We camped in the woods. Just me, the barbarian, and the rhino. Molly made a campfire that kept the night warm and the mosquitoes away, and I wondered what those damn mosquitoes were normally eating whenever a banquet like me wasn’t rumbling through the forest. Did they all just complain about being hungry? Fuck them. I hoped their entire families starved. I hate mosquitoes.

  Molly told me a story about her mother, Salena, my babysitter. We ate as she spoke, because Molly had—to my surprise—pizza with her. She’d been keeping it in one of the bags cinched around her waist. It was a tiny leather bag the size of the ones Binsa brings to dance clubs, those purses that hold her driver’s license and a couple credit cards, a bit of cash, some makeup, and not much else. But Molly’s bag was literally magic. She reached her entire arm within, searching around.

  There was booze, too. Some sort of wine that felt light in my mouth and like a sociable bomb in my stomach. I drank in moderation, but did it a lot.

  We’d camped fifty feet from a river, up a small rise. This was the Drake River, the main river, the one that flowed through Whitewater. The water here felt calm. I know it’s not true, but I always feel like rivers run slower at night. Molly sat next to me, our shoulders touching. It would’ve seemed like she was sitting too close, except all of the rest of the room was reserved for a rhinoceros.

  “Have you ever met a vampire?” she asked.

  “No. Never. Wait. Honestly, I don’t know.”

  “Mom had to fight some, once. They were preying on a town called Spelling. More of a village, really. Not more than five hundred people or so. But they’d lost over twenty people to the vampires.”

  “Were they turning into vampires afterward? Is that how it really works?”

  “That’s how it really works,” Molly said. Her shoulder felt as warm as the fire. Her left foot had stretched out over my right foot, her calf against my shin. “Well, sometimes. Depends on how the person’s killed. There’s ways vampires can make sure it happens. And, like sex, sometimes accidents happen.”

  She’d turned to look me in the eyes. The fire did its thing with the sparkles, reflecting in her eyes. She had half a slice of sausage pizza hanging from her mouth, backward, with the crust in her teeth, holding it that way so she wouldn’t have to put it down in the dirt while she searched for the wine bottle’s cork. She couldn’t find it. Her shoulders shrugged in a clear message of, “Well, now we’re going to have to drink the whole bottle. What a fucking shame.”

  She said, “It wasn’t much of a battle. Mom was powerful. The vampires weren’t.”

  “Aren’t vampires powerful?” To me, they were creatures of myth.

  “Oh, they can be. These ones weren’t. Vampires are like anyone else, really. It’s like asking if a person is powerful. Depends on the person, you know?” She licked tomato sauce off her lips while reaching over to give my bicep a squeeze. I don’t think she meant the two things to be connected, but they were.

  She said, “So the vampires were dead. Mom got them with fire. And she came home and brought me a present. A half cape one of the vampires had been wearing. It was embroidered with wolves. But, funny wolves. Children’s drawings. I loved that cape. I wore it around all the time, pretending I was a princess.”

  “A princess?”

  “Don’t say it that way. I can be a princess if I want. Anyway, in my mind I was a princess of death. Of slaughter. A princess with a sword. But I still danced at the grandest of balls and wore pretty dresses and fucked the hell out of men and monsters.”

  “Just like a Disney film.”

  “Ought to be. The point of all this is, thank you for being at my back, today, in the fight. It felt good. You felt . . . you felt like my cape of cartoon wolves.” Molly was looking in my eyes with that expression people have when you Do Not Fucking Dare make fun of them.

  Instead, I found myself saying, “You were majestic. I mean, yeah, violent and bloody and terrifying, but… majestic.”

  “Flattery will get you almost nowhere,” Molly told me.

  “Yeah? How far will it get me?”

  “How about this?” she said. “I’ll put a hand on my butt.” She did as said. “Now, you can hold my hand. That’s an indirect butt touch.” Her hand slid into mine. Squeezed. And retreated.

  “Honored,” I said. “I guess I probably shouldn’t tell you where my hand’s been.”

