"Can't say I like your new secretary," Faris grumbled as the door closed. "Sara, is it?"

Trent rose to his feet and extended his hand, his distaste hidden behind his sincere-looking smile. "Faris. Thanks for coming on such short notice. It's only a small matter. One of your assistants would have been fine. I trust I haven't interrupted your research too badly?"

"Not at all. I'm always glad to get up into the sun," he puffed as if winded.

Faris squeezed the bites I had given Trent yesterday, and Trent's smile froze. The heavy man wedged himself into the chair across from Trent's desk as if he owned it. He propped an ankle up on one knee, sending his lab coat to fall open to show dress slacks and shiny shoes. A dark stain spotted his lapel, and the smell of disinfectant flowed from him, almost hiding the scent of redwood. Old pocketmarked scars were scattered across his cheeks and the skin visible on his beefy hands.

Trent returned to behind his desk and leaned back, hiding his bandaged hand under the other one. There was a moment of silence.

"So, what do you want?" Faris demanded, his voice rumbling.

I thought I saw a flash of annoyance cross Trent. "Direct as usual," he said. "Tell me what you can about this?"

He had pointed to me, and my breath caught. Disregarding my lingering stiffness, I lurched into my hut. Faris levered himself to his feet with a groan, and the sharp scent of redwood crashed over me as he came close. "Well well," he said. "Aren't you the stupid one."

Annoyed, I looked up at his dark eyes, almost lost among the folds of skin. Trent had come around to the front of his desk, sitting against it. "Recognize her?" he asked.

"Personally? No." He gave the bars of my cage a soft thunk with a thick finger.

"Hey!" I shouted from my hut. "I'm really getting tired of that."

"Shut up, you," he said disdainfully. "She's a witch," Faris continued, dismissing me as if I were nothing. "Just keep her out of your fish tank, and she won't be able to change back. It's a powerful spell. She must have the backing of a large organization, as only they could afford it. And she's stupid."

The last was directed at me, and I fought the urge to throw pellets at him.

"How so?" Trent went to rummage in his lower drawer, the chiming of lead crystal ringing out before he poured two shots of that forty-year-old whiskey.

"Transformation is a difficult art. You have to use potions rather than amulets, which means you stir an entire brew for only one occasion. The rest gets thrown away. Very expensive. You could pay your assistant librarian's salary for what this stirring cost, and staff a small office for the liability insurance to sell it."

"Difficult, you say?" Trent handed Faris a glass. "Could you make such a spell?"

"If I had the recipe," he said, puffing up his substantial chest, his pride clearly affronted. "It's old. Preindustry, perhaps? I don't recognize who stirred this spell." He leaned close, breathing deeply. "Lucky for him, or I might have to relieve the witch of his library."

This, I thought, is becoming a very interesting conversation.

"So you don't think she made it herself?" Trent asked. He was again sitting back against his desk, looking incredibly trim and fit next to Faris.

The heavyset man shook his head and sat back down. The shot glass was completely unseen, enfolded by his thick hands. "I'd stake my life on it. You can't be smart enough to competently stir a spell like that and he dumb enough to be caught. Doesn't make sense."

"Maybe she was impatient," Trent said, and Faris exploded into laughter. I jumped, covering my ears with my paws.

"Oh, yes," Faris said between guffaws. "Yes. She was impatient. I like that."

I thought Trent's usual polish was starting to look thin as he returned behind his desk and set his untasted drink aside.

"So who is she?" Faris asked, leaning forward like a mock conspirator. "An eager reporter trying for the story of her life?"

"Is there a spell that will allow me to understand her?" Trent asked, ignoring Faris's question. "All she does is squeak."

Faris grunted as he leaned to set his emptied glass on the desk in an unspoken request for more. "No. Rodents don't have vocal cords. You plan on keeping her for any length of time?"

Trent spun his glass in his fingers. He was alarmingly silent.

Faris smiled wickedly. "What's cooking in that nasty little head of yours, Trent?"

The creak of Trent's chair as he leaned forward seemed very loud. "Faris, if I didn't need your talents so badly, I would have you whipped in your own lab."

The large man grinned, sending the folds in his face to fall into each other. "I know."

Trent put the bottle away. "I may enter her in Friday's tournament."

Faris blinked. "The city's tournaments?" he said softly. "I've seen one of those. The bouts don't end until one is dead."

"So I've heard."

Fear pulled me to the wire mesh. "Whoa, wait a moment," I chittered. "What do you mean, dead? Hey! Someone talk to the mink!"

I threw a pellet at Trent. It went about two feet before arching down to the carpet. I tried again, this time kicking it rather than throwing it. It hit the back of his desk with a plink. "The Turn take you, Trent!" I shouted. "Talk to me."

Trent met my gaze, his eyebrows raised. "The rat fights, of course."

My heart gave a thump. Chilled, I sank back on my haunches. The rat fights. Illegal. Backroom. Rumors. To the death. I was going to be in the ring—fighting a rat to the death.

I stood in confusion, my long, white-furred feet planted on the wire mesh of my cage. I felt betrayed, of all things. Faris looked ill. "You're not serious," he whispered, his fat cheeks turning white. "You're really going to play her? You can't!"

"Why ever not?"

Faris's jowls dropped as he struggled for words. "She's a person!" he exclaimed. "She won't last three minutes. They'll rip her to shreds."

Trent shrugged with an indifference I knew wasn't faked. "Surviving is her problem, not mine." He put on his wire glasses and bent his head over his papers. "Good afternoon, Faris."

"Kalamack, this is too far. Even you aren't above the law."

As soon as he said it, both Faris and I knew it was a mistake. Trent pulled his gaze up. Silent, he eyed Faris from over his lenses. He leaned forward, an elbow on his accumulated work. I waited breathlessly, the tension making my fur rise. "How is your youngest daughter, Faris?" Trent asked, his beautiful voice unable to hide the ugliness of his question.

The large man went ashen. "She's fine," he whispered. His rough confidence had vanished, leaving only a frightened, fat man.

"What is she? Fifteen?" Trent eased back in his chair, set his glasses beside his in/out-box, and laced his long fingers over his middle. "Wonderful age. She wants to be an oceanographer, yes? Talk to the dolphins?"

"Yes." It was hardly audible.

"I can't tell you how pleased I am that the treatment for her bone cancer worked."

I looked at the back of Trent's drawer where the incriminating discs lay. My gaze lifted to Faris, taking in his lab coat with a new understanding. Cold struck through me, and I stared at Trent. He wasn't just running biodrugs, he was making them. I wasn't sure if it horrified me more that Trent was actively flirting with the same technology that wiped out half the world's population, or that he was blackmailing people with it, threatening their loved ones. He was so pleasant, so charming, so damned likable with his confident personality. How could something so foul lay next to something so attractive?

Trent smiled. "She's been in remission for five years now. Good physicians willing to explore illegal techniques are hard to find. And expensive."

Faris swallowed. "Yes—sir."