The USA Fencing training facility occupied a converted warehouse on the outskirts of Colorado Springs, a scale of professional equipment and coaching infrastructure that made even Kingsley's well-funded salle look modest by comparison — a dozen regulation strips, an entire wall of video analysis equipment, a training staff that included, according to the orientation packet, two former Olympic medalists among the coaching roster.
Ivy stood in the facility's entrance with her gear bag over one shoulder, her father's saber carefully packed alongside the newer, more competition-grade blade the settlement money had finally allowed her to purchase, and felt a fresh wave of the same overwhelmed uncertainty that had colored her very first day at Kingsley, nearly a year ago now.
"First time at de
