Thresholder

Lingfeng accepted Maya readily enough, even though she said too much almost right away.

“I was waiting in the bushes,” she said. “I wanted to make sure this was a safe place for us.”

“You were told of this place,” said Lingfeng with a smile. “Did they not speak highly of us?”

“They didn’t speak of you at all,” said Maya.

“Well, we are mostly harmless,” said Lingfeng, beaming at her. He hesitated just for a moment. “I would speak carefully around my sister though.”

“Your sister?” asked Perry. “She’s one of the three here?”

“You’ll meet her at dinner,” said Lingfeng. “We eat together every night, and of course you’ll join us, as guests.”

“Of course,” nodded Perry. It wasn’t just hospitality, it was a rite, something that they took seriously here, something with weight. The offer had been casual, but a rejection of that offer would have been shocking.

“And will the two of you be sharing a room?” asked Lingfeng.

“We will, yes,” said Maya. “If you have one with a bed that’s large enough.”

Perry gave her a look, and she shrugged, as though this was simple and obvious. Lingfeng led them to their rooms, and Perry promised to take a tour of the place later on.

When they were alone in their room together, Maya smiled at him.

“You didn’t need to tell him that you were hiding in the bushes,” said Perry. “And we really don’t need to share a room.”

“Of course we do,” said Maya. “I mean, come on, it’s the middle of the night, we get attacked? We don’t want to be fighting solo battles or trying to find each other.”

Perry looked at the bed. It was small, by Earth standards. “I don’t want this to be awkward.”

“Perry, I have seen your dick,” said Maya. “We have an extremely platonic leader and henchperson relationship going, and I would never do anything to endanger that.”

“I mean, it’s a good dick though, right?” asked Perry with a grin.

Maya smiled at him. “Wow. Wow wow wow.” She pointed at him. “Was that a flirt? The fucking audacity to tell me that you don’t want it to be awkward and then do a flirt.”

“Sorry,” said Perry, though he didn’t feel or sound even remotely contrite. “It’s the full moon.” He held up a hand. “No more, promise.”

“I mean, a little more wouldn’t be too bad,” said Maya. “You’re a stick in the mud, but it doesn't hurt to have that stick raised up a couple of inches.”

“I don’t think you really understand about the full moon,” said Perry. “I’m pretty sure I can keep it contained, especially here, beneath the rock, but it’s like … I don’t know. This heightening. Like I want to eat a huge rare steak, smoke a cigar, drink a bottle of whiskey, stab someone in the chest, then …”

“Fuck your way through a sorority?” asked Maya.

“Something like that,” said Perry, letting out a breath. “Not good instincts, aside from the meat.”

“Unless you find an appreciative sorority, I guess,” said Maya. She clucked her tongue. “You and your PA, that’s not been happening?”

“No,” said Perry. “She’s still smitten though. I’d kind of thought it would pass. A few days ago it seemed like she was going to try to sneak into my room after me, which would have been well outside what’s proper.”

“Proper here, you mean,” said Maya.

“Right,” said Perry.

“You’re going native?” asked Maya.

“I’m on three worlds, minus the other Earth,” said Perry. “First one was super regressive, second one was regressive, now the third is, you guessed it, super regressive. I think I’ve gotten used to just assuming that it’s a no-go. So it’s not going native, no, it’s respecting what the natives seem to respect. And if I let Xiyan into my room, and did the things that werewolf brain said were a good idea, then it seems like it would be a disaster for both her and me. Also, I’ve been worried it’s a trap of some kind.”

Maya laughed. “Oh, I figured that one out. It’s not a trap, they just think that you’re dark-aligned and I’m light-aligned.”

“Er,” said Perry. “Meaning …”

“They gave us someone of the opposite gender because they think we’re — not gay, but something like it,” she said. She was grinning. “They thought ‘ah, she’s likely got an excess of light, clearly we should give her someone with an excess of light, there’s no way that would invite a scandalous affair’. Not that it’s entirely scandalous.”

