Nel hovered somewhere in the back of my consciousness like a cat watching a bird from a window, mercifully quiet through most of it. She surfaced once, briefly, to tell me that Nike's satisfaction levels were running high and that the divine betting pools had shifted significantly in my favour since I'd announced the Cabana choice. Then she retreated. Even the gods knew when to let a man think.
Maki was conspicuously absent, which meant she was either sulking somewhere because I'd refused her request to ride to the finals on my shoulder in cat form, or she'd found someone to terrorise in the stands. Fifty-fifty odds either way.
At the sixty-minute mark, Braxton appeared in the doorway. He looked at the tactical display on Natalia's phone, at the diagram Isabelle had drawn on the back of a tournament bracket, at the ring of women arranged around me with expressions ranging from focused to ferocious.
He looked at me.
"Don't lose," he said.
Then he left.
