Lily and I stride together in the wide corridor, passing by the doors of empty suites. It smells a little moldy, and mysterious off-white stains speck the fuzzy red carpet. But I won’t stop to figure out what they are; I simply don’t have time.

  “Yuri! You’re walking really fast! Wait up!”

  “I know where we can find some tools. So let’s get to them as soon as we can.”

  The Horse and the Ox need tools to ram open the front door. But those weapons aren’t just for them, they’re for us. Lily’s breathing grows heavy as I hurry on.

  “That crowbar isn’t going to grow legs and walk away,” she huffs. “And my legs aren’t going to grow any more either!”

  She grabs my hand and that finally makes me stop. I don’t know if it’s another one of her experiments, but it’s better than the Heimlich, so I don’t really mind.

  I look into her eyes. They’re brown and comforting, like a warm coffee at the end of a long week. “Lily…”

  “Yuri…?”

  I don’t know what I’m going to say. I think in just a few more seconds, this handholding is going to make me say something very strange.

  But then we both get bowled over.

  “You two idiots had the whole hallway to choose from and you decided to waltz right down the middle! You’re just asking to be mowed down!“

  Tumbled with us in a heap is the Tiger, who had rammed into us at an intersection between two corridors. She just as swiftly scrambles up, crunching my hand with her sneakers.

  “Sorry,” The blonde girl smiles, both at me and the reddish-pink treads she left on my skin; I bite back a swear as Lily heaves me up.

  “Running down the hall like that is dangerous!” Lily critiques.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Well, little lady, I am dangerous.”

  The Tiger’s the kind of girl who makes up for her diminutive stature with overwhelming force, a mini fighter jet barreling towards another plane, engines shrieking, guns ablaze. She’s also the kind of girl who I would say is most likely to carry a knife or a gun, and I eye her jacket pocket as I shove myself between her and Lily.

  “Tiger, Dangerous, whatever you’re called, we’ve been meaning to talk with you. Now’s as good a time as any.” Lily remarks.

  “Can’t you tell I’m in a hurry, you moronic idiot morons? Fuck off!”

  “Fine. Then we’ll talk later.”

  We all set off down the hall in the same direction, and the Tiger watches the floral wallpaper as if it’s the most remarkable art in the world. While its swirling roses and vines might be of some interest to an interior designer, I suspect that after the third or fourth repetition it’d bore even the most inspired wall foliage expert.

  “Good weather today,” the Tiger mutters.

  “You’re from Elyssia Isle too, right? What was your life like before you came here?” Lily asks.

  “Fine.”

  “What do you mean by ‘fine?’ Can you talk more about it?”

  I kick Lily’s ankle. If she really wants to know more about the Tiger, I can figure something out. The swagger she walks with, the scowl that keeps slipping off and on her face, the earring that she flares and fidgets with in equal turn—they all point to a specific type of personality.

  “What we wanted to know is what happened to make you so brave, so smart, so beautiful,” I say.

  When it comes to Lily, every word has to be measured and calculated. But when it comes to this girl, now stopped, I can shamelessly say anything. Her cheeks are tinged slightly pink, but in the harsh, bright light in the hallway it might be her natural shade.

  “If you wanted to know that, you should have said so from the start!”

  “But we did—” Lily says, before I pinch her.

  “Go on Tiger. Tell us your story—no, your legend!”

  The delinquent is silent, and I’m worried that I had laid it on too thick. Her expression is incredibly bizarre, and I realize a few moments later she’s actually being shy.

  “Well… if you want to know that badly… then I guess I have to tell you.”

  “Yuri? Are you sure about this?” Lily whispers to me, as the three of us stand near the entrance to the hotel wing. “I don’t mind listening, but you seemed to be in a hurry and this might take a long time.”

  “How long can it be?” I reply. “Shorter than a chapter of a novel, surely.”

  Then the Tiger opens her mouth to speak.