CHAPTER 102: A STEP FORWARD

When I blinked again, he was still there.

It’s strange, the things your brain insists on questioning after you’ve seen a man’s skull get squeezed like overripe fruit and then drowned in enough sewage to sterilize a city block. My nerves were frayed, my body screamed with every twitch, and still the thought that my brain latched onto was: that smile looks like it was polished in a mirror for practice.

He grinned down at me with all the self-satisfaction of a cat who’d just found the cream, the bird, and the crown jewels in the same cupboard. His teeth were a little too perfect, which only made them worse. My eyes stung with exhaustion, but apparently my mouth hadn’t gotten the memo.

"You’re... a sponsor?"

The words came out like I’d just accused him of being a waiter who’d forgotten my soup.

He tilted his head, clapped his hands together once, and rolled his eyes in such an exaggerated arc I was surprised they didn’t fall out. "Of course I’m a sponsor. What did you think I was? The tooth fairy?"

"Honestly?" I croaked, still sprawled half in filth and half in disbelief. "Given the week I’m having? That wouldn’t have surprised me."

His laugh rang out warm, theatrical, and about as trustworthy as a street magician promising he wouldn’t take your watch. He leaned down, elbows propped on his knees, so that his golden hair framed his face in the lantern-light.

"Well then," he said, almost conspiratorial, "how about it?"

I stared at him. Blinking wasn’t enough this time—I had to rub my eyes like a child waking from a bad dream. "How about what? You’ve just crawled out of the shadows in the middle of—" I gestured weakly around us at the wreckage, the flood water, Salem’s very faint pulse. "—this, and you’re pitching... what? Sponsorships? Is this the part where you try to sell me scented candles too?"

He waved a hand. "Don’t be ridiculous. I tried the scented candle business once. A disaster. No, this is far more important."

I ran that through my head a few times, turning it over like a rock in a muddy stream, until the realization finally settled in. Yes, this was a sponsor. An actual, flesh-and-feathered sponsor, standing right in front of me.

Not perched in some balcony box above the arena, not sipping wine while pretending to be invested, but here, in the muck and madness, as if this whole world had been constructed for his amusement and he’d simply decided the front row wasn’t close enough.

"Why," I asked slowly, carefully, because my patience was now being held together with paperclips and hope, "are you here? In person I mean? Don’t sponsors usually sit up in their towers with their wine goblets, making smug little bets about who dies first?"

His smile widened as though I’d told just told a charming joke. "Oh, I did that too. Got bored. All the screaming sounds the same when you’re up there. But here?" He gestured grandly at the cracked beams, the stinking water, the half-conscious heap that was Salem. "Here, I get the full experience. The smell, the blood, the... ambience. You can’t buy this sort of atmosphere."

"...You’re insane."

"Yes," he agreed cheerfully, picking something invisible from under his fingernail, "but I’m entertainingly insane. That’s the difference."

My brain flipped between wanting to throttle him and wanting to take notes on how someone could be this irritating while still breathing. And yet there was something... unsettlingly familiar about him. The tilt of his head, the cadence of his laugh. Like a song half-remembered, playing at the edge of memory.

"Why me?" I asked finally, suspicion tightening around my ribs. "Of all people, why sponsor me?"

That got another laugh. A full-bodied one this time, the kind of laugh that bent his shoulders and left him gasping like the world was his private joke. He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye, then fixed me with that dazzling grin.

"Because, dear boy, it’s time I made good on my promise."

I squinted. "Promise?"

He did a comical double take, slapped a hand dramatically over his chest, and widened his eyes in feigned shock. "Oh, how silly of me. Of course you wouldn’t remember. My mistake entirely!"

"Remember what?"

He wagged his finger at me like a parent chastising a child. "Now, now, that would be telling. And where’s the fun in that?"

I groaned. Loudly. "Gods, you’re one of those."

He grinned wider, if such a thing was physically possible.

For the next several minutes, I interrogated him with all the sharpness exhaustion would allow, which meant my questions alternated between "What’s your name?" and "Are you serious right now?" and "Why are you picking your nose while I’m talking to you?" To each, he offered either a joke, a shrug, or a remark designed specifically to test my already unstable blood pressure.

"I’m not giving you a name," he said at one point, flicking a nonexistent speck from his feathered coat. "Names are terribly overrated. You’ll only use it against me later. No, no, let’s keep it mysterious. More exciting that way."

I sighed, dropping the topic as fast as it came.

Eventually I cut through his nonsense, shoving aside my suspicion and the gnawing familiarity of his presence, and asked the only question that mattered. "Fine. What would this sponsorship actually get me?"

He straightened, as if I’d finally passed some unspoken test. "Ah, the heart of the matter. Good. I was beginning to think you’d keep asking me about my haircut."

"Don’t tempt me."

He ignored me, raising his hand and letting his fingers curl with deliberate drama. "With a sponsorship, you’ll be allowed to regain what you registered before the tournament."

For a moment my brain didn’t catch up. And then it did. And when it did, it nearly tripped over itself. My pen.

That impossible little artifact that had been stripped from me, that held every plan I’d built, every scrap of power I’d clawed together. The idea of it, the sheer temptation of it, ripped through me like lightning. Dealing with this lunatic could mean regaining the pen.

"Yes," I blurted, far too quickly. "Yes, I’ll take it."