“It kind of is though,” said Perry. “But wait, they understand attraction, right?”

Maya shrugged. “Their understanding is different from ours. I mean, that much is obvious.” She looked down at her needle sword. “I’m going to keep armed here. We’ll have a nice and pleasant dinner and see whether these people are as innocent as you seem to think they are.”

“We’ll have dinner,” Perry agreed. “We’ll talk to them then, and maybe after, individually. We want to know about the people who have been through here, or that they’ve heard about, and the gossip from the Grouse Kingdom.”

“And we’ll hear about their third sphere master, in their own words,” said Maya.

“You’d really kill them?” asked Perry. “That’s a little …”

“A little what?” asked Maya.

“Bloodthirsty,” said Perry.

“I’m not eager to put them to the blade,” said Maya. “But I’ve heard enough about what their sect gets up to that I’m reaching for my sword, yes. And you seem to be forgetting that the reason we’re here is because we were sent here, with your robot buddy being held captive. Probably Moon Gate isn’t going to give him back just because we lay waste to this place, but it couldn’t hurt, right?”

“We only do it if we agree on it,” said Perry. “Only if there’s something unforgivable, something that you’d put a person to death for on Earth.” Even that seemed like a line that was drawn too far past what he was comfortable with. Lingfeng seemed nice enough.

They spent some time meditating together before a late dinner, talking to each other in a way that they hadn’t really talked while they’d done independent training. Neither really had the advanced senses necessary to see into the other’s meridians and vessels, but that was difficult for second spheres even if they were exceptionally skilled. Instead they talked about what they felt and how they were developing. It was clear to Perry that he was going faster than she was, since sticking to the formal routines was paying off.

“I’ve really been trying to work on the moonlight thing,” said Maya.

“No,” said Perry, shaking his head. “There’s so much foundational stuff that needs to happen before you can do that. You need a vessel prepared for it.”

Maya narrowed her eyes at him. “Could you do it?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” said Perry. “Seems like I would just wolf out. But if you haven’t been working on your vessels, there’s no way that you’ll ever be able to do moonlight.”

“I’ve been working on it, I said,” said Maya. She frowned at him. “Just because I’m not following the textbook doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Sure,” said Perry.

He didn’t press it, because he didn’t want her to press it. People learned things in different ways, sure, but he was going with the methods these people had literally been learning about and working on for centuries. Their best practices probably weren’t the actual best practices, not like a modern society would have done things, but they were probably not so bad that forging your own path could beat them.

What he and Maya had were other advantages, but he didn’t think they’d be able to press those until they had worked through all the basics. It was a little annoying that she was going off in her own direction, especially if their enemy was someone who could kill second spheres with ease.

When they followed Lingfeng into the dining hall for dinner, the temple’s other two residents were already there. Lingfeng gave them pleasant, smiling introductions, but neither seemed interested in courtesies.

Sun Yizhong was Lingfeng’s sister, and she hunched over as she ate her dinner, barely even acknowledging them. She looked young, though more like a sophomore in college than a senior in high school. Age was deceptive among the second sphere, but she must have rocketed up into the second sphere to look so young, whatever her true age actually was. Her hair was black and long, hanging straight down, and her clothes were red and black silk, showing more cleavage than Perry had seen among these people. It made him slightly uncomfortable, and for a moment he wondered whether he really was going native.

Liu Weiguo stared at them, hairy knuckles tight on his knife, as though he intended to cut into them. He had aggressively long eyebrows, bushy hair, and wore dark brown furs — the only person that Perry had seen with them. He was also a big guy, maybe taller than Perry. The hand that didn’t have the knife was being used to scoop up and eat his food, with no sign of chopsticks or a fork.

The moths flapped against the lights overhead, making them flicker like candlelight, giving the place a terrible ambience.

“Sit, sit,” said Lingfeng. “I had told them not to start without you, but alas.”

Perry sat down, and Maya took the seat next to him. There were already plates in front of them.

