Inanna has a wry sense of humor and apparently zero sympathy for a woman in a panic-waddle. Cold, conditioned air drifts over me, and the soft white noise lights up the hallway in my new senses. I’m in a man-trap—a long, sealed corridor with one door—and of course the disability-compliant sign declares it a MEN’S RESTROOM.

  A startled bark of laughter escapes me as a few drops leak. Frack. My thighs clamp together as I slip inside, fingers trailing along the wall. I need a toilet immediately. Instead, my hand lands on a urinal. I jerk back with an internal howl because I have just put my hand in—no, I refuse to finish that thought.

  My panties twitch and I leak again. Another urinal looms beside the first, and then an entire wall of them. “Don’t guys ever sit to poo?” I hiss at the empty room. The echo bounces off tile like mocking applause.

  I spin and finally spot salvation: stalls—praise the builder who hid them on the opposite wall like a cruel joke. I sprint the six steps, leaving a shameful dotted line behind me, and slam into a stall. Beside it, gleaming like heaven’s own plumbing, waits a bidet.Relief hits so hard I almost cry—plop-plop, fizz-fizz, oh what a relief it is… The jingle floats up from childhood TV like a ghost.

  Why is there a bathroom big enough for a football stadium inside a one-person hallway? I don’t care. Not now.

  I snicker, grab a towel from the stack, and shuffle onto the bidet like I’ve reached the Pearly Gates. “I’m in a dungeon,” I giggle, “with a bidet.”

  The hum changes—sound tightening, echoes collapsing inward. The “room” shrinks around me. The toilet flushes. The spray cuts off—and the entire bidet evaporates beneath me.

  Plop.

  My butt hits smooth stone. “Eep!”

  I scramble upright, dry myself, and try to stash the nice fluffy towel in my pack… where it vanishes. “I liked that towel,” I sulk.

  “Always a pleasure to serve,” Inanna snickers over the speakers.

  “Can you tell me how to get back to my team?”

  “Back?” she muses. “Hmm… would you prefer Jenny, Rhea, Solenne? Tess is out—I have plans for her—or perhaps Lenora or Frankie? Ooh, that’d be a wicked twist…”

  “Inanna.”

  “What?”

  “I just need a doorway.”

  “Exactly.”

  I growl.

  “You can go forward,” she says sweetly, “or die and be reborn into your family.”

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  I thunk my fist against the wall. “Can’t you tell them where I am?”

  “Oh, they’ll figure it out. You left quite a trail on the way in. You know, holding things that long isn’t healthy—”

  “Okay! Okay. The door?”

  “There’s a big sign over it.”

  “I am blind.”

  “Oh! Right. Yes. Memo from Maddox—”

  “Who?”

  “My accountant. You probably see him as a leprechaun. He likes that skin. Excellent with numbers.”

  “How could I forget.”

  “Anyway—can you see the door?”

  I huff.

  Ping!

  A click starts ahead—the same click as a crosswalk telling pedestrians it’s safe.

  I follow.

  “Good luck!” Inanna calls. “Oh—and you might want to string your bow before opening that door…”

  Oh gods.

  “Inanna,” I whisper, “what’s on the other side?”

  “Oh no, dear. That would break the rules. But you’ll want warmth. I can’t change your outfit—you’ll need the bonuses. So…”

  She giggles. Wickedly.

  A chill skitters down my spine. “Inanna…?”

  “Rhea will love it!”

  The itch starts at my ankles. Races up my legs. My fingers twitch—freeze.

  Hair erupts everywhere. Thick, warm, luxurious.

  “Inanna!”

  “Quite fetching.”

  I groan as fur bunches under my corset. My panties spit out a small tumbleweed.

  “Ta-ta for now!”

  Minutes drag as I adjust to my new coat. My fingers comb through auburn curls draping my chest. My hair—my mane—whips across my now decidedly hairy arse.

  Dad would laugh himself breathless.

  I wedge my bow against my leg, flex the limbs, and pull the string—only for it to snag with a painful schk as leg hair catches. I unstring immediately with a whimper, and my bow hums as if trying not to laugh. “Not funny,” I mutter.

  When I reach for the knob, I misjudge; my new fur throws off my proprioception. My senses spike and then fold inward as sound flattens and electricity dims to a low ache. The world muffles, as though someone wrapped my skull in a wool sweater. Panic prickles—sharp and fast. Blind again. Not again. I force myself to stop and breathe. The senses aren’t gone—just filtered. Softer. Gentler. A dimmer switch instead of a blackout. I can still hear, still feel, and now every hair tingles, mapping faint outlines in the air like a ghost-image sketched in static.

  I grip the handle, steady myself, and step through into a walk-in freezer. My fur fluffs instantly. Bless Inanna—just this once. A sudden BANG! blasts through the cold. I drop, roll, and fire in a single motion—instinct, not thought.

  “Oh gods!” someone cries. “She hit me!”

  “Goddess,” I gasp, “I hit her!” I scramble toward the wireframe shapes flickering in my electroception. Everything is math now—grids and spheres and subdivided cells of color. I conjure a bolt, and it looks… red. Electricity should not have a color, and yet I feel the last bolt’s hum lodged in a bundle of green data behind a mound of tangled spaghetti-code. I aim and release.

  “Argh!” A thump follows.

  I conjure again.

  “I think she’s dead,” a woman whispers—a blob of green a hundred cells to my right. I breathe, release, and her green dissolves into zeros.

  “I’m out of here,” someone mutters.

  Conjure, breathe, release. A thump and a clatter follow—maybe a rifle hitting stone. This is too easy. Yes, I’m a fifty in Archery with a mountain of buffs, but three perfect hits with zero Luck? Either I’ve ascended to pure badassery… or they’re unbelievably dumb.

  “Rebel,” Miss Jones calls, her voice cold as a guillotine, “which one of you is it?”

  A rustle to my right draws my attention. Green flickers at the edge of the grid—and then more appear. Ten. Fifteen. Thirty. Holy frack—they’re everywhere.

  “My money’s on the missing archery teacher,” Constance Jones muses. “Lisa? Liza? Doesn’t matter. Textile-lover filth. The pens for you.”

  I huddle low, praying my fur muffles the glow of my electroception while I scan for an escape route. But I don’t understand half these shapes. Is that a ridge? A hole? A river? I can’t tell.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are, Rebel,” Miss Jones croons.

  Shite. Suddenly, I need to pee again.

  Monday / Wednesday / Friday release for this arc. Starting next week, updates will go live on Tuesdays and Thursdays as we head into the final stretch of Arc One.