“If you’re surprised by that, you haven’t been paying attention,” my father said sadly. “I’m fonder of mortals than most dragons, but no amount of civilization or culture can change the fact that you’re all still animals at heart. No offense.”
“You should say that to the animals,” I replied sourly. “At least actual predators eat their kills. They don’t just torture things for fun.”
“Cats do,” Sibyl piped in.
“And it’s not as if I don’t know what humans are capable of,” I went on, ignoring her. “Do you know how much gross stuff I’ve found in people’s apartments?” I shook my head. “Honestly, I wouldn’t be a quarter so mad if it was just the violence. If two dudes want to rip each other to pieces for the love of the crowd, that’s their bad decision to make. It’s the exploitation I can’t stand. You felt how the magic forced those manticores to fight just like it forced Nik. And while they didn’t need magic for the bum fight, using the homeless’s desperation isn’t any better. It’s not a choice if your options are ‘starve in the street’ or ‘fight for cash.’ The DFZ says she can’t stop it because there’s no violation of free will, but there’s nothing free about what’s going on here! This whole arena is built on people who’ve been cornered, and you know how I feel about that.”
It wasn’t until I said it out loud that I realized how personally I hated this place. It wasn’t just Nik. All the fighters tonight had looked the same way I’d felt when my dad was closing in: helpless, cornered, desperate. I despised what I’d seen tonight with every fiber of my being, which meant that for once, the DFZ and I were in complete agreement. I might not be a real priestess, but tonight I felt like Joan of Arc. I didn’t know how, but was there going to be some divine retribution when I figured out how to crack this place.
First, though, I had to check on Nik.
“Come on,” I said, standing up. “Let’s go see how much it costs to get backstage.”
“What makes you think they sell access?” my father asked, floating down to walk beside me as I joined the crowd filtering down the aisles toward the arena’s outer circle.
I shrugged. “Everything else here is for sale, and selling access to gladiators after fights is hardly a new thing. The ancient Romans did it for centuries. You can’t tell me the Gameskeeper isn’t going to be in that market given how hard he’s exploited every other.”
“All good points,” my father admitted. “But Mad Dog’s case seems—”
“Don’t call him that.”
“What am I supposed to call him? You object to everything I use.”
“I’ve objected to ‘criminal’ and the arena label he hates. If you need to call him something, how about his name?”
Yong lifted his nose as if the very suggestion offended him, but I wasn’t playing around. My dad wasn’t allowed to disrespect Nik any more than he was allowed to disrespect me. When he realized I was serious, the dragon heaved a put-upon sigh. “As I was saying, Mr. Kos seems a special case. He’s hugely popular and clearly not under management’s control. If he were my mortal, I would severely limit access to him to prevent unfortunate incidents.”
I supposed he would know. Still, I kept my hope all the way through the crowds and down five flights of stairs to the arena’s lowest publicly accessible level.
It was a thoroughly depressing walk. The moment we got out of the vice-drenched tourist ring and into the actual business part of the arena, everything got a million times dirtier and even more crowded. Sibyl hadn’t been kidding about there being a waiting list for homeless fighters. A good fifty people were camped out in the filthy cement tunnel that led to the back offices. None of them looked at me as I passed. They just stared numbly at the ground, clutching their little number tickets as if the scrap of paper might be the last thing they ever held. Seeing that made me even angrier, which I wouldn’t have said was possible, but it was hard not to be angry with the crazy magic still beating on me like a drum.
Since it seemed to be tied to the crowd’s bloodlust, I’d assumed the power would go down now that the fighting was over. No dice. While the pressure had definitely fallen from its crazy peak during Nik’s fight, the magic was still hammering hard enough to make my ears ring.
By the time I made it to a door with an actual guard, I had a splitting headache. I played it off as best I could, batting my eyelashes shamelessly as I tried to convince the man that I was a rich fangirl willing to pay through the nose for “alone time” with the infamous Mad Dog. It wasn’t even a lie. The DFZ had specifically told me to investigate, which meant her expense account was fair game. I had six figures I could drop if necessary, and I was absolutely ready to do so, but in a triumphant return of Opal’s Horrible Luck, I’d apparently gotten stuck with the one security guard in the entire DFZ who couldn’t be bribed.
“I don’t care how much you fork out,” he said after I offered to just give him my card and let him pick the number. “No one sees Mad Dog. Gameskeeper’s orders.”
“Oh come on,” I begged. “You can’t give me five minutes?”
He glowered through the glowing AR display of his headset—which was clear unlike
