Steph shoved through the doors of the pinewood lodge an hour before signup closed, clutching a registration slip that no woman in Olive Hollow had ever managed to file correctly. The wit-and-wisdom tournament had crowned a champion every summer for ninety years. Every champion had been a man. Steph meant to fix that. She had the tongue for it — sharp enough to make the tavern boys buy her drinks just to shut her up — and she had memorized every riddle in her grandmother's book. What she did not have was the rulebook. The rulebook was the problem. It sat behind the judge's table, thick as a brick, and no copies were sold. Past winners guarded its tricks like recipes. Steph watched a farrier get scratched from the roster for wearing a belt buckle above his navel. She watched a scribe get tossed for saying "good morning" to a judge instead of "fair morning." The line shortened. Her palms went slick. "You're going to get bounced in thirty seconds," said a voice at her elbow. Steph turned. The blacksmith's daughter stood there in a green sweater and scorched gloves, silver hair drifting up as if the air under the rafters had forgotten which way was down. Lira Greaves. They had traded maybe six words in their lives, mostly about horseshoes. "Why do you care," Steph said. "My father entered nine times. Nine." Lira pulled a folded packet from her belt pouch. "He wrote down every trick they used to knock him out. I was going to burn it. Then I heard a girl was signing up." Steph took the packet. The paper was warm. She flipped it open and read fast. Address the head judge by his mother's maiden name. Never sit before the third bell. Refuse the offered cup — it is a test, not hospitality. Enter your name with the surname first. A butterfly drifted past the window, orange with dark spots, and settled on the sill above the judge's shoulder. Steph noticed the judge glance at it, then look away. Another rule, maybe. She would ask later. "Why give this to me," Steph said. "Because he'll never try again," Lira said. "And because I can't hold a hammer without freezing it solid. I'm not winning anything. You might." Steph walked to the table. She said her surname first. She stayed standing. When the clerk slid a tin cup toward her, she pushed it back and asked after his mother by name. The clerk's pen stopped. He looked up, surprised, and then wrote her onto the roster in clean black ink. She was in. Behind her, the head judge folded his arms and studied her over his spectacles. He had not expected her to clear the door. Now he would have to beat her with questions instead.