The Wolf growled, but it didn’t matter. Energy was in her and all through her, in the headache pounding at her temples. She jerked to her feet and was standing before she quite knew she’d managed it. If she programmed enough energy into herself, would her blood fizz and pop out of her veins? She’d have to ask Bright.

“Stop fighting,” the Wolf said, and Orfeus sparkled them a grin and held her hands palm-up. The old method of showing you were unarmed. Not anymore.

“Or what?” she said. “You’ll kill me?”

They said nothing. To be fair, they didn’t seem talkative in general. But the slow heaviness with which they said nothing, the pointed shape of the silence, made her hunch turn closer to certainty. It was a hell of a chance to take. But it was better than giving up.

Orfeus took a step back, and the Wolf followed. “I’m your prey, fine,” Orfeus said. “Fine. But I’m prey you need to take in alive. Right? That’s your contract or whatever it is.”

Faol bared their teeth. That made two sets, with the gleamingly metallic wolf-teeth that hung from their brow. “It’s not a contract. It’s honour.”

“Gods, you’re the worst!” Orfeus blurted.

Faol drew their knife. Orfeus remembered with a sick jolt that someone could cut without meaning to kill.

She held up her hands and touched her fingers to her temples. The Wolf stopped short.

They looked at her, looked at her like it was a question. More like an accusation, really.

Orfeus grinned. This was deadly dangerous, and all in all she felt like crap, but with the Wolf’s attention on her and a card up her sleeve, she also felt like she was on stage. She was flying.

So her voice rolled out smooth and confident, the ready entertainer. “There aren’t failsafes in my Blood,” Orfeus said. “Not really. If I say the right sequence, if I move correctly, there’s nothing to stop me sending enough heat right to my brain to fry it.” Not easily, granted. The Wolf started to grin: a grin that looked like contempt.

They took another step forward. Orfeus stood rock-steady and smiled back. “Believe me or don’t, but it’s better than losing,” she said. “And then you will have nothing to bring back but a beautiful corpse.”

Faol stood solid, but still. They held out their knife in front of them so the light-blade flickered. “We have means,” they said, just that. Orfeus’s skin prickled. There were plenty of ways to revive someone recently dead, if they were kept chilled. Certainly for an organisation with so much tech.

This was too deadly a gamble.

But who knew where this creature wanted to take her? If she stood by and let it happen, there was no telling if she could stop things later. No.