She twisted, trying to get free, but Lila was already on her feet, a dagger in one hand. She slashed at Bex, but as she did, the blade simply dissolved, and the killer slammed her boot into Lila’s chest and sent her crashing down the stairs into the tavern below.
Shouts went up, and Tes heard the Antari ordering everyone out, and then the shape of the assassin filled her vision as Bex knelt before Tes, watching as she fought to free one of her hands. The fabric at her cuff tore a little, but didn’t give. And if there had been amusement in the killer’s face the night before, it was long gone. Her eyes were flat and grey and dangerous, and a vicious bruise was blooming beneath both, as if her nose had been recently broken. She flicked her wrist, and a short, sharp blade took shape in her palm.
“Where is it?” demanded Bex.
Tes swallowed, and shook her head. “I don’t have it.”
It was the truth. She’d left it sitting on the floor next to the bar below.
“Wrong answer,” said Bex, and then, before Tes could tear free, she drove the knife down through the back of Tes’s trapped hand.
Her mind went white with pain as the blade sank through to the hilt, the tip lodging in the wood below.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” hissed Bex, and Tes felt a scream rise up her throat, but when it came spilling out, she couldn’t hear it, not over the sudden howl of white noise in her ears.
A wall of wind slammed past her, and into Bex, sending her back across the landing and into the far wall, hard enough to splinter wood.
Tes gritted her teeth and yanked the knife out, choking back a sob as the steel came free. She thought she might be sick, turned her head and saw a swish of coat, and a pair of black boots as Lila Bard strode past her, blood dripping down her cheek.
Across the landing, Bex pushed off the wall and straightened, rolling her shoulders with an audible crack.
“Ice or stone?” asked the Antari, and when Bex only cocked her head in question, Lila touched the cut at her temple and said, “Never mind. I’ll choose.”
She moved fast, faster than a body should. A blur of limbs, her bloodstained hand thrust out as she shot across the landing, and Tes saw the silver of her magic twitch and brighten as the words spilled out.
“As Isera.”
The spell took shape just as her fingers grabbed at Bex’s front, but somehow, the killer twisted free at the last moment. The Antari’s hand found cloak instead of skin, and frost shot across the fabric—through it—turning the cloth to ice in the time it took to say the spell. Bex ducked and spun out of the cloak and it fell, and shattered on the landing floor between them.
The killer stared down at the frozen shards, and for the first time since she strode into Tes’s shop, the bland arrogance was gone, replaced by surprise, and perhaps, even, a touch of fear.
“Not fair, Antari,” she said as the metal bracer on her forearm unspooled, forming into blades.
Lila Bard only shrugged. “Fair has no place in a fight.”
Bex’s blades came singing through the air, but this time, the Antari was ready. She didn’t duck or dodge. Instead, she flung her own hands out, and the metal shivered to a stop.
“Just the one trick, then?” she asked. “Fine. But I can play it, too.”
The blades twitched, and then began to turn back toward Bex. The killer clenched her teeth, and they stopped, hovered, caught between them. In the air, Tes saw the strands of magic drawn taut as rope.
“When two magicians wield the same element,” said Lila Bard, “it becomes a battle of wills. Let’s see, then, which of us folds first.”
Her face was smooth, one eyebrow cocked as if it were all just a game, but Tes could see the strain in the air around her—she was using all her strength. So was Bex. The blades shivered, and the landing began to tremble as the two wills drew not just on the knives, but the surrounding metal. The hinges groaned and the nails pinning her down drew free, and Tes did what she should have done the moment the fight started.
She got out of the fucking way.
Tes scrambled down the stairs. She didn’t look back, not when halfway down she felt the tension break, the shudder of air and hiss of steel and the thunk of metal as sharpened points found wood.
She hit the ground floor and staggered, pain shooting through her bloody hand and wounded side, but she kept going, across the empty tavern to the door, which she flung open, only to collide with a man coming in.
She stumbled back, felt a hand on her shoulder, but there was no malice in it, only a gentle firmness as he steadied her. She looked up and saw silver light, saw red hair, parted by a streak of white, saw two eyes, one blue, the other black.