“I caught a deer this morning, and have cooked it for us,” said Lingfeng.

Sitting on the plate was a hunk of meat, seared on all sides. It was enormous, at least a pound of pure meat, with some overcooked vegetables sitting all around it, and beneath that, something leafy and slightly wilted from the heat. Under normal circumstances, Perry might have grimaced and picked at it, but the full moon was having its effects. He tore into the meat as soon as it seemed appropriate to do so, doing his best to restrain himself so he didn’t look like an animal or a slob. While the char was heavy on the outside, it was very rare on the inside, and had a gamey taste that Perry normally wouldn’t have been a fan of. He was devouring it, a new portion of meat in his mouth as soon as the last had slid down his throat.

“Where are you from?” asked Yizhong. She had only been picking at her food, and was still hunched over, hair half covering her face.

“We’re world travelers,” said Maya, since Perry’s mouth was full. “We come from a place called Earth, far from the Great Arc.”

“You came together?” asked Lingfeng. “Despite the differences in your breeding?”

Maya smiled at him. It wasn’t a nice smile.

“The nation we come from welcomes people from all corners of the world,” said Perry. “It is considered one of its great strengths.”

“It doesn’t seem a strength,” said Liu Weiguo. “The Kingdom of Seven Valleys is not stronger for those of the Grouse Kingdom coming to join it.”

“Isn’t it?” asked Maya. “Aren’t you going to put those people to work? Won’t they become laborers, farmers?” She didn’t add ‘slaves’ but it was clearly on the tip of her tongue.

“They come with different ideas,” said Liu Weiguo.

“And?” asked Maya. She had barely eaten her food, and Perry didn’t think it was because she had progressed far enough into the second sphere to not need to eat.

“Different ideas can cause friction,” said Perry. “They can lead to conflict.” He was sympathetic to that, at least in the abstract.

“Is the Grouse Kingdom really so different from us?” asked Yizhong. She was taking tiny bites. At the rate she was eating, she’d need three hours to finish.

“They are,” said Liu Weiguo. “We have done battle with them before, not just over territory, but to protect those who fled from their borders. The kingdom is collapsed now, dead until someone comes by to resurrect it.”

“You take them in though,” said Perry. “Like you’ve taken us in.”

“Lingfeng does,” said Liu Weiguo, nodding at their host.

“Hospitality is virtuous,” said Lingfeng. His smile was gentle. “To provide food and shelter for those who need it, to wash their feet and abide by the rites of hosting, these are important things.”

“So what got you sent out here?” asked Maya.

Lingfeng’s smile faded, but his sister laughed.

“My brother is a pervert,” she said, still giggling.

Lingfeng glared at her.

“What does that mean?” asked Maya. She was leaning over the table, toward Yizhong.

“He wanted great-grandfather’s control,” said Yizhong, and she burst out laughing. “A third sphere’s power over the first sphere!”

“Enough,” said Lingfeng. “You need to have sisterly respect, piety toward family.”

Maya leaned back. She turned to Lingfeng. “But what does she mean, that you wanted control over someone?”

“Not someone, his nursemaid,” said Yizhong.

“I was young,” said Lingfeng. He set his hands flat on the table, having resigned himself to an explanation. “I had ascended to the second sphere at nineteen. To extend the matrix outside oneself is the domain of the third sphere, but I had planned a way around that.” He shrugged. “This is a better place for me, and I can watch over Yizhong here.”

“The nursemaid was only the first,” said Liu Weiguo. He was speaking with meat in his mouth, and spit a bit of gristle onto his plate.

“I did not mean to suggest that it was the only such mistake,” said Lingfeng.

“How’d that work?” asked Maya. “The control, the workaround?”

Everyone at the table, save for Perry, went still and silent.

“Where you are from, you freely inquire about forbidden techniques?” asked Lingfeng. “Here, it is not something to speak of.”

