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The fighter that Reese had picked out was smaller and leaner than the others—about Madeleine’s size. What was even more surprising was that she appeared to be a purebred Oraki, her pale skin streaked with mud, her blonde hair braided and coiled on top of her head. She was dressed in worn leather and faded cotton and was slim enough and young enough to pass for a boy.
Her opponent was a Zessin man significantly bigger and heavier than she was, and they were engaged in a knife fight at close quarters. At first glance, it seemed impossible that the woman could have any chance of winning. The man lunged at her with his blade held high—he would only need to fall on her to crush her under the weight of his body, his knife already buried in her heart. Madeleine gasped in terror. But the woman spun effortlessly away, catching his ankle with her foot and tripping him with his own momentum. He fell heavily but rolled quickly to his knees, scrambling to face her as she circled him tightly. She thrust at the back of his neck, but he grabbed her wrist and hauled her over his shoulder, and Madeleine gasped again. But the woman seemed to do a somersault in midair, landing on her feet in front of him, facing him, her knife still in her hand. Another thrust, and this time she connected with his collarbone. He grunted in pain and clambered to his feet. Madeleine saw a line of red collect on the front of his dirty shirt and clenched her fingers over her own much smaller wound.
“Sorry,” the woman called. “We weren’t supposed to draw blood.”
Her partner pressed his hand briefly over the injury and shook his head. “A scratch,” he said. “That was a good trick. I’m too heavy for that kind of roll.”
“Sometimes it’s easier to fight a big man than a small one,” the woman said. “Small one is just as fast as I am.”
“Try it again?” he said. She nodded and dove at him without another word.
Reese glanced over at Madeleine with his eyebrows raised. “I like her,” he said.
Madeleine nodded. “So do I.”
They watched for another ten minutes as the woman and her large partner practiced a few more heart-stopping maneuvers, but neither combatant sustained another injury. After one particularly physical exchange, the man paused with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. He caught sight of Madeleine and Reese and nodded to acknowledge them.
“Looking to hire?” he asked.
Reese nodded back. “Interested in a female guard for a female client.”
“Jayla,” the man called over his shoulder. “They want to talk to you.”
A few minutes later, the three of them were inside, sitting around a small bare table in a small bare room. It was the most impersonal setting Madeleine had ever seen; no niceties at all, not even the offer of a cup of water, just the minimum necessary space to conclude a transaction. Madeline and Reese sat on one side of the table, facing the woman called Jayla. She divided her attention evenly between them, which Madeleine liked. This was not someone who made assumptions about where the power lay.
“You want to hire a fighter?” she asked. Her voice was cool and brisk, with an accent Madeleine supposed was Oraki.
“I do,” said Madeleine. “My father has recently become worried about my safety and would like me to have a guard with me at all times.”
Jayla focused on Madeleine. “What’s caused him to worry?”
A reasonable question. Madeleine found herself wanting to assure the woman that there was no danger, really, it would all be for show, but that seemed like a stupid thing to say. “A few days ago, a madman came at a table of women in a public place. He had a knife. He didn’t hurt anyone, but it seemed like he could have. And I was the one he attacked first.” She felt Reese glance over at her, so she reluctantly added, “And there have been a couple of other incidents that might have been accidents, but might not have been. For instance, someone pushed me in front of a gridcar.”
Jayla nodded. “Would there be any reason for someone to want to harm you?”
Madeleine turned to Reese. “That’s exactly what Harlo asked my father last night!” She turned back to Jayla. “I don’tthinkso. Unless my father is involved in some dangerous business deal with unsavory people, but that doesn’t seem like my father.”
“And all of these attacks have taken place outside of your home?”
Madeleine was silent a moment. “Maybe.” Jayla just waited for her to go on. Madeleine made a gesture of frustration. “I was sick, and the physician brought me a medicine that actually made me sicker. But that could just have been a mistake on his part.”
“And it’s not the kind of assault a guard could protect you from,” Jayla commented. “Where’s that physician now?”
It had never occurred to Madeleine to ask. “I don’t know,” she said.
Jayla seemed to think it over. “So you might have been targeted three different times, in three different ways. But none of the events was lethal. It’s possible there’s no connection between them—that things just went wrong on those three days.”
“Which is whatI’vebeen saying,” Madeleine interjected.
“But assuming someone really is trying to harm you, two things seem clear.”
“Really? Nothing seems clear to me.”
Jayla held up one finger. “They’re using a variety of different methods because they don’twantyou to think you’re in danger. Because they’re trying to make the attacks look random and coincidental.”
“Which argues a certain degree of planning and malice,” Reese said.
Jayla nodded. “It also argues that they will keep trying.” She held up a second finger. “Murder is not their primary occupation, or you would be dead already. So either they don’t really want you dead—or they just don’t have much experience killing people.”
