“No cheating!” she yells, backing up slowly.
“If you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying,” I say.
Stein backs away, and another weapon slides from the crowd of Hollows in her direction. She picks up the sickle. In her head to toe black, I can’t help but think, if that’s what death looks like, he can take me now.
“Guys! Quit being so helpful, okay?” she says with a grin as she takes a step forward.
I expect her to force the advantage, but instead she blows past me and runs down the stairs toward Nobel’s workshop.
“Oh man. I hope you don’t have anything important in there.” The last time we sparred in the lab we almost destroyed a cabinet full of rifting tech. I cringe at the memory of the three-day clean-up duty.
A look of near panic crosses Nobel’s face and he jerks his head. “Go get her.”
I chase her, grabbing two sai from the crowd like a marathon runner grabbing a baton.
“Really, guys?” I say, blowing past them. “Sai against a sickle? Thanks.”
The stairwell is narrow, steep, and empty all the way down. I look back as our audience begins pressing itself into the stairwell.
Slowly slinking down the spiral stairway, I take one step at a time with my back to the outer wall. Stein likes to scale things, so I scan the rafters as I go. Walking down these steps is like entering a tomb that’s been sealed for thousands of years. Why Nobel keeps his lab down here is beyond me.
“Stein, where are you?” I call out.
I kick a small rock down the stairs to see if I can draw her out. No luck. I hold the sai out in a defensive position and keep descending.
Once I clear the stairs, I enter the short hallway that leads to Nobel’s lab. Fortunately, he leaves a light on outside the doorway. With a quick hand in the air, I stop the crowd following behind me. A soft chorus of disappointed groans follows me as I inch forward.
“Stein?”
I creep along the hallway expecting Stein to drop down on me any minute. There’s no place to hide in the hallway except the rafters. I reach the end, where Nobel’s lab door is normally locked. It’s made out of ornate wood, with a brass owl perched on the top of the door’s molding. The door is ajar. I give it a gentle push and carefully step inside. The room is mostly dark, the only glow coming from a Bunsen burner on the corner table. The dark-blue bubbling liquid suspended above it stinks of rotten eggs. Not exactly romantic candlelight, but it’ll do.
“Stein? You can’t hide from me forever, you know.”
“I’m not hiding,” she says. I follow the sound of her voice to a large cabinet full of chemistry glassware in the corner of the room. Just as I fling the doors open, rattling the jars, I hear her add, “I just wanted to get you away from the crowd, so I could do this—”
Too late, I see that she’s crouching on top of the cabinet. She drops, taking me by surprise as she knocks me to the ground and pins me to the floor. The sickle is gone, but she’s pressing her forearm into my throat. Just when I think I’m going to have to tap out, she leans forward and kisses me. Relaxing, I let the sai drop to the floor and wrap my arms around her. She smells like cotton and grease and metal, and even though we’ve been sparring, her bare skin is cool to the touch. When she pulls away, I sigh.
“Do you submit?” Stein asks with a huge grin.
“Um, no,” I say and rear up, flipping us over so she’s pinned beneath me. After a short struggle, I have both of her hands pinned over her head. As strong as she is, my weight is too much for her. Leaning forward, I press a kiss to the hollow of her neck. “You give?”
“Never,” she says, squirming. I bring one hand down and hold her by the neck. She squeezes her eyes closed, her body tensing beneath me. It only takes me a second to realize something is wrong and withdraw my hand.
“Hey, are you okay?” I ask, rocking back on my feet so I’m perched over her legs but no longer touching her.
She shakes her head and blows out a long breath. Slowly, she rises up so she’s on her elbows, half-sitting.
“Stein? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
I stroke her hair and tuck the strands behind her ear. “You’re lying.”
She finally reopens her eyes. “No really, I’m okay. Just forgot how to breathe for a second. What can I say? You have that effect on me.”
I notice that her shirt has crept up enough to reveal the small, sun-shaped birthmark around her belly button. I trace it with my finger. It’s perfectly symmetrical, and it’s only a few shades pinker than her skin. I know how she wonders about that mark—where it came from, what it means. We’re both only half of a timeline, our pasts missing.
“You know you can tell me anything,” I say gently, looking her in the eye as I tug the lace of her shirt back down over the mark.
Sitting up the rest of the way, she looks away from me. I reach out and take hold of her chin, turning her face back to mine.
“I mean it, Stein.”
At first I think she’s going to say something, but the mask of fierceness returns, and she throws me off instead. For a second, I’m lying on my back, stunned. Then I look up and see faces watching us from the doorway.
“Looks like my adoring fans have found us.” I snicker and roll to my feet.
I look back at Stein. She pulls her hair into a ponytail using some surgical tubing she found on a lab bench, and her expression is sour. I can’t blame her. We get so little time to ourselves here. But that’s what happens when the two strongest Rifters get together. We tend to draw a crowd. Normally, it’s fun. But I would have liked a few more minutes alone with her.
Stein drops her hands to her sides and takes a step toward me. “Yeah, well, your adoring fans can kiss my—”
She kicks me, and I fly out the door into the short hallway. My face stings from hitting the ground and my fingers come away bloody.
A mix of cheers and taunts ring out above me as I roll over and look up at the water-stained ceiling. Nobel leans over me, the goggles over his eyes making him look even more manic and bug-like than usual.
“Thanks for keeping the damage to a minimum this time,” he says. He offers me a hand up, which I gratefully accept. “Oh, by the way, Gloves wants to see you.”
I look around as the crowd disperses, but Stein is nowhere to be seen. “Where’d Stein go?”
Nobel points into the crowd at the bottom of the stairs. “I think she went that way.”
The crowd parts, and she looks over her shoulder.
“So I guess we’ll finish this later?” I say as I walk up to her.
She smiles, and it’s satisfied, but not happy. “First blood wins, Lex.” She takes her free hand and rubs her thumb over my top lip, holding it up so I can see the blood.
I can’t help grinning. “Can you keep a secret?”
Stein frowns and slips a finger into my belt loop. “I suppose.”
“I like it when you win.”
The hallway to Gloves’s office always smells like beef stew or some other thick, spicy meal. The kitchen is just at the other end of the hall, and I’m sorely tempted to keep walking. An ache in my stomach reminds me I haven’t eaten yet today. I take a deep whiff of it and instantly I’m almost drooling.
Only Stein pulling me to a stop outside the gloomy office keeps me from walking past.
“Come in,” Gloves says after Stein’s knock. A rush of hot steam and smoke billows out the door into the hall, overtaking the other, more pleasant smells.
“I always feel like we’re walking around in a smoker’s lung,” Stein says, motioning for me to go in first.
Gloves’s office is filled floor to ceiling with toy trains that run off of coal. There are stacks of black rock scattered around, and it just happens to be Gloves’s favorite interior design element.