“You misunderstand,” said Perry, swallowing quickly to get some words in. “She didn’t want to know the technique, only the nature. Control can mean many things to many people, and some should be judged less harshly than others.”

Lingfeng relaxed slightly, but didn’t speak.

“Great-grandfather can move his spirit into those of the first sphere,” said Yizhong.

“Sister,” said Lingfeng, voice firm.

“They can know this,” said Yizhong. She tittered. “Everyone does, inside Worm Gate and out.” She turned to Maya. “He moves their arm as though it were his own.” She demonstrated with a graceful motion back and forth of her thin fingers. “Hundreds are under his sway.”

“Volunteers?” asked Perry.

Yizhong looked at him for a long time. “Filial obedience is a virtue,” she said. “Obedience to your master, to your father, your grandfather, great-grandfather. It is a virtue that is first and foremost within Worm Gate.”

Liu Weiguo was chewing on a piece of fat. “Some fall under his sway for long enough that to not act as an extension of his will is unthinkable. They forget how to move their own arms. But this is no matter, because our master is there for them, to move them in ways they have forgotten they could.” There was bitterness in his voice.

“You tread dangerously close to speaking out against our master,” said Lingfeng. “Not even my sister would go so far.”

“I would,” tittered Yizhong. “But I fear you would strike me.”

Lingfeng scowled at her and slammed his fist on the table. “Can you not contain yourself in front of our guests?”

“She’s a pervert too,” said Liu Weiguo, as a casual aside, not taking his eyes off his food.

“I apologize,” said Lingfeng, turning to Perry and Maya. “I always hope that they won’t be like this, that decorum will win the day, but they would not be here if decorum were a realm they were used to treading.”

“You had said that you were here by choice,” said Perry. “That this was a way to retreat from the central temples of the sect without needing to leave entirely.”

“He said that?” asked Liu Weiguo. “It’s true, I suppose, in a sense.” He chuckled to himself. “Moth Lantern Hall is a place that exists because of the conflicts of duty, the butting up of virtues, one against each other like the dragon and the tiger.”

“It’s a place to put people who have misbehaved,” said Maya.

“No, no,” said Liu Weiguo. “It’s a place to put people who will misbehave, if not separated from the rest.” He looked at Lingfeng. “Do we have wine?”

“Do we have wine?” asked Maya.

“No,” said Lingfeng. He looked at Maya. “I keep no wine in the hall, for fear of what might happen with these two if they were to indulge.”

“Shame,” said Maya. She looked at Liu Weiguo. “Alright, so these two are perverts, what’s your story then? How’d you end up here?”

Liu Weiguo shook his head. “It’s a pity there’s no wine. This is the sort of story that goes better with wine.”

“Oh come on,” said Yizhong. “Tell your sad little story. Please?”

Perry wondered how many times she’d heard it before, and why she would want to hear it again.

“Very well,” said Liu Weiguo. He cleared his throat and set down his knife, then looked over at Perry and Maya. “I was a powerful warrior. I tethered to Worm Gate as soon as I was second sphere, and studied diligently, training from the rising of the sun until its setting, and often in the dark of night, illuminated only by the moons above, or a constellation of glow bugs I had brought to my side. I had a worm farm within the temple, a large one given to me by the master of the place. I had his favor, you see.” He grinned. His teeth were white and perfectly straight, not what Perry would have expected given the furs and his overall demeanor.

“The master would ask me to do things for him,” said Liu Weiguo. “Sometimes he would only suggest, but other times he would be direct. There were certain things that needed to be done that he would not dirty his own hands with, that he could not admit were necessary.” He gave them a sharp grin. “I traveled far and wide for my master, beyond the Green Snake Valley. He is third sphere, you know, and they have reach beyond such small areas — and I was his reach, a finger of his will. I traveled through the whole of the Kingdom of Seven Valleys, and sometimes beyond its borders, going where my master needed me.” He pounded the table with the full strength of his fist, and the plates and silverware jumped. There was a silence that followed, broken only by the beating of moths against the lanterns overhead. He pointed slowly at Perry. “I was weakened by this, you understand?”

