3 AM

Left jab. Right cross. Left hook to the body. Right uppercut.

The heavy bag swung and he caught it with his shoulder and reset and went again. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut. The wraps on his hands were soaked and the tape underneath was peeling at the knuckles and the bag was the old canvas one Thomas had bought for "exercise" and used twice. It hung from a chain in the manor gym that was mostly Thomas's treadmill room, but the ceiling beam was solid oak and the bag could take what he gave it.

Three AM and the house was asleep and he was down here in gym shorts and nothing else, hitting combinations he shouldn't know. Kirigi's striking patterns layered over Shiva's footwork layered over Dragon's breathing control. His feet moved in angles that weren't boxing. His hips loaded power that came from places martial arts instructors didn't teach unless you'd studied where he'd studied.

A drop of sweat ran down his nose and hung there and fell on the floor.

He switched to elbows. Tight, vicious, the close-range work Shiva had beaten into him on stone floors. The bag jumped on the chain and the chain rattled and the sound was metal and canvas and his breathing and nothing else.

He threw a spinning back elbow that would have cracked a jaw and followed it with a knee strike to the bag's midsection and the chain complained and he stepped back and bounced on his toes and went again.

"How long have you been down here?"

He stopped. Turned.

Kate was leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed. West Point sweatpants and a tank top, her feet bare on the hardwood, her red hair flat on one side from the pillow. She looked like she'd been standing there for a while.

"Couldn't sleep," he said.

"Me either." She didn't move from the doorframe. Her eyes tracked his hands first. Then his feet, his stance, the distance from the bag. His shoulders and the muscle across his back. The sweat on his chest caught the overhead light and her eyes passed over it without pausing. She was cataloguing him.

"Who taught you to fight like that?" she said.

"Various people."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the one I've got."

She pushed off the doorframe and walked into the gym. Bare feet on the rubber mat. She circled him once, slow, and he stood still and let her because she'd earned the assessment. She stopped behind him. He could hear her breathing.

"Your jab is Queensberry," she said. "Your cross is Krav Maga. Your footwork is Filipino, maybe Kali, maybe Arnis, and there's a Japanese layer underneath that I can't place." She came around to face him. "Your elbows are Thai but the knee strikes are wrong for Muay Thai. They're faster. Shorter. Someone taught you to kill with a knee, not score points."

He looked at her. She looked at him.

"I was top of my class in combatives," she said. "I've trained with Rangers, Green Berets, and a SEAL instructor who taught empty-hand at Fort Bragg on weekends. I know what trained looks like. You're past trained. You're operational."

The gym was quiet. The bag swayed on its chain. Somewhere upstairs a pipe expanded in the wall with a small metallic tick.

"Who are you getting ready for?" she said.

"Kate."

"Don't do that. Don't Bruce-Wayne me." She took a step closer. "I just watched you throw a spinning elbow that would drop a two-hundred-pound man and your heart rate barely moved. You fight like someone who expects to get hit for real." Her jaw was set. "So do I. So tell me."

He unwrapped his left hand. Slow. The tape came off in a long strip and his knuckles were red and swollen and the calluses were thick. He started on the right.

"I'm preparing for something," he said. "I can't tell you what."

Her jaw tightened. Then it eased.

"Okay," she said.

She walked to the bag. Put her hands on it. Palms flat, arms extended, her stance solid and grounded, the stance of someone who'd held bags for hundreds of soldiers.

"Show me," she said.

He wrapped his hands again. Fresh wraps from the shelf, the ones Alfred restocked without comment. He taped them down and shook his hands out and set his feet.

He hit the bag. She held it. His jab rocked the bag and her arms absorbed the impact and her feet didn't move. His cross was harder and she leaned into it. Hook, body shot, the bag jumped and she rode it. He escalated. Faster. Harder. The combinations got more complex and the bag was swinging and she was holding and neither of them was talking.

After ten minutes her forearms were shaking and she hadn't let go. Her jaw was set and her bare feet were planted and the sweat was running down her arms and she was still there.

He stopped. Stepped back. His breathing was controlled, barely elevated. Hers was harder. She looked at his chest, his breathing.

"Your cardio doesn't make sense," she said.

"I train a lot."

"That's not what I mean and you know it."

He picked up a towel from the bench and wiped his face and hands. A spider was building a web in the corner of the ceiling, between the light fixture and the wall. Ambitious location. The light would kill every fly before it got close.

"I lost my commission because of who I am," Kate said. She was still holding the bag with both hands, flat, like she needed to hold on to something. "I could lie and keep it. My commander gave me the option. I said no."

She let go of the bag and crossed her arms.

"I need to be ready for something too. I don't know what yet. But I'm not going to sit in my dad's house and figure out which charity board to join." She looked at him across the bag. "I need a gym partner who can keep up."

"Tomorrow night," he said. "Same time."

Her mouth pulled to one side.

"When you're ready to tell me what you're building," she said, "I can help."

"I know."

She walked to the door. Stopped. Turned back.

"Your knee strikes," she said. "You're dropping your guard hand when you chamber. Whoever taught you that didn't expect you to fight someone who could reach your face from knee range."

She was right. Shiva was five-four. The technique assumed a shorter opponent.

"Fix it," Kate said. And left.

He stood in the gym and the bag swayed and the spider was still building and his cousin's bare feet made no sound on the stairs.

He fixed his knee strikes until four-thirty.