Page 24 of Immortal Game

“So how did you get here?”

She shrugged. “Jeremy Liu was in town. I found out he’d been invited, so I challenged him to a game. He staked his invitation on beating me.”

Now that Shea thought about it, she hadn’t seen him at the opening ceremony. Jeremy was a decent player. This girl had to be pretty good to defeat him, or maybe he’d been careless. No doubt he’d expected an easy win against some random IM.

“Impressive,” Shea said begrudgingly.

“Satisfied?”

“Not really. I don’t know your opening repertoire, your style, anything.”

“You’ll see for yourself soon enough,” Lily said blandly.

Oh, Shea intended to. As soon as she got a moment to breathe, she’d hunt down an arbiter and request the move list from the game Lily played last night. Enemy or ally, Shea needed to know what she was dealing with. “For what it’s worth, my style is winning.”

“And humility.”

Shea bit down on her frustration. This conversation was quickly slipping away from her. “Look, I’m not trying to antagonize you. I need your help.”

Lily’s dispassionate blue eyes bored into her. “I’m listening.”

“I take it that you haven’t played most of these guys before. I do it all the time. You don’t know what you’re up against, and I don’t want to deal with prigs like Daniil Tsoi. They’re not here for the right reasons.”

“And you think I am.”

“Why else would you go to all this effort?”

Lily twisted her hands together in her lap. A few scars stretched across her hands, shiny and puckered like burn marks. When she caught Shea looking, she tucked them back into her sleeves. “It depends on what you consider the right reasons.”

“Try me.”

“A long time ago, someone hurt me. I want him to pay for it.”

Her answer—and the quiet, simmering anger beneath it—gave Shea pause. In the weeks leading up to the tournament, forums had been flooded with discussions of the age-old question:If you won Midir’s tournament, what would you wish for?The answers were always the same. For the average person, it was money, status, or eternal happiness. For the self-deluded, it was world peace. For the particularly tiresome, who fancied themselves as clever as the fae, it was more wishes. Shea assumed most people would fall under one of those umbrellas. Lily had surprised her.

“Me, too,” Shea said quietly. “Be my partner.”

Lily searched Shea’s face. After a moment, she shook her head. “No.”

Shea reeled back. She hadn’t expected such a blunt, outright rejection, but she could salvage this. “So you got lucky and beat Jeremy Liu. Maybe last night, too, against one of your faerie opponents who maybe hasn’t played a real game since 1795. But the competition is only going to get harder when there’s nobody left but top grandmasters. I can at least get you to the next round.”

“Wow,” Lily deadpanned. “You sure know how to court a girl.”

“I’m not… It’s not…” She cut herself off before she embarrassed herself further. “I’m not trying to trash-talk. It’s just the truth.”

Lily flipped open her book again. “I see what you’re doing. You want to use me and discard me as soon as it’s convenient. I know a thing or two about that.”

Shea’s face warmed with shame. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it like?” When Shea could provide noresponse, Lily laughed softly. “That’s what I thought. All of you are the same. You can’t see past your own ego and ambition. I did earn my way here, even if I wasn’t invited. Maybeyoushould be afraid ofme. You know nothing about my games. I know everything about yours. Now if you don’t mind…”

Lily made a little shooing motion. What else was there to do? Shea snatched up her basket and skulked off. How had she managed to completely alienate two people in as many hours?

Her unwelcome guilt came flooding back. No, she would not beat herself up over what she had said to Ciara—and she sure as hell wouldn’t apologize. Not until Ciara did, anyway.

Shea continued on her grim trudge, determined to find someone else. By the time she reached the hilltop, she’d passed six duos rummaging through the thickets. A realization dawned on her, like the cold shower of an opponent’s unexpected brilliancy. With everyone else paired off, she had only one option left: Ciara of Bri Leith.

CHAPTER NINE