.
Not for me.
Probably.
She held a folded notice in one hand.
Her face told me it wasn't pleasant.
Xavier noticed.
"I'll see you at lunch."
He left before I could volunteer him for anything.
Traitor.
I approached.
"Bad news?"
Eulalie folded the paper smaller.
"Private news."
"Then I won't ask."
She looked suspicious.
"That easily?"
"I occasionally experiment with dignity."
"It doesn't suit you."
Painfully good.
She put the letter into her coat.
I noticed the seal only because it was facing outward.
The same religious emblem she wore at the throat.
Her sponsor.
Probably.
No assumptions beyond that.
"Your order?" I asked.
She stared.
I raised both hands.
"You displayed the seal."
"Yes."
"And yes."
"Curriculum objection?"
Her expression told me enough.
I smiled.
Wrong choice.
"Why is that funny?"
"It isn't."
"You smiled."
"I was thinking of the administrator."
"Why?"
"Because bureaucracy is one of the few predators that becomes more dangerous when wounded."
"I can handle it."
"I didn't offer."
That stopped her.
Good.
Then I made the mistake of adding:
"Yet."
Her eyes narrowed.
"No."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were going to."
"Everyone here has developed this accusation."
"Because you keep doing it."
She stepped closer.
Not threatening.
Enough that I could see the faint chalk line along one sleeve from the mat.
"I do not need you to negotiate with my order."
"Understood."
"I don't need Abraham."
"I didn't mention him."
"I don't need a loophole."
I smiled slightly.
"You found one yourself yesterday."
"Exactly."
There it was.
Not someone refusing help because pride demanded suffering.
Someone refusing to have freedom handed back to her by a new owner.
Important difference.
"I won't interfere."
She studied me.
"Promise?"
"No."
Her face hardened.
I continued.
"I don't make promises I may need to break. But I will not act on this without your permission."
Long silence.
Then she nodded.
"That is irritatingly specific."
"The best contracts are."
She started away.
"Eulalie."
She turned.
"What?"
"You stopped retreating."
"I noticed."
"Why?"
She looked at me as though the answer should have been obvious.
"Because you were using my restraint against me."
"Yes."
"And I decided I didn't like you enough to protect you from learning why that was stupid."
I laughed.
My ribs punished me.
She watched the wince.
"Tomorrow," she said.
"Tomorrow."
"And don't use your injury as bait again."
"No promises."
"I'll put you on the floor again."
"Threatening an injured student. Your order will be devastated."
She walked away.
No answer.
Probably wise.
---
I returned to the Sierra after sunset.
Elisabeth examined the new bruise beneath my shoulder and said nothing for nearly a minute.
This was worse than criticism.
Rex sat beside her.
He smelled the training clothes.
Then my ribs.
Then growled.
"I lost."
Rex's growl deepened.
"To a nun."
Elisabeth looked up.
"Religious student."
"Distinction without emotional difference."
"You're smiling."
"Everyone keeps saying that."
"You enjoyed it."
I considered.
"No."
She pressed one finger against a sore muscle.
I hissed.
"Liar," she said.
Fair.
On the table beside her lay Devil's Deceptions.
Open.
Not at one of Marduk's missing sections.
A page of coded references.
Numbers.
Letters.
Short notations.
Elisabeth had copied them onto another sheet.
I looked.
"Find something?"
"Maybe."
Important word.
She tapped three entries.
"The numbers don't match page numbering."
"Dates?"
"No."
"Coordinates?"
"Not cleanly."
"Catalog numbers?"
She looked at me.
"That was my thought."
Central Library.
Archives.
Restricted stacks.
Lower repository.
The next sequence waited just beyond the current one.
Not yet.
I closed the book gently.
"Tomorrow."
Elisabeth frowned.
"You're telling me to wait?"
"Yes."
"Did Eulalie hit your head?"
"No."
"Pity. It might have improved you."
I sat.
Slowly.
Rex placed his head against my knee.
The pain from the fight had already changed.
Less sharp.
Deeper.
A physical account of mistakes.
I opened the small notebook I had taken to Nexus.
Not the Blacklist.
Not everything needed to become a case file.
I wrote two names.
Eulalie Brome.
Under it:
Control is not hesitation.
Then:
Raymond.
I stopped.
Writing your own defects has a vulgar intimacy to it.
Marduk had preferred shouting them across a training yard.
Perhaps he had been onto something.
I wrote:
Seeing is not moving.
Then below it:
Current body, not remembered body.
No classification.
No piece.
No debt.
Just a lesson.
Chessmaster remained quiet.
Good.
Tomorrow Eulalie and I would train again.
Xavier would continue learning to fight without leaning on Flow.
Elisabeth had perhaps found a bridge between Marduk's codes and Nexus's catalog system.
Three separate problems.
Three people making progress without waiting for me to arrange the board.
I should have found that threatening.
Instead, somewhere beneath the ache in my ribs and the humiliation of being dropped in front of half a classroom, I found something considerably worse.
Relief.