“Cosmic karma,” said Perry. He was keeping an eye at Maya, whose teeth were set, the muscles of her cheek tense.

“Cosmic karma,” nodded Liu Weiguo. “I killed a merchant, and felt ill for weeks afterward, his death like a gripping of my heart. I killed a woman who had run from the temple, silencing the poisoned words she surely would have told the kingdom about who my master was. I grew sick to my stomach, queasy, imbalanced with no seeming cause. My meridians were prone to clogging, and I suffered the rupture of a vessel. Still, I pressed on, for the good of my master, the good of the temple to which I was tethered.” He held up three fingers. “Three decades I did these things for the master. I was his silent knife in the night.”

“It’s not something you should speak of,” said Lingfeng. He wasn’t looking at Liu Weiguo. Instead he was looking straight ahead, expression vacant.

Liu Weiguo turned to him. “I am a man of integrity,” he snapped. “For too long I was not, my behavior unvirtuous. I paid a heavy price. The third sphere is barred to me, forevermore, my soul stained by the work I did.” He beat his fist against his chest and stared at Lingfeng, who didn’t return his gaze. Eventually, Liu Weiguo turned back to Perry. “The master did not honor the virtue of reciprocity.”

“He didn’t reward you for the work you’d done,” said Maya. Her voice was preternaturally calm, in a very second sphere sort of way.

Liu Weiguo nodded slowly. “I was being bled. Should he not have bled for me? Should my work not have been rewarded? I shouldered the burdens, alone. I was ground down, dulled, a tool that was seen as expendable. I only wish that I had seen it sooner.”

There was silence around the dining table, save for the fluttering of moths. Maya was chewing a bite of food, watching Liu Weiguo, her eyes moving occasionally to Lingfeng. Perry could see it in her face. She wasn’t deciding whether to kill them, she was deciding how to kill them.

“He likes to make out like he had an epiphany,” said Yizhong. She pushed her plate forward. “As does my brother.”

“Yizhong,” said Lingfeng.

“Weiguo failed,” said Yizhong. “He limped back to the temple grounds, bloody and beaten, arm broken in two places.” Liu Weiguo gripped his knife tight. His lips were thin. “And my brother —”

“Silence,” said Lingfeng. He stood from his position at the table, and energy flared around him, more visible than the trickle of current it had been. “You have overstepped your bounds, sister, a perennial problem, but I will tolerate no more this night.”

“Perry,” said Maya, turning to him. “I think it might be time for us to conduct our business.”

“I’d prefer to talk about that privately,” said Perry.

“No, I think now is definitely the time,” said Maya.

“For what?” asked Lingfeng, narrowing his eyes. “I had thought you were only passing through. You have business at Moth Lantern Hall?”

“Yup,” said Maya. She wiped her mouth with her sleeve, then gave Perry another look. “We’re not here by chance. We’re here looking for someone who calls himself a thresholder or something similar, someone who’s jumping through worlds like we are. You said you’ve had guests, anyone by that description within the last few months?”

“This was your business here?” asked Lingfeng.

“Someone from Crystal Lake Temple was killed, not much more than three miles from here,” continued Maya. “We think it was the thresholder.”

“He was second sphere,” said Perry. He knew this wasn’t what she’d meant by ‘business’, that this was only perfunctory. “Not a trivial thing to do, to kill someone of second sphere. It’s best to bring him to justice, if we can. Anything you can tell us would be of great value.”

“There’s been no one like you,” said Lingfeng. “No people in strange clothes with unfamiliar features.” He was still standing, but sat back down slowly. “You have learned much about us, but we have learned little about you. There is some danger in technique, in knowing, but often more danger in ignorance. Perry, you said that you had been second sphere for only a month?”

“We need to know about the third thresholder,” said Maya. “We’re not dropping that subject just yet.”

