Faolan jetted his bike in front of hers and nodded ahead. “There,” he called over the wind. A little way ahead, a homestead perched above tiered fields. The hills framing it were lined with orderly rows of green vines against brown dirt. Though not huge, the house provoked attention, gleaming white with windows set to look out over the river. Some people by nature did need to live alone, but those largely kept cabins, boats, small residences. This was a tremendous waste of space for anything less than a dozen people.

Orfeus was doing her best to cultivate dislike in advance. It seemed easier to kill someone at an anonymous order if she disliked them.

Faol pulled down half a mile short of the mansion and Orfeus wheeled down after her, mimicking her movements, the easy spirals of slowing speed. She brought her bike down with only a little more noise and rustle in the plants than Faolan did, shaded by sapling trees. There were a few fruit-bearing trees, but others, if they had use beyond providing habitat for the local fauna, were for timber. It was a dangerously decadent place.

Orfeus got off her bike, sweeping her cloak around her shoulders, checking her knives were in their proper places: one at her hip, one on the bandolier over her chest. “I suppose coming right down would warn them,” she said. “So this is one of the occasions we want them surprised more than we want them afraid?”

Faol got off her bike and dragged a branch over it, not seeming to put much effort into this attempt at concealment. He did his own equipment check, patting at his belt and chest before nodding shortly. She didn’t answer Orfeus’s question but pushed off into the trees, heading towards where they had seen the white building on the hill.

Orfeus ducked in after her, drawing Snakebite but not unleashing the blade yet. Faolan said without looking at her, “Will you prove yourself, Fox?”

“Among ourselves, we can use our names, surely,” Orfeus said. “Wait, I forgot: you don’t have one.”

Faol looked away sharply, as though that stung. Orfeus had meant to needle, not wound.

She forged ahead a little as if that was an apology, holding plants aside for the other hunter to pass by. “Who are we hunting?” Maybe if she brazened through, this wouldn’t feel so wrong and strange. “Who’s our prey?”

Faolan strode through the bush without seeming to notice the branches that swiped at her. “Does it matter?”

Leaves tangled in her hair, though her mask kept most of them off. “Of course it matters,” Orfeus said. Faol shot her a sharp-edged glare and Orfeus demanded, “Do you want me to lie? I thought you didn’t like that.”