The Nine Bishops

“What happened?” Mika gasped. She felt the wine soaking through the shoes she’d worn for two years, ruining them, but she didn’t care.

One of Tink’s eyes was completely swollen. His top lip was busted and crusted with blood on the sides. His left cheek was split and the other discolored from severe bruising.

Tink quickly put his head down, as if ashamed, but there was no hiding his battered face. It looked like he had been in some sort of brawl. Mika knew Tink studiously avoided trouble, so trouble must have found him. Glancing at Zaya, she noticed that her head was down, too, with a real look of shame.

Tink tried to ignore the question, and just kept chopping vegetables as though he hadn’t heard it.

“Please don’t ignore me, Tink. What happened?” she insisted.

He muttered, almost inaudibly, “I got scraped up a bit, it’s really not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal? Last time I saw you, you were smiling, and now you are all beat up. Who did this to you?” she said, indignantly.

“It really doesn’t matter who did this to me. All that matters is that I deserved it.”

Now Mika was furious. Tink did not deserve this kind of abuse. She was determined to get a clear answer and all the details. She moved closer and rested her hands on his, to keep him from chopping. He turned his eyes up, slowly, and looked into her eyes.

“Tell me what happened,” she said, pressing her lips together in determination.

“Isn’t it obvious? This is mages’ work,” Zaya blurted.

Mika glanced back at Zaya, who still had her head down. She turned back to Tink, who pursed his damaged lips in a way that indicated that was the truth.

“Why would they do this to him?” Mika responded, diverting her question to Zaya.

She looked up in surprise that Mika didn’t know.

“He has been hanging around us too much. It’s not right.”

“How could that not be right, and how could they think that means he deserves this kind of treatment?”

“Mika, I’m a Filth. Don’t forget that,” Tink finally said. She saw the pain in his face, not from his injuries, but the words.

“Tell me what happened,” she asked a third time.

“When you entered Howling Moon, I was immediately jumped by a group of four mages. They had been following us.”

“But why?”

“They told me I had no business talking to a mage like you. They told me that if I walked like I was your equal again, then they would kill me. This was just their warning.”

“Did they use their magic?” Mika said, heatedly.

Tink shook his head. “They said it felt better to do it with their own hands.”

Tink had walked with Mika many times. But now that she was a high-profile mage, she’d started getting attention in the streets. Putting two and two together, Mika suddenly felt responsible for the beating Tink had taken.

“I’m sorry this happened. This is all my fault,” she said, putting her head down as tears welled in her eyes.

“This is not your fault. It is mine. I should know my place,” Tink said, trying to console her.

“Your place is as my friend,” Mika retorted, tears rolling down her face. In that moment, Mika hated all the mages—and herself, for forgetting who she was.

“Mika …” Tink said, not sure what more he could say.

“You are right, Mika. He is our friend,” Zaya interjected again. “And we protect our friends.” She walked over and put her hand on Mika’s back.

At that, Mika stopped crying. Zaya had never called Tink her friend before and had always been cautious about expressing her affection. Mika knew Zaya valued Tink, but she always seemed driven to act in the expected ways. Mika opened her arms and hugged them both.

She felt them tense up, surprised by her impetuous move, and then relax as Mika’s embrace turned into a group hug. Though still disturbed by Tink’s condition, Mika felt happy in that moment. After all this time, the three had come together, not caring who was a Filth or a mage, just caring for one another. As they separated after a long moment, Mika asked Tink how he felt.

“I’ll be fine. It hurts a little now, but the only thing that will help now is time,” he said, reassuringly.

“Have you seen Doc? He should be able to help you heal faster.”

“All of the other guild members are out, actually. They had been planning to go out to dinner tonight.”

“Well, when he gets back, make sure you see him.”

Tink nodded, reluctantly.

“In the meantime, how can Zaya and I help?”

“For starters, you can clean up the wine you dropped on the floor. I’ve got a few wineskins here, so you won’t have to worry about that,” Tink said, teasingly. He tried to smile, but grimaced in pain.

“I’ll get a mop, then,” Zaya said, leaving the kitchen for a moment.

Mika said nothing more because she knew Tink just wanted everything to go back to normal. But things were not normal. Something like this should not be considered normal, Mika thought. With all that had happened, she needed her friends, and they needed her.

Zaya returned and started cleaning up the mess. Mika fetched the wineskins Tink was talking about, while he put the final touches on the meal. The three enjoyed a dinner together in the dining room, and for the first time in Mika’s memory, Tink drank wine with them.

Out of the public eye, the three could enjoy each other’s company without reservation. They talked about nothing and everything, laughing all evening. Eventually they broached deeper topics, like Zaya’s master’s death. The compassion of friends, over a glass of wine, helped soften the stress they’d all been feeling.

Tink had told it true. Zaya reiterated how her master’s skeleton was ripped outside of him, killing him instantly. It was so graphic and so unexpected that it left everyone watching speechless and wide-eyed. Zaya couldn’t believe what she’d seen. After much grief and lost sleep, she had finally accepted that her master was gone. This was just the reality of the tournament.

Mika was tempted to reveal her past to Zaya, as she had Tink, but decided not to in that moment. Zaya’s perception of her, after all, wouldn’t change; only Tink could really relate to her experience.

The conversation drifted towards Mika’s coming fight with Master Beng. It was always at the back of her mind and really needed to be her focus.

