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Trent cursed violently and swung the dumbbell at Messenger. The weight passed harmlessly through Messenger’s shoulder. So Trent lifted it high and brought it down with all his strength on Messenger’s head. It passed like a knife through butter and swept away on the bottom of its arc, hitting Trent in the shin.

He cursed again and yelled in pain.

Messenger waited until the boy’s hopping around had stopped. Pete made a dash for the stairs but managed only two steps before he found himself unable to move.

“If you accept the invitation to the game and lose, you will suffer a punishment,” Messenger said, not sounding blasé, but not reacting to Trent’s rage, either. “If you refuse the game, you will suffer punishment. If you accept the game and win, you will be allowed to go on without any further interference.”

“What is this, man?” Pete cried. “Help! Help!”

Yelling for help and shouting obscenities and threats went on for a while and Messenger let them go on until both boys were winded, and finally accepted the reality that they could neither leave, nor summon help, nor strike either Messenger or myself.

“I offer you a game,” Messenger said again, in tones identical to the first time.

“What the hell, man?” Trent whined. “Who are you? Who’s the chink?”

I have to admit that slur struck home. I’d listened with distaste to a long string of such slurs, but this was the first directed at me, personally. I’d never really heard anyone deliberately attack me as an Asian American before. Oh, I’d heard the sort of soft bigotry, the assumption that I must be a grind because I’m Asian, or that I must play violin and be great at math. (Neither, unfortunately.) But this was the first time someone had just come right out and called me a name in that way. To my face.

I would like to say it had no effect. But it did. It had the effect of siphoning off some of the concern I felt for what they were about to endure.

“He’s the Messenger of Fear,” I said.

“Yeah?” Trent looked defiantly at Messenger. “Well, I’m not afraid.”

I bit my tongue and stopped myself from saying, you will be soon. But yes, the slur had made me spiteful and less pitying than I might otherwise be. I’m not proud of that.

“If you accept the challenge and prevail, you go free. If you play the game and lose, you will be punished. If you refuse to choose, you will be punished. You have seven seconds to decide. Play or pay? Seven. Six.”

More threats, more cursing.

“Five.”

Defiance and rage.

“Four.”

“Who the hell are you to—”

“Play the game, you fool!” And with that, Oriax made her entrance.

“Whoa.”

I was unsurprised by the boys’ reactions.

“Play his game, you stupid boy,” Oriax snapped. “You may win. If you refuse, you lose. And if you lose, well, then, little Trent and even littler Pete, you will very likely end up drooling and shivering, cringing like beaten dogs along the gloomy corridors of the Shoals, lost forever to your sorrowful mothers.”

I admired that. The way she could just spit that out as fluently as a rapper.

“What’s the game?” Pete demanded, nervous and yet reassured by Oriax, who must have seemed like an ally to him. He was staring without restraint at Oriax, barely even glancing at her eyes.

“Listen to me,” Oriax snarled. She was not interested in their attraction to her, she had a goal, and she could conceal it no longer. She focused her burning-ember gaze on Trent. “You, at least, have a future. You may do . . . great things. Great and terrible things. If you survive this day. If.”

I wanted to ask her to explain, but doubted she would. Messenger said nothing, and something in his body language warned me to stay silent as well. But as always, curiosity . . .

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“No,” Messenger said curtly. “The servants of Malech are granted certain powers not given to us. They see further in time. But no human may be punished for what he may do in the future. Nor,” he added pointedly, “for the things they say to us.”

So he had heard that chink remark. And he had seen that it annoyed me. I fell silent.