  “Let’s do keep it a secret, yeah. Do you think rhinos eat pizza?”

  “Everything eats pizza. Dogs. Sparrows. Goldfish. Tardigrades. Not sure why a rhino would be any different.”

  “Good. Give Baubles some pizza while I get naked.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Damn but your face is adorable sometimes. You’re like a four-year-old boy trying to understand the world. What I mean is, despite the bath you gave me earlier, which I do appreciate, I’ve still got dried blood in places you weren’t authorized to scrub. Plus, I need to take care of my equipment. So I’m off to the river to wash everything. My armor. My clothes. My hair and toes and everything in between. You’re going to stay up here, and I’m giving you a job to keep you busy while my taut and luscious barbarian body is stripped bare and shimmering with droplets.”

  “Fair enough. But, just to be clear, I think my expression is easily that of a six-year-old boy. Don’t sell me short.”

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  “I don’t anymore, Josh Hester,” Molly said, her voice more serious. She’d been starting down the slope to the river but stopped and came back. She circled behind me. I tried to look back but she put a hand on my shoulder and stopped me from turning. She didn’t say anything. A few heartbeats passed. I had the crackling fire in front of me, and the softer fire of Molly behind me.

  “It’s not going to happen,” she finally said. Her voice was low. She left without saying another word, moving down to the river, lost in the darkness.

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  “You can speak with animals?” Damian Tass, the Bale of Whitewater asked me. We were on the expansive lawns to the rear of his mansion, which was the size of those sprawling castle complexes the lords of France used to enjoy building, and even had similarities of architecture.

  It struck me for the first time that I didn’t truly know the origins of the architecture, that I’d been thinking of how the city of Whitewater had been heavily influenced by Dutch architecture, but maybe I had it backward? Maybe the world I knew was only a reflection of this one.

  “I guess I can talk with animals?” I told Tass. “I mean, my stats list the ability, but I haven’t tried it yet.” Tass was an older man. Late seventies. But well-kept in the way that rich people can be, because money acts as a shield against many things, even age. Damian was darkly black with a touch of elven in his ancestry, maybe a few generations back. He had deep green eyes and wore outfits I can only describe as precisely fitted pajamas.

  “Would you talk to my ostrich?”

  “I don’t even know how to respond to that. It sounds like something a guy texts a girl on a dating app.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Nothing. And, okay; are we really talking an ostrich, here?”

  “What else would I be talking about?” We were walking a fence line. Sort of. There were fenceposts, but no actual fence. We moved between them without problem, but I’d seen three horses and something resembling a six-legged pig fail to do the same, rebuffed by an invisible barrier. There were magic sigils carved into the fenceposts. It was Goncourt’s version of an electric fence.

  I wondered what would happen if I peed between the fenceposts, the way I’d learned not to do back in my own world, when the shocking kickback of an electric fence made me swear off pissing or even masturbating for almost a whole day back when I was teenager.

  “Is there a reason you want me to talk to this ostrich?” Tass and I were walking across a field, keeping an eye out for the various kinds of shit that animals drop. There were cows. Horses. That pig-thing. Nothing very exotic. No griffins or dragons. I wondered what an ostrich’s shit looked like. It probably looked like most birdshit, except more of it. It’s a stroke of luck those things can’t fly.

  “You were asking about the blurred man,” Tass said. My heart clenched. My awareness grew. I felt like I could feel the breeze on every one of my hairs all over my head and all across my arms. And I could for damn sure feel the foxes tattooed on my skin.

  “I was,” I said. I didn’t mean to make it sound like a threat. I wished Molly was with me, but she’d stayed back at the house. Tass employed the usual range of servants, and then a few others past the usual range. One of them was a weapon’s master, a hugely muscled chunk of a man named Roth. Molly obviously knew him. They were sparring in a fenced-off circle surrounded by a small section of bleachers. A few others had been gathering to watch when Tass had asked me to go for a walk. I could occasionally hear the ringing sounds of steel meeting steel.

  “He used to threaten me,” Tass said.

