“Is there a spell that will allow me to understand her?” Trent asked, ignoring Faris’s question. “All she does is squeak.”

Faris grunted as he leaned to set his emptied glass on the desk in an unspoken request for more. “No. Rodents don’t have vocal cords. You plan on keeping her for any length of time?”

Trent spun his glass in his fingers. He was alarmingly silent.

Faris smiled wickedly. “What’s cooking in that nasty little head of yours, Trent?”

The creak of Trent’s chair as he leaned forward seemed very loud. “Faris, if I didn’t need your talents so badly, I would have you whipped in your own lab.”

The large man grinned, sending the folds in his face to fall into each other. “I know.”

Trent put the bottle away. “I may enter her in Friday’s tournament.”

Faris blinked. “The city’s tournaments?” he said softly. “I’ve seen one of those. The bouts don’t end until one is dead.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Fear pulled me to the wire mesh. “Whoa, wait a moment,” I chittered. “What do you mean, dead? Hey! Someone talk to the mink!”

I threw a pellet at Trent. It went about two feet before arching down to the carpet. I tried again, this time kicking it rather than throwing it. It hit the back of his desk with a plink. “The Turn take you, Trent!” I shouted. “Talk to me.”

Trent met my gaze, his eyebrows raised. “The rat fights, of course.”

My heart gave a thump. Chilled, I sank back on my haunches. The rat fights. Illegal. Backroom. Rumors. To the death. I was going to be in the ring—fighting a rat to the death.

I stood in confusion, my long, white-furred feet planted on the wire mesh of my cage. I felt betrayed, of all things. Faris looked ill. “You’re not serious,” he whispered, his fat cheeks turning white. “You’re really going to play her? You can’t!”

“Why ever not?”

Faris’s jowls dropped as he struggled for words. “She’s a person!” he exclaimed. “She won’t last three minutes. They’ll rip her to shreds.”

Trent shrugged with an indifference I knew wasn’t faked. “Surviving is her problem, not mine.” He put on his wire glasses and bent his head over his papers. “Good afternoon, Faris.”

“Kalamack, this is too far. Even you aren’t above the law.”

As soon as he said it, both Faris and I knew it was a mistake. Trent pulled his gaze up. Silent, he eyed Faris from over his lenses. He leaned forward, an elbow on his accumulated work. I waited breathlessly, the tension making my fur rise. “How is your youngest daughter, Faris?” Trent asked, his beautiful voice unable to hide the ugliness of his question.

The large man went ashen. “She’s fine,” he whispered. His rough confidence had vanished, leaving only a frightened, fat man.

“What is she? Fifteen?” Trent eased back in his chair, set his glasses beside his in/out-box, and laced his long fingers over his middle. “Wonderful age. She wants to be an oceanographer, yes? Talk to the dolphins?”