Tina was relieved they made it back out of the mansion without losing one of the so-called Varangians, although several were nursing some minor wounds in the carriage she had the band and the dwarf shared on the journey back to the arena. 

She decided she might have made a mistake, and crossed her arms over her chest, staring at the dwarf as they took the bumpy ride back to the palace. The problem was figuring out what the mistake was. Devon looked a little crushed between two big men, but maybe he deserved it.

“She called you, me,” she said, breaking the silence. “Greta called the office back in Toronto, didn’t she. Why?”

He looked down, then back up into her gaze.

“Yes she did,” Devon told her. “Somehow she found out I’d found who I was looking for. So she forged a link, and that allowed her to follow us, to try to sneak a grab for the hammer for her own uses. She’s nothing but trouble, I assure you. Trust me. You aren’t going to get barbecued. At worst a little singed. Maybe scorched. But-”

He wisely stopped there.

“You sure about that?” she challenged.

“With enough practice, certainly,” Devon replied. “And confidence.”

“Am I going to get enough practice?” Tina worried. “I’m not really sure I belong here, and throwing balls with liquid centers is a little nuts. I mean, they are all going to be muffins no matter how I try. What the hell am I doing? This isn’t where I want to be.”

“But you wanted an adventure, didn’t you?” he asked. “That’s how the compass led me to you. That’s how the limo got you here. Because deep inside you wanted it as well as being meant for it.”

She glared at him. He seemed completely sincere.

Admit it, her little voice told her. You know what he’s telling you is the truth.

Tina let out a breath. It came out in a hiss.

“Okay, so maybe I was bored and spinning my wheels and sick of my life going nowhere,” she told him. “But this is a little much, don’t you think? Just a little?”

“You can do it,” he told her. 

“I don’t know,” she replied, feeling herself slump back in her seat.

“You liked it though, didn’t you?” Devon asked. “The idea of taking on the Lioness. Of proving yourself the best, of any time. Of knowing others know you are the best.”

They hit another bump as she tried to answer.

“Ma-maybe,” Tina stuttered. “But that damn outfit you put together for me is too stiff and too heavy and too hot. I’m not going to be able to dodge anything in that getup, and that’s the whole point of the game, to not get hit. I need something lighter, but still tough and fireproof. I can’t afford any of that Greek Fire to get through. I don’t have a high pain threshold, Devon. And I don’t need any more scars.”

“Then we’ll need to talk to an alchemist,” he told her. “As well as a tailor. That should be an interesting conversation.”

“When is the championship?” she asked.

“Thursday,” he told her.

“OhMiGod, Thursday?!” she replied loudly, shocked. That was- that was just way too soon. “We need to get this done, I mean today.”

“I suppose, excuse me, Bjorn-” he started, then pushed his way through the men packed in with them. and stuck his head out of the carriage to see where they were she guessed, because he pulled it back inside and said. “We’re almost at the palace. I will send word to the tailor and one of the alchemists in service to the Emperor. We’ll probably have to meet at the alchemist’s workshop as they don’t travel with their supplies. Much of what they work with is rather volatile, you understand.”

“No shit,” Tina smirked. 

Sometime later, after they had dropped off most of the retinue, apart from Bjorn and his brother Freki, they arrived at the alchemists, a nondescript building of thick stonewalls.

“Do not touch anything,” Devon warned as they entered the alchemist’s workshop in a more quiet section of the city. It was surprising, here there was absolutely no one on the streets, just them. 

It was the smells that hit her first, herbal and then chemical, and then strongly metallic with a hint of rotten eggs – oh, sulfur, Tina realized. The alchemist, not a young man by any stretch of the imagination was brewing something noxious, but whatever it was, Tina had no idea and was sure she didn’t want to know.