Heather invited him to hook into the sim, too, and Tom was thrilled to find out it was a big jousting simulation. He headed up to a training room eagerly and materialized in the sim, donned his armor, grabbed a huge lance, and trotted out on a warhorse into the tiltyards beneath a massive castle, excited for the all-out joust ahead—only to find that most of the trainees who’d hooked in weren’t even jousting, and most had gotten rid of the period garb. Apparently, the sim was a cover for what they were really doing: having a New Year’s Eve party.

This must’ve helped Heather win them back. The sim even had champagne.

Tom couldn’t smell alcohol without thinking of his dad, and he had this bone-deep certainty that even touching a simulated drink would be the worst mistake he could ever make. He parted from the mass of trainees and decided to pick a fight with one of the fake characters. Just for fun.

Heather caught up to him before he made it out of the tiltyard. “Tom, wait!”

He pulled on the reins and slid off the horse so she could catch up to him. She batted his armored chest playfully.

“Where are you going? You can’t leave the sim yet. Stay here.”

That confused him a bit, since she’d been busy hanging out with Sam Schwab and Bruce Tepper of Napoleon Division and hadn’t even spoken to him. “I’m not leaving the sim,” Tom said. “I’m looking for someone to fight.”

“Oh, how bloodthirsty of you,” Heather marveled, but for some reason, his answer seemed to have given her immense pleasure. Her yellow-brown eyes twinkled into his, and she leaned very close. “I’ll give you something for the fight. Something simulation appropriate.”

She was so close, Tom could feel her breath tickling his cheek, feel the heat radiating from her skin, and for a moment, the wild urge to grab her and pull her in close soared through his brain before his rational, highly distrustful-of-Heather brain reasserted itself.

Heather had produced a small strip of cloth of gold, and now she tied it around the hilt of his lance. “This is a token of my favor, good sir. Whoever he is, destroy him good for me.”

There was something so hot about those words, that Tom again had to remind himself that Heather was somewhat poisonous. “I can tell you right now,” he replied, “I’m going to bring you back a head.”

“Or how about not?”

Tom grinned sheepishly. “No heads coming up.” He set out in search of a foe. Soon he ditched the warhorse, ditched the armor, and traded his lance for a sword.