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"Mm," Vey said. "That's what they said."

"Right."

At least he had not been lying about the size of my opponent.

The lion they sent into the ring was one of Vey's men. He had an enormous mane, at least a hundred pounds on me, and enough confidence to charge straight across the black sand the moment the fight began.

I shifted into jaguar form and stayed out of his reach.

That was how I usually fought men like him. I moved quickly, changed direction, drew attacks that landed where I had been a moment earlier, and made him spend energy while I conserved mine. The crowd shouted from the ledges, but after a few seconds their voices stopped mattering.

The familiar calm settled over me.

It was the state that made the fights possible. I stopped thinking about pain or fear and reduced everything to distance, movement, timing, and breath.

Then, about three minutes in, he caught me.

His paw hit my ribs hard enough that I heard the damage before the pain arrived. Two breaks, maybe three.

My vision vanished in a burst of white.

When I could see again, I was lying on my side in the sand, unable to pull air into my lungs. The lion stood over me while hundreds of people screamed for him to finish the fight.

I remember thinking, with absolute clarity, No. Not tonight. I can't do this tonight.

It would have been easy to stay down.

I could have let the fight end there. Vey would have been furious, and he would have added whatever punishment pleased him to next month's debt, but that would have been a problem for another day.

For a few seconds, I wanted nothing more than to keep my cheek against the sand and stop moving.

Then I saw Wren's face.

I saw her the way she had looked in my room three hours earlier, with swollen eyes, blotchy skin, no glasses, and no idea how brave she had been.

I saw her walking barefoot through the gallery in my shirt while half the school stared at her. I remembered her hand closing around my wrist when she needed me to stop. I remembered her nodding when she decided to trust me again. I remembered how hard it had been for her to let me see what those girls had done to her.

She had told me to stop when she needed me to stop, even though saying it had frightened her.

I could get up off some sand.

So I did.

After that, the fight became ugly.

I stopped worrying about what winning would cost me and went straight for his throat. I got my jaws around him and held on.

He threw me into the rock wall.

I held on.

He slammed me into it again, and something else in my side gave way.

I still held on.

Eventually his legs folded beneath him. He dropped onto his stomach in the sand and did not get back up.

The cavern erupted.