The Hero Strikes Back Read Free Page B

figure.”
    Was pale a complexion? And I had, unfortunately, no figure to speak of. I was neither ethereally thin nor sensually voluptuous. The best anyone could say about me was that I was healthy.
    There were times when it was appropriate for me to go to the extraordinary effort of looking my pitiful best. An informal party given by a friend was not one of those times. I’d just have to charm people with my winning personality. But my mother wouldn’t accept that. It was the only thing marring her visit. From day one she hadn’t stopped harping on my clothes. “Leave it, Mother. I mean it.”
    â€œRight then.” Mother nodded. “How about we come to an agreement? I won’t comment on your way of doing things and you won’t comment on mine.”
    â€œFine.” My mother was a grown woman. If she wanted to make a duplicitous, unfaithful fool of her . . .
    I shook my head, actually shook my head right there in the middle of the room where everyone could see me. It was none of my business. Really. I hadn’t lived with the family since I was four years old. I had no idea how they behaved on the day-to-day basis. Maybe my father was a flirt, too.
    It was strange, seeing my mother every day, without the rest of my family. I wouldn’t have thought of such a visit myself. But I’d barely settled back in to High Scape after returning from Erstwhile before I got a letter from my mother, telling me she was going to visit and teach me how to live in the real world.
    She didn’t actually write that last bit out, but that was what she meant. I could tell. And I didn’t mind. It had been made clear to me, not long after I left the academy, that I didn’t understand how regular people lived.
    And I didn’t really know my mother, despite what I had said to Erin. Despite what I often actually thought. I knew her better than most of the students of the academy had known theirs, for my family had had the means and the inclination to visit me almost annually. But those had been short visits, only a couple of weeks, barely worth the trip. And they had been on academy grounds, where we were all subject to academy rules. And it had been my mother and father and sister and brothers and me.
    This was different. Mother was staying for an indefinite time—and with her behavior with the Captain I was beginning to wonder why, if there was something going on with the family that I knew nothing about—and it was just her, with none of the others for distraction. We were both adults, free of anyone’s rules but our own. She was staying at an expensive boarding house called the Lion’s Den, but she spent most of her days at the Triple S house, occasionally staying the night. Which sort of made me the host, but she was my mother, which meant—didn’t it?—that she had some kind of authority over me. It was a logistical mess. Who was supposed to be making the decisions for whom?
    I went back to my drink. It had started to melt. It didn’t taste as good that way.
    Risa and Erin returned from the kitchen, halting the conversations because they were carrying food, which always had that effect. And the food was on fire. Chunks of meat and whatnot on sticks, on fire. Apparently it was supposed to be served that way. I didn’t know if serving flaming food to alcohol-filled people was the best idea ever, but it certainly made a good spectacle.
    After everyone who cared for some had been served with torched meat and fresh drinks, Erin came back to me. “Sorry about that.”
    â€œIs she all right?”
    â€œShe seems to be, just washed off the blood and wrapped a bandage around her hand, but with Risa it’s always hard to tell. You know these law enforcement types. Can’t show any pain unless you’re actually dead, and then, well, what’s the point?”
    He said that as though it were a bad thing.
    â€œAh hell!” Samuel shouted,