Though they were competing, their goals were quite different. Master Beng seemed to be in the fight only to stop his grandson from being a Bishop, while Mika wanted to be a Bishop to get closer to the king. Only there could she have any power to change the way Tink and other Filth were treated.

Mika had never talked to Master Beng about her reasons for entering the tournament, and oddly, he had never asked, nor seemed surprised by her ambition. In fact, Master Beng had supported her involvement in the tournament—which now seemed ironic given that they were about to fight each other.

By the end of the night, the three were a lot more drunk than they’d anticipated. Mika suddenly noticed it was late and that Zaya was no longer part of the conversation. She found her friend passed out in her room. Mika, feeling drowsy herself, told Tink she was going to bed and warned jokingly that she was going to freeze him if he didn’t talk to Doc in the morning. With that, Mika curled up in the small space Zaya had left her on the bed.

Mika had a dreamless night, as she usually did when she’d been drinking. Ironically for an ice mage, she woke up freezing because Zaya, who was still fast asleep, had stolen the covers. Rather than wake her, she groggily got out of bed. Though mildly hung over, she had slept well.

Startled by the bright sunlight that greeted her in the hallway, she realized it was most likely past noon. That meant she had slept through the fight between Vixin Tamrie and Bishop Wild’s candidate. Normally this would have upset her, but after all she’d been through in the past few days, she hardly cared. The only thing that really mattered was her fight tomorrow.

Doc seemed to be the only person awake or around. She found him in the lounge, reading some piece of literature. When he heard Mika approaching, he looked up over his reading glasses and greeted her.

“Ho, Mika! Good to see you awake. How are you feeling?” he asked, with a smile.

“Good! Thanks for asking. Do you know where everyone is?”

“Afraid not, everyone went their own which way today after the fight. You missed a good one.”

She wondered briefly who had won and how, but it really didn’t matter at this point.

“Have you seen Tink?”

“He actually just went out to run an errand for Lawrence, so you’ve just missed him. Have you seen him, though? Apparently, he got caught in the middle of a tavern brawl at the Wrong Turn.”

Tink had clearly lied to Doc about why he’d been beaten up. The Wrong Turn was an area where Filth could go out to eat and drink; it was a place no mages would venture to—unless they’d made a wrong turn, hence the name. Mika knew Tink went there sometimes, but she also knew he’d never get himself into that sort of situation.

“Yeah, I saw him last night, afterward. Were you able to look at him?”

“Yes, I did my best to mend some of the bruising he got. He did need a few stitches, but they should heal nicely.”

Mika was glad to hear that Tink had asked Doc to treat him; he’d at least followed through on her request, which put her mind at ease. But she wondered why he’d felt it best to lie about what had occurred. From what she’d learned yesterday, Tink had gotten off lucky. Things could have been much worse, since mages faced no consequences for that kind of brutality. She decided it would be better for Tink to stop accompanying her for the time being.

Mika left Doc to his reading and went upstairs to get some fresh air. Out on the roof, she gazed toward the middle of Monsoon to look at the tournament bracket. The semifinalists were set. Master Lawrence Beng of the War Eagles was against Bishop Joker; on the other side was Vixin Tamrie of Crow’s Nest against Bishop Flame, which of course was Lancel.

Mika almost laughed to see it; ironically, in both cases masters were facing off against their own guild members. Master versus pupil. Only one on each side would go on to the finals. Mika wanted desperately to make it to the finals, but fighting her own master was a hard thing to be at peace with.

“You know why it has to be me, right?”

Mika turned toward the voice behind her and saw Master Beng also looking up at the bracket.

She hadn’t heard him arrive, though the door to the roof was extremely old and creaky. Mika was caught off-guard, with no idea how to respond. It turned out it was a hypothetical question.

“My grandson is very determined. He will make it to the finals, of that I am certain. I’m the only one who can save Lancel from himself,” Master Beng explained, avoiding eye contact with Mika. It was an interesting choice of words. When Mika was under Jazmine’s magic, she had heard herself say the same thing.

“How can you be certain you can even stop him?”

“Because I am even more determined to stop him than he is determined to become a Bishop,” he explained quietly.

“What would you say if I told you that my determination to become a Bishop was even greater than your determination to stop him, and his determination to be a Bishop?” she challenged him.

“Then I would have to ask why you are so determined.”

Of all the times when she might have been able to tell her master the true reasons she was in the tournament, this was not the right one. She paused.

“My past,” she said finally. It was the only thing she was ready to part with.

“Then I must ask: Would you yield even if I told you that I would kill you to stop my grandson?”

Would Master Beng really stop at nothing to defeat Lancel? Mika was chilled by his admitted willingness to kill her if that’s what it would take, and wondered if he would ever reveal the reasons for his own persistence. But there was only one response she could make, and she said it with determined confidence.

“Never.”

Master Beng let out a chuckle.

“You know, you remind me of one of my former pupils. She was just as stubborn as you,” he said, evidently recollecting a happy moment. Mika wondered what that had to do with anything, though it was refreshing to hear him reveal some small tidbit from his own history. But he had already turned and was heading back toward the door.

“Master, what is going to happen tomorrow?” Mika called after him.

Without turning, he answered simply: “One of us will move on to the next round.”

And with that, Mika found herself alone on the rooftop.