The highest reward for a person’s toil is not the rune they get for it, but what that rune helps them become.

  ~ John Ruskin

  Before Sarah could look around, Tomas wrapped an arm around her shoulders and whispered to keep going. It was nice to feel him holding her, but the motivation was terrible.

  At the top of the steps, he flagged down a taxi and they piled in. He changed the destination four times, which sent them criss-crossing the city before he finally asked the annoyed driver to pull over at the corner of a shadowed piazza. He gave the man a big tip, but the taxi still sped off with a spin of tires.

  “Are you sure we should get out in a place like this?” she asked. The shadows seemed longer than they had in the taxi, and the relative quiet and lack of other people heightened her worry. Wasn’t the cardinal rule of traveling to always stay around other people for safety?

  Tomas led her at a trot down a shadowed path through the piazza. It was tricky in her low heels. Like most of Rome, the stone ground was not totally even. Her high agility helped her avoid a twisted ankle, but she was definitely wearing the wrong footwear.

  So with a bit of will, she accessed her invisible Adaptive Wardrobe and swapped for a much more sensible pair of black flats. It was unlikely Tomas would notice. Most guys were clueless about shoes.

  Instead of continuing to the far side, where lights from another busy road beckoned with the promise of safety, he turned off the path.

  “Where are you going?” Sarah asked as Tomas approached a darkened building.

  Like so many others in Rome, the three-story structure sported a columned portico. Tomas pulled her into the pitch darkness behind one of the columns where they would remain invisible but could still view the piazza.

  “I need to know who’s following us,” he whispered.

  On a normal date, he’d have lured her into the darkness for a little romance. If only this was a normal date. Despite the questions Tomas would ask, if they had to run for their lives, she’d swap her skirt for a pair of slacks.

  “How do you even know they didn’t lose us?”

  “I wouldn’t have.”

  “Who do you think they might be?” she asked, trying not to sound as nervous as she felt.

  “Either they’re enforcers or hekha.”

  “Then why would you want to hang around?” Sarah demanded. He had proven he possessed remarkable fighting skills, but this didn’t seem like a smart place to plan a showdown.

  “To see which group it is,” Tomas explained. “If it’s the enforcers, that means my cover’s been blown and the council’s assigned a strike team to remove me.”

  He said it with such calm acceptance. Sarah admired that, wished she shared his unbreakable calm, and wanted to slap him to get more of a reaction.

  “If it’s hekha,” Tomas continued. “Then Mai Luan’s coming after us.”

  “What if it’s both?” Sarah hated asking the question. Why suggest things could get worse?

  “That’s unlikely. She’s playing them, and no doubt they’ve convinced themselves that they’re using her. They won’t work together, not for something like this.”

  “So what happens when they show up?” Sarah asked. “Did you bring a gun?”

  “A couple,” he admitted. “But I don’t want to confront them yet, just gather intel.”

  Would he loan her one of those guns if she asked nicely? Her wardrobe didn’t include guns and knives as accessories. At least, she didn’t think it did. She didn’t have a gun, and hadn’t thought to try adding knives. Something to rectify in the future.

  She had tons of knives available in the system store, but she’d spent all her free points. Rotten time to run dry.

  “Did you bring a scope? That way we could gather intel from farther away.”

  He chuckled. “Good idea, but no, I left the scopes at home.”

  A white passenger van stopped in the same place their taxi had moments ago. Several figures jumped out and jogged across the piazza.

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  Sarah’s pulse quickened and every muscle tensed as she pressed herself against a nearby column. A spike of fear washed through her, followed by a rising heat that stirred her blood in anticipation for battle.

  Again, the odd reaction to danger, but she embraced it. Better to face danger with a punch than a scream.

  The shadowy figures passed not far from their hiding place without slowing. For the first time, she realized she wasn’t entirely blind, despite the almost-complete darkness. She couldn’t see, not exactly, but she could sense the people moving past.

  Was that some kind of enhanced perception tied to her higher stats? Cool. Then again, what rank were their pursuers, and could they sense Sarah and Tomas just as easily?

  Thankfully, the shadowy pursuers didn’t stop. When they reached the road on the far side, they spread out. A moment later, the same van stopped and they all jumped back in.

  After the van sped away, Tomas said, “Hekha.”

  “How can you tell? I couldn’t see any details.”

  “Didn’t need to. Enforcers train as a team. They’d have moved through a place like this in a more organized formation. Those guys moved like a gang. No discipline, no cover. Hekha for sure.”

  “What does that mean?” Sarah asked.

  “Mai Luan’s on to us. We’ll have to be careful, and probably move our base as soon as Gregorios and Eirene return.”