Lingfeng spread his hands. “There’s nothing to know. No one of that description has passed through these halls, nor taken our food.”

“They might not have looked foreign,” said Perry. “It might have been a woman, not a man.”

“No,” said Lingfeng, shaking his head. “Not unless they were an excellent liar.” He looked at Maya. “The second sphere that was murdered, they wouldn’t have been unaffiliated, not unless they were from the Grouse Kingdom. They were from Moon Gate, weren’t they?”

“Yup,” said Maya. Perry winced. The conclusion was obvious.

“You should leave,” said Lingfeng. He stood from his chair, and Liu Weiguo did too. “You’ve been fed, but the offer of a room to stay must be rescinded.”

“We only want information,” said Perry. “Just to find someone who might be very dangerous to everyone around him.”

“I must insist,” said Lingfeng. His stance was wide, arms crossed.

Maya glanced at Perry, then stood up and drew her needle in dramatic fashion. Her armor flowed over her, slipping over her skin beneath the hoodie, coating her in skintight black. The familiar shiny bubble formed around her face.

“Fuck,” said Perry.

Before there was even the smallest chance of de-escalation, Lingfeng had leapt up onto the table. He was unarmed, and certainly without armor, but he was crackling with power and kicked Maya in the chest before she could bring her needle into position, sending her flying away. Perry backed up, raising his arms defensively. As soon as Lingfeng turned his attention to Maya, Perry drew his sword, but he didn’t go in for the attack.

This was all Maya’s fault. She had gone charging in, headfirst, like he’d worried she would, and for what? Because Lingfeng was a rapist (or worse) and Liu Weiguo was a fixer for Worm Gate who’d readily admitted to staining his hands with blood. It was the kind of thing they should have had a fucking conversation about, something that they could have gone over, but she’d just drawn her needle like she expected him to have no choice but to join her.

Perry didn’t rush to her defense, not at all. He just stood there, watching.

Maya had the upper hand, in part because she was armed. Every strike Lingfeng made needed to be precise, slipping in where he saw an opening, and even then, he needed to retreat before she brought the needle around. She had other tools in the toolbox, but wasn’t using them just yet, and she scored at least one hit, though it seemed to have cut through his clothes more than his flesh.

Liu Weiguo and Sun Yizhong joined soon enough. Liu Weiguo had two long daggers that must have been pulled from beneath his furs, and Sun Yizhong was wielding the knife she’d been using to eat with, though that was hardly threatening.

Liu Weiguo took a single look at Perry, then turned toward Maya.

“Perry!” shouted Maya. Her back was to the wall, and they were giving her a moment, wary of the needle that was moving wildly in front of her.

She’d gotten herself into this mess. They didn’t want to kill him, they just wanted him to leave, but she had drawn her sword and declared her intentions well enough, violating the sanctity of guest rights. Two on three, they might have stood a chance, but one on three, he didn’t like her odds. He wanted to fight, he was itching for it, but —

“Help me you asshole!” shouted Maya.

Liu Weiguo moved on her, daggers flashing in front of him, and she parried one but couldn’t block the other, which tried to bury itself in her midsection. She grunted and was pushed backward, and for a moment Perry thought that she’d be fine, but blood had trickled out, the barrier of the nanite skinsuit broken. She would use sunlight to heal, but that healing was in limited supply.

“Go slowly with her,” said Sun Lingfeng. “There’s no need to take risks.” He looked at Perry, who was off to one side, just slightly behind. It was almost the world's worst pincer. “You may leave while we deal with your … ally.”

Maya’s black mask slipped down. She must have done that on purpose, purely for the sake of looking Perry in the eyes. “Perry,” she said. Her eyes skittered sideways, toward Liu Weiguo and his daggers. “I’m sorry.”

That almost would have been enough for him, just to hear her say that, but it was too little, too late, the kind of sorry that comes after the damage has been done. He had seen it coming, and she had known that she was being shitty, so what did it matter that she said sorry for it? She would do the same thing again.