He nodded once, smug as though he’d known I’d fold from the start. Which, of course, he had.

Rodrick, ever the practical one even while soaked in sewage and bleeding from his ribs, narrowed his eyes and finally broke the silence. "How... is that possible?" he asked, his voice hoarse but steady

The man’s smile curved. "Because there’s an auction tonight. All registered items will be displayed. Those with sponsors will be allowed to attend and compete. Fight for what was theirs. Or what will be theirs."

My thoughts snapped immediately to Fitch, to his cryptic warning about the Lady of Fangs and her "expecting" me at the auction. Fate had been circling this moment all along, a vulture patient enough to wait until I was half-drowned and broken before swooping in.

Too good to be real. Too good not to be a trap. But still—too good to refuse.

"We’re broke," I muttered bitterly, the reality hitting like a hammer to the chest. Even if I could get into the auction, what would we buy it with? My charm? My sarcasm? I doubted either could be exchanged for relics.

As if he’d been waiting for that exact thought, the man whistled softly, reached into his coat, and produced a small leather pouch. Without ceremony, he tossed it to me. It landed heavy in my hand.

I stared at it. Then at him. Then back at it.

"You’re kidding."

For a wild second I actually thought he’d filled the thing with rocks just to mock me. But when I loosened the strings and peeked inside, the glint was unmistakable—gold, silver, copper, and far too much of it.

Not a gambler’s winnings, not a noble’s pocket change. This was wealth that could buy out a building or two, bribe a councilman, or send a small militia marching under my name. Impossible wealth.

And now it was mine, handed over with all the ceremony of a man tossing scraps to a stray dog. My mouth opened, shut, then opened again. Words were refusing to assemble into coherent order. I wanted to say something scathing, something witty about how he must be compensating for something, but all I managed was a stiff nod that probably made me look like a malfunctioning puppet.

Finally, I managed, "Fine. Where’s this auction being held?"

He preened as though I’d asked about his favorite theater troupe. "In the eastern quarter of the city," he said airily. "Where else? That’s where all the nobility roost, squawking, preening, and pretending they don’t all buy their wigs from the same rat-catcher’s warehouse."

I nodded. Of course. Just the sort of place where a band of half-drowned lunatics like us would blend in perfectly.

Beside me, Rodrick twitched. "Is there... a price for entry?" He asked the man.

The sponsor’s smile tilted sharp. With a flick of his fingers, he conjured a small silver coin as though from nowhere and flicked it at me. My hand snapped up on instinct, catching it before I had time to process what it was.

Cold metal pressed into my palm, stamped with a sigil I didn’t recognize—two interlocking crescents wrapped around a sun. It pulsed faintly, as though alive.

"That," he said smoothly, "will get you and your merry little troupe through the gates. Limited time use, mind you, so don’t dawdle. Fashionably late is one thing. Fashionably drowned corpses are another."

I stared at the coin, my reflection warped across its polished surface. Something about it felt...final. Like a ticket not to an auction but to fate itself. My fingers curled tight around it until the edges dug little crescents into my skin.

"Thanks," I managed, though the words tasted like I’d swallowed glass.

"Don’t thank me yet," he replied, brushing imaginary dust from his feathered coat. His voice was soft and lilting.

And just like that, we began to set out from the wearhouse. The naked knight, who had been silent this entire time, carried Salem in his arms again, but not before eying the man with a deep, haunting look of suspicion. Dunny trailed behind, squeaking as the man waved at him.

I was almost out the door when it happen. He spoke again, his words slipping beneath my skin like a knife.

"Go on, then. Make papa proud."

I froze. Every muscle in my body went rigid. Slowly, I turned to face him, my pulse beating against my ears. "What?"

He just laughed. Full-bodied, carefree, head tilted back so that the sound rang across the rafters. "Oh, nothing," he said, waving a hand as if brushing away smoke. "Just an old man’s joke. Off you go!"

But his eyes lingered on me, gleaming with an intimacy that made my stomach twist. He knew something. He’d said it deliberately. The words echoed in my head, foul and heavy, like oil poured into clean water. Papa. My jaw tightened, but before I could force another question, he was already turning away, whistling tunelessly as though he hadn’t just dropped a cryptic bomb into my life.

I swallowed hard and shoved the thought deep into the pit of my mind where all the other horrors lived. There would be time later to dig it back up and lose sleep over it. For now, there were bigger problems. Salem’s life, for one.

His breathing was shallow, his skin still too pale. The knight’s flesh weaving ability had sealed the wound, but it was no cure. We needed a healer, and soon. And if what the madman said about the auction was true, then there would be plenty of powerful folk gathered in one place—folk we could bribe, beg, or threaten into helping.

And so I pushed forward, clutching both the pouch of wealth and the silver coin as though they were lifelines. I looked down at the ring still bound to my finger, its crimson etching marking out the survivors.

Two hundred twenty-one left.

The numbers were slowing now. Each death heavier, each survivor more dangerous. The tournament was tilting, the balance shifting toward something inevitable. I could feel it. Like storm clouds pressing on the horizon, like the hush before a blade strike. The three factions had danced around each other long enough.

The tension was taut, ready to snap. And when it did, it wouldn’t be skirmishes or squabbles. It would be war.

And when that war came, I swore to myself, I would be ready.