  “The blurred man? You know him?” I was still making my questions sound like threats. There was no reason for it and I wanted to stop.

  “This was back when I was pushing for reform in the Fireplace,” Tass said. Something in my expression told him I didn’t know what he was talking about. He added, “The Fireplace is the name of the more vice-ridden quarters of Whitewater. All but abandoned by the Guardians, except for those taking bribes either to look the other way or to escort the more decadent members of the so-called upper classes on a sight-seeing tour of the so-called lower classes.”

  A hundred yards ahead of us, an ostrich was strutting about. It was looking at something up in a tree, craning its head back, spreading its wings, fluttering in either a warning or a mating dance. I couldn’t be sure which way. Although, come to think of it, maybe I could ask the bird.

  Tass said, “There’s a great deal of money to be made in vice, and a great many people willing to make it. To be clear, I don’t much care if someone indulges in most vices, but I do care about the living conditions in the Fireplace. And I care that so often the poor are enslaved by the rich. Used. Discarded. I am considered something of a crusader.”

  “It’s easy to be a crusader when you’re filthy rich.” I hadn’t meant to say it. The words just spilled out. I expected Tass to be outraged.

  “It’s much easier, yes,” he said instead, not taking offense. “It’s also easy to be a monster. Easier, even. I honestly do care about people, but I’m also aware that having monstrous wealth is like being a giant. No matter how carefully you tread, you’re going to step on someone.”

  I didn’t have any reply. It’s not often a rich guy agrees that rich guys are pricks. We walked in silence, closer and closer to the ostrich. It was still focused on something up in a tree. I couldn’t see anything up in the branches, myself. It was an oak tree. Maybe the ostrich wanted some acorns? Maybe there was a predator in the tree, some six-legged panther to match the pasture’s six-legged pig? As we approached, the ostrich noticed us. It ran in quick circles while keeping its gaze locked on us.

  “Her name is Samantha,” Tass said.

  “Okay. Speaking of names, do you know the blurred man’s real name?”

  “No. Back when I was pushing for reform in the Fireplace it angered many people, both those who lived in the district, angry over outsiders trying to change their lives, and then a selection of those who were making a great deal of money by exploiting all the vices that were there to be had.”

  “Where’s the blurred man come into this?” I was impatient. I didn’t want the side dishes; I wanted the meat.

  “Sent to intimidate me. To let me know to drop all talk of reform. To mind my own business.”

  “I’d guess it wasn’t a polite request?”

  “No. He visited over the course of three days. On the first day he killed every cat in my zoo. The panthers. The lions. The tigers. Even a griffin. He piled the dead in front of my door.” Tass gestured back to the mansion.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  “On the second day he killed eight of my workers. Four groundskeepers. Two maids. One of my cooks. And a woman who raised many of the baby animals. I have their names chiseled into the walls just inside my front door.” The ostrich, ahead of us, was hiding behind the tree as we approached. Tass’ voice sounded like it was hiding in his throat, loathe to emerge.

  “On the third day he made me watch as he cut off all of my daughter’s hair. He had her surrounded by foxes. Sleek and black. Almost like shadows. He told me that if anyone interfered, the foxes would tear her to pieces. So I only watched my daughter sobbing as her brown hairs fell away, and I listened to the blurred man wondering aloud if he’d need to come back the next day and kill her.”

  “Fuck,” I said, again. I meant it again, too.

  “I quit, Mr. Hester. I quit. I do care about the people of the Fireplace. I care for them a great deal. But I care more for my daughter.”

  “I understand.”

  “No. I’m afraid not. Nobody could understand what it felt like to watch the blurred man’s blade whisking over my daughter’s head, the edge so sharp it was like watching wool being sheared. He only nicked her a few times. A few little lines of blood. I don’t believe these minor wounds were mistakes. I believe they were an addition to his message.”

  Once more, I was caught with nothing to say, but we were only ten feet from the ostrich, and there had to be a reason I was about to talk to a large, flightless bird.

  “The ostrich?” I asked.