But as it turned out, she wasn’t saying sorry for something she’d done: she was saying it for something she was about to do.

Maya’s free hand turned outward, toward Perry, and a blast of light came forth from it. It wasn’t sunlight. She’d been working hard on the moonlight thing, she’d said, and he had cut her off, telling her that he knew better, that her way wouldn’t work. He almost had time for that thought before he transformed.

He ripped through his clothing and was immediately in motion, attacking the one that was covered in furs, something that he’d been wanting to do even in human form. He bit down through the man’s shoulder and felt blades across his snout, but he whipped his head back and forth with all the speed he could muster, shaking the body until the chunk of flesh ripped loose. The furred man crashed against the wall, arm hanging on by an inch-thick flap of skin and muscle, but the wolf was already onto the next of them, the woman.

She flew backward, her small knife out in front of her — flew with a flap of her arms, ten feet in the air, away from his jaws. The wolf turned toward easier prey, the man with no weapons to speak of, who was calmly squaring up, fists in front of him. He was fast, like these people were, and prepared enough to slip to the side when the wolf came in with sharp claws. He was on the retreat though, backing away, stepping up onto the table and hopping down the other side, to put space between them.

Before the wolf could leap over the table, the girl who had flown up toward the ceiling came fluttering in, crashing down hard on his head. She rolled away almost at once, leaping up with another flap of the arms, and the wolf was in pain, unable to see. Something was stuck there, sharp and slicing, narrowing the world down to just the right eye’s view. The uninjured man had, in the meanwhile, acquired a weapon, though it wasn’t clear from where — it was a thin chain with a blade at the end, and he was spinning it around as though it would be an actual threat.

The wolf pounced at him rather than trying to take on the flying woman again. The blade at the end of the blade shot out, and grazed the wolf along the cheek, but the snapping of jaws found no purchase. The man was retreating again, but this time toward one of the dining hall’s doors. The wolf was big enough that the tunnels would be a problem, but so long as those tunnels led to a small room or the open air, the retreat would serve only to delay the inevitable.

The wolf turned just in time to see the flying woman descending from the ceiling again, moths trailing her. She had one of the injured man’s daggers and was moving with swift precision, but before she could impact the wolf in the head again, driving the dagger down into the other eye, she was tackled out of the air by Maya. Their bodies collided and they careened off in opposite directions, with Maya striking one of the hall’s pillars and bouncing off it. She landed on her feet and got her bearings almost instantly, putting herself in a defensive position — not against their enemies, but against the wolf.

The chain came from the wolf’s blind side and wrapped around his snout, hooking around itself and holding his teeth together with so much power that it felt like a vise. The wolf yanked his head sideways and pushed his paws off the ground, powerful legs and sturdy neck pulling hard on the chain.

Lingfeng was tossed through the air and let go of the chain, but twisted his body and corrected his movement, stepping off a pillar and landing on the ground at the dining hall’s far end. He thrust his hands high up into the air, and the moths began to fall from the ceiling like leaves in autumn, dead. Lingfeng rushed forward and drew back for a punch that Perry tried to snap at. He was rewarded with a blow of such crushing power that it broke the table beneath them. The wolf went flying backward, jaw shattered, and got back up on his paws, dripping blood on the ground.

Lingfeng was walking quickly but with exaggerated calm, the fury only on his face, not in his movements. To one side, Perry could hear the clash of blades as Maya fought with the sister, or possibly the man who’d lost an arm, but he couldn’t spare much thought for it.

Distantly, he was aware that he had more of his faculties, his knowledge, which meant that the moonlight might be fading away. He tried to harness it, to keep the vessel wide open, energy pouring out through his body, healing wounds.

Lingfeng crossed the distance between them in a flash, landing a two-fingered prod with the weight of a sledgehammer. Perry was slammed back against the wall of the dining wall, and something broke. He let out a whimper, but righted himself — just in time for another two-fingered prod. This one struck him in his head and snapped his head to the side, which knocked against the back wall. The moth-fall was reaching its end, the dead fluttering to the ground, and Lingfeng was still bearing down on him, impossibly fast and strong.

