And then after those were guitars flat and jagged, hard as a board and shaped like lightning. Orfeus grinned brighter. “Oh, lovely,” she said again. “Hello.”

She took one, red as an exclamation, and the cable to connect it to whatever amplifiers the Elders had in whatever passed for a performance space.

The space turned out to be decent enough, when she paced through it twenty minutes before the show: a shell-like amphitheatre, with a few amplifiers and gear. The tiered rows of seats were open to the air. She went out and practiced with her flat guitar. Without the amplifier, it still let out sound, and she strummed inquisitively. A decent amount of sound. Notes she knew. Yes, she could do this. Her songs wouldn’t adapt all that well to the medium, but not all that badly either.

She looked back out the curtain after another ten minutes. Only a small crowd, a few dozen curious people, but she could draw more in once she started playing.

Orfeus went back and fitted the guitar strap around her neck, playing a few more notes.

A polite cough: “News from the council,” someone said.

Orfeus glanced at them. “Oh. Significance,” she said warily. Xe smiled, xyr beautiful face creasing with it, seeming sincerely pleased. Orfeus smiled back a little reluctantly. She didn’t really have time for a deep conversation about advances in technology. “What news?”

“They didn’t think of actually asking the foremost Blood expert, because of course they didn’t,” O’Hallow said, with a shake of xyr head that set xyr curls of black hair rippling. “But I have some good ideas about where this lab could be located.”

Orfeus nodded.

Significance looked faintly apologetic. “But you can do your performance first,” xe said, graciously. “Of course that’s important to you.” As though she’d put a show above anyone’s safety.

Orfeus laughed. “If you only have ideas and not certainties, I’ll try this first,” she said. “Thank you all the same.”

Cheering from outside. She’d been introduced.

She strode out past xem.

There was a jab in her neck. Her mind jangled, slowed, broken shards of coloured glass. She fell and she hit the ground. Her body numbing, her eyes still open for now, to see Significance O’Hallow striding forward to grin down at her, bright and impish. Xe bent and lifted her body with surprising strength, and then her eyes closed despite herself, and she was falling.

Chapter Sixteen

I knew the moment I met her that I’d tell the story of Orfeus one day. I just didn’t know what kind of story it would be: whether she was hero or a tragic villain or whether, wholly regardless of what she did, it would end in tragedy. I couldn’t tell, and that scared me.

- From the journal of Rivasoa