The smaller of the lees leaped into the air, bringing his dagger down in a sweeping cut. Oh! They were reenacting Karat and Bestata’s bout this morning. They must’ve seen the footage.

I knew Bestata was in trouble when Karat asked me to record their sparring session, because she wanted “an instructional video for Lady Helen.” All vampire houses prided themselves on their melee skills, but House Krahr had taken personal combat to new heights.

Like all vampires, House Krahr treasured their children. They knew for decades that they would have to send them to battle on Nexus, where anomalies made aerial warfare impossible, and so they turned Arland and Karat’s generation into expert ground fighters. My sister described her future husband as “a killing machine” and meant it, which Arland would’ve taken as a huge compliment.

This expertise came with a hefty price tag. Concentrating on ground combat meant less time for education in other aspects of warfare. For example, Sean warned me that if Arland ever had to fight a space battle without an admiral to guide him, he would lose. But it did make for remarkable duels.

I split the screen and checked Lady Bestata. The red streak across her face was barely visible now. I had convinced her to spend a couple of hours in the medward, because having a spectacular bruise across one’s face highlighted on the Dominion’s screens would’ve been a bad look. The welt on Bestata’s face could be healed, but the wound to her pride was permanent. Karat had killed her three times during that duel.

“A remarkable woman,” Gaston observed over my shoulder.

“Which one?”

“Both of them. Although Lady Karat is much more engaging.”

Aha. Engaging.

The inn chimed in my head. It was time. I dismissed the screens and grasped the arena with my power. This would require careful timing.

“Go,” I murmured to Gaston.

He touched the brim of his spectacular hat, flashed me a serrated-tooth smile, and marched through the doorway.

I flicked the lights on. Twelve clusters of flood lights, positioned at the ends of 100-foot poles along the perimeter of the arena, came on and tilted down, illuminating Gaston in the passage. We had gone full Monday Night Football.

The solid ground ended at the doorway’s threshold, but Gaston didn’t slow down. For a moment his foot in a dark brown boot hovered over the empty air, and then the first section of a stone bridge rose out of the mist to meet it. He took a firm step onto the stone. A row of small round lamps ignited in the rail of the bridge like runway lights guiding a plane to safe landing.