Lingfeng dodged claws and teeth, moving side to side, patient. Perry’s injuries were healing, bones knitting back together, but the pain was overwhelming, his thoughts only half-formed, driven by fear.

Perry swiped with the claws of his left paw, but Lingfeng got beneath it and grabbed the leg in an iron grip. In desperation, Perry swiped with the other, but then Lingfeng had it too, hold both massive legs as though they were nothing. He was going to run out of power, but while he had it, he was indomitable, and he didn’t fear snapping teeth, not when Perry’s jaw was still half-broken. He was rearing back for a headbutt, one that he would put his whole body and all his energy into.

Perry curled his body forward and lashed out with his hind legs, and the sharp claws found purchase on Lingfeng’s stomach, cutting through cloth, skin, and muscle. The floor was quickly red with their combined blood, but Lingfeng’s injuries were by far the worse of the two of them. He faltered, letting on paw slip free, and the freed claws quickly came down on his face. He slipped to the ground, and Perry bit down on his head with a not-quite-mended mouthful of teeth, putting pressure in all the same until the skull cracked and the brains spilled out onto his tongue.

He turned to Maya. She was still engaged in swordplay with the other woman, and was losing. Maya’s colorful hoodie had been cut to ribbons, with only a few pieces clinging onto her, and the black armor was stained with blood, some of which had to be her own. She was back against a wall with the needle in front of her, but Yizhong had plucked the daggers from her fallen comrade and was weaving them back and forth in a delicate pattern.

Perry prowled closer, soft paws against the blood-wet ground. He was a hulking creature, but silent, and she was too focused on the struggle in front of her. Off to one side, the man with the furs was slumped against the wall. His throat had been slit at some point, Maya’s work, and he was pale and dead.

When Perry leapt forward, Yizhong turned toward him, as though she’d always known he was there. One of the two daggers flashed forward, and he simply allowed it into his mouth and bit down hard with sharpened teeth onto the crook of her elbow. The dagger sliced into his palate, but she screamed in horror, and that was well worth the pain. From behind her, Maya took her opportunity, and stabbed forward with the needle sword. Yizhong tried to dodge it, even with her arm in the wolf’s mouth, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t twist around to parry. The sword caught her through the ribs, and she was pinned like a moth on a corkboard, twitching and struggling briefly before going still.

Perry released her arm from his mouth, tasting her salty blood. Maya stared at him for a moment, watching his snarling lips as though trying to decide whether she could take him. They both knew that she couldn’t. She smelled of blood and defeat. The scent of fear was seeping through her black armor. With the armor as skin tight as it was, he could see how hard she was breathing, how her chest was heaving to draw in enough air.

She blasted him with sunlight and, in the same motion, bolted.

By the time Perry was done transforming back to himself, she was gone.

He stood naked in the dining hall, blood and bodies around him. His sword found its way to his hand, and he went to the bodies, one by one, making absolutely certain that they were dead. He was going to have to do the death rites as Luo Yanhua had shown him.

Maya had betrayed him. She knew what she’d done. If she’d been in better shape, she might have fought him, but he had come back to human at full strength, uninjured, not even winded. She had probably planned it from the start, had probably decided that she’d change his form to get her way. Or she’d thought that he would be forced to join her, but had a plan for if he didn’t, a way to force him into the fray. She was sorry, maybe, not that it meant a damned thing to him.

This was it. Perry gripped the sword hard enough to turn his knuckles white. There had never been a third thresholder, only her, and she had fled rather than have the fight in the here and now. The full moon was out, and he would become the wolf if he stepped outside. She would be preparing the battleground for their next fight, healing herself as much as she could, plotting and planning.

He was going to bury the bodies, find a new set of clothes, and wait out the night. Then, he was going to find and kill her.