  Mai Luan was chasing them. Sarah crossed to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He held her, his head leaning against hers, his gaze locked on the piazza. She suddenly wished Gregorios and Eirene hadn’t left. She felt vulnerable.

  There had to be a way to change that.

  “How do we fight her?” she asked.

  Tomas turned to face her. She couldn’t see his expression, but his arms tightened around her shoulders. “If it comes to that, we’ll pick the time and place. She’s dangerous, but not immortal. We’ve defeated cui dashi before.”

  “Good.” She embraced the anger she felt at Mai Luan for so casually destroying so many lives. Hopefully the shared resolve to defeat her would provide enough motivation for the hunters to help.

  They needed all the help they could get.

  Tomas waited in the shadows ten more minutes. Sarah remained close beside him and they silently held each other in the darkness. It wasn’t the romantic moment she might have hoped for, but it was the best they could manage.

  Eventually he led her back out to where the taxi had dropped them off and flagged another one. The entire time they stood exposed at the curb, Sarah scanned nearby shadows, jumping at every sound. A gray van passed, and she clutched Tomas’s hand nervously until it faded into the night.

  Tomas ordered the taxi to take them to St. Peter’s. There they mingled with the crowd while he watched for anyone following them. Sarah scanned the crowds and spotted several suspicious people, but none of them seemed to worry Tomas.

  They took four more taxis, each to a different popular attraction, and repeated the process of blending and scanning.

  Finally Tomas said, “I don’t see anyone. If they’re still on to us, they’re better than any hekha I’ve faced in decades.”

  “How many decades?”

  Tomas sighed. “Please not now.”

  “Fine, but don’t avoid it forever.”

  “I won’t. I promise. I need to show you something first. Then we’ll talk.”

  She could handle that.

  When they returned to the safe house, it didn’t feel so safe. What if they’d been followed, despite all Tomas’s efforts to confuse any trackers?

  Tomas shared her concern, insisting on monitoring the perimeter through a bank of security camera feeds. Sarah found some pie in the fridge and served up a couple slices. She sat with him for a mind-numbing hour watching the images flip past, and chatting about little things.

  They’d never just hung out like that before. She asked him about places he’d visited, and got more than she’d planned.

  He’d traveled just about everywhere, and talked easily about different cultures and countries and peoples. He spoke eighteen languages. That was a little intimidating.

  He asked about her family. She didn't like talking about her past, but found herself telling him about her insanely religious parents, their condemnation of any lifestyle that didn't include marriage and as many children as she could handle, all while living on a modest, lower middle class budget.

  Tomas gave her an appraising look. "And you overcame that upbringing to become one of the top five body models at Alterego?"

  "I got into modeling as a form of rebellion," Sarah admitted. "I wanted to prove to them that I could make my own choices."

  She tried not to think about the fact that her choices had nearly lost her the only body she'd ever owned. She hated to think anything her parents had browbeaten into her might have had a seed of truth.

  So she told Tomas about her three brothers. The two older ones with their large families and blue-collar jobs, and the younger one who was a priest in a protestant church.

  "Do you speak with them often?" Tomas asked.

  "Not as often as I’d like," Sarah admitted. "I send money when I can. I felt bad to hear about all their bills with those kids, but mom and dad found out and got real angry. They asked me to stop. I do go visit my brothers at least once a year."

  "When this is over, you should call them," Tomas urged.

  "Why? They don't understand me."

  "They're family," he said softly, his expression growing intense. "You won't always have them."

  The conversation turned to Eirene and Gregorios. Tomas revealed that Eirene had taken up SCUBA diving and was planning extensive ocean exploration expeditions.

  "I've never been diving," Sarah said. "Sounds like fun."

  "It is. Eirene's traveled the globe many times, but she's never set foot on the bottom of the ocean. The thought appeals to her."

  "What about Gregorios?"

  "He loves technology," Tomas said with a chuckle. "He's like a little kid with new gadgets. He's getting into mobile app development."

  Sarah laughed. "Really? He wants to develop the next Fortnite or something?"

  "No, he's got bigger plans than that," Tomas said, but wouldn't elaborate.

  Sarah enjoyed the conversation as it turned to less meaningful topics. Spending casual time with Tomas was really nice, but as the night wore on, the stress of the day caught up with her and her eyes started to droop.

  Tomas noticed. He kissed her forehead. “I’m glad dinner wasn’t ruined at least.”

  “I enjoyed it. Thank you,” she said, cupping one of his cheeks in her hand and kissing him lightly on the lips. He might not be her boyfriend yet, but he was a good friend, and that left the door open to all sorts of possibilities.

  For tonight, that was enough.