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Luca, all in white, is on the further piste from the double doors through which I’ve entered. He lunges up and down and stabs the air fancifully with his fancy stick. He’s wearing his fencing helmet—I’m not sure why, it’s not like the air he’s stabbing is going to stab him back. Still—for someone so blatantly afflicted by weak genetics, he’s surprisingly light and nimble.
I walk to his wall of weapons and pick one up—a foil, to match his. It’s heavier than I remember foils being, but the blade wavers like a branch in the wind when I point it.
“Are you here for a bout, Lynch?”
I turn. Luca is striding over to me across the wide chamber, his steps silent as a shadow on the mirror-smooth wood of the floor. He’s got his foil propped on one shoulder, and he’s still wearinghis helmet. I see the outline of his face through the mesh, white forehead and cheekbones like a skull in a nest of shadows.
“I’m too old to be playing with toys,” I say with a smirk, wobbling my blade.
He whips his arm forward. His blade flashes in a thin silver line, and a stinging pain lights up my leg. I’m wearing tights under my shorts, but my thigh hurts as if his blade hit my skin.
“You little shit!” I cry out. “That hurt.”
He shrugs. “That’s what you get for coming in here without protective gear or armour.”
“I didn’t come here to pretend-fight you with a fake sword.”
He draws closer. With his white clothing and his mesh visor, he looks more like a robot than he ever has.
“You’re so used to being a liar and a cheat that the thought of a real fight terrifies you.”
I laugh out loud, an edge of anger strangling my voice. “You really think this is real fighting?”
He starts to reply, and I lunge forward, thrusting the point of the foil at Luca’s chest. It’s been a while since I’ve fenced, and I hated every second of it when I did, but I’m quick. Quicker still is Luca, who leaps back, out of reach only by a centimetre.
He tuts. “You didn’t call the terms of the bout, Lynch. How many points?”
For an answer, I press forward and thrust at his chest again. I don’t give a shit how many points the chest might be worth to him. To me, it would be fun to remind him of the points I already scored, all this time ago, when I sliced him across the chest.
Luca doesn’t retreat. He parries, arm straight, and returns the attack—a riposte. He’s quick—the tip of his blade digs into my chest, right above my heart.
“Touché,” I say to humour him.
He resumes his stance, and I copy him—perfect stance, legs wide, arm outstretched, blade pointed.
“You’re trained,” Luca says through his helmet. He sounds too calm to be surprised, but he must be because he sneers, “They teach fencing in state schools now?”
I wouldn’t know. I didn’t go to state school. But I’d rather swallow sand than reveal this to Luca Fletcher-Lowe, silver spoon baby and Spearcrest alum.
So I lunge, strike. He parries and ripostes. This time, I push straight past his blade, slam into him. He throws his shoulder to the side, barely dodging me, and so I ground myself on one leg and kick him hard, heel to gut. I hear the sharp burst of his breath through his helmet.
“You fight dirty, Lynch,” he says.
And then he straightens himself, lunges low, with terrifying speed and deadly grace, and whips his foil, hitting my thigh with the side of his blade.
Same place as before; twice as hard as before.
This time, the blow draws a gasp of pain right out of my mouth.
“F—fucker!” I toss down my foil with a clatter and stumble back, bending down to inspect my thigh through my tights.
Luca, setting his own foil formally aside, follows me. “Let me look at your leg.”
I shove him away by his shoulder. “No, fuck off. That was mygoodleg as well!”
“I want to see it,” he says, calm and determined. “Take off your tights.”
I roll my eyes. “You’ve already seen me naked, what more do you want?”
