The fog thickened, swirling around his boots like the smoke from a Shadowgrove Phial, obscuring the sharp corners of the tenements. It felt like Duke Vaelen Shadowgrove the "Smoke Lord" himself was watching from the damp bricks, whispering the family motto: The God blooms in the dark.

  The street wasn't a street. It was a canyon carved by depressed giants.

  Black stone rose up on both sides, spiraling into the fog, covered in gargoyles that looked like they were silently judging Wilhelm’s life choices. The rain didn't fall here; it just sort of... existed. A wet, hanging misery.

  Wilhelm stumbled over a loose cobblestone, caught himself with a pirouette that was 80% panic and 20% ballet, and flashed a grin at the darkness.

  "Architecture with an attitude," he muttered, waving a hand vaguely at a particularly ugly statue. "Very aggressive. Very... pointy."

  Clara was skipping. Actually skipping. In a war zone.

  "You walk like a crab," she observed, hopping onto a stone bollard and balancing on one leg. "A drunk crab. With a coat."

  "It's called nautical equilibrium, Shortstack," Wilhelm corrected, swaying. "The world moves. I just move with it. If I walked straight, I’d fall over. Physics."

  They rounded a corner a sharp, jagged turn that smelled of sulfur and wet dog and ran straight into a wall of steel.

  Well, two walls.

  Two Bladeblood Knights. The big ones. Not the elites, but the "we eat rocks for breakfast" types. Plate armor so thick they looked like walking bank vaults. They blocked the narrow alley, swords drawn, visors down.

  "Halt!" the left one boomed. Voice like gravel in a blender. "Hand over the girl. The Archbishop demands her safety."

  Clara stopped skipping. She didn't look scared. She looked... bored. She let out a loud, exaggerated groan and slumped against the wall.

  "Ugh. The 'Safety' squad. They're the worst. They don't even let me play with knives."

  Wilhelm blinked. He hiccuped. He looked at the knights, then at Clara, then at his own hands.

  "Gentlemen!" Wilhelm spread his arms wide, stepping forward with a wobble that made the knights tense up. "I think there’s been a clerical error. We’re not... kidnapping. We’re... aggressively chaperoning? Taking a scenic route?"

  "Silence, traitor," the right knight growled. He took a step forward. The ground shook. "Surrender the heir."

  Wilhelm sighed. He reached for his rapier, but then stopped. He tapped his temple.

  "Thinking," he whispered to himself. "Always thinking. Never fighting fair. Fairness is for people who don't want to win."

  He looked at the ground. Wet. Slick. Cobblestones greased by centuries of grime and rain.

  He looked at the knights. Heavy. Top-heavy. Center of gravity somewhere around their necks.

  "I choose... physics," Wilhelm grinned.

  He didn't draw his sword. He slapped his palm onto the wet stones.

  "Slip."

  The magic hissed. A patch of flash-frozen ice, invisible in the rain, spread instantly under the knights' steel boots.

  It wasn't a majestic spell. It was a banana peel made of magic.

  The first knight stepped. His leg went whoosh.

  There is nothing dignified about a man in eighty pounds of plate armor falling over. It sounded like a kitchen cabinet falling down a flight of stairs.

  CLANG-CRASH.

  He hit the stones hard, sliding backward, legs flailing like an overturned turtle.

  "Oops," Clara giggled, clapping her hands. "Do it again! Do it again!"

  The second knight didn't fall. He was smarter. He planted his feet, growling, and raised his sword. The blade began to glow with orange heat. Fire Blade.

  "Witchcraft!" he roared.

  Wilhelm looked at the glowing sword. Then he looked at the water soaking the knight's armor.

  "Conductivity," Wilhelm noted, swaying dangerously close to the blade. "Another harsh mistress."

  He pointed a finger. A finger that was shaking, just a little.

  "Zap."

  A jagged arc of blue-white electricity snapped from Wilhelm’s finger. It wasn't a storm; it was a precise, nasty little static shock amplified by magic.

  It hit the wet armor.

  The knight convulsed. The electricity danced over the steel, finding every gap, every rivet. He seized up, his muscles locking. The glowing sword dropped from his hand clatter and he collapsed onto his knees, smoke rising from his visor.

  "Smells like... ozone," Wilhelm sniffed.

  The first knight the turtle was trying to stand up on the ice. Scrabbling. Slipping.

  Wilhelm walked over. He didn't run. He ambled. He stepped carefully around the ice patch.

  He drew his rapier.

  "Sorry, mate," Wilhelm whispered, looking down at the struggling man. "War is hell. And gravity is a bitch."

  He thrust. Precise. Through the gap in the visor.

  Quick. Clean.

  The second knight, the fried one, was trying to crawl. Groaning.

  Wilhelm spun around a little twirl that nearly sent him into the wall and leveled the sword.

  "And you," Wilhelm pointed. "You're just... excessively noisy."

  He flicked his wrist. The rapier darted out.

  Poke.

  Clara walked over to the bodies. She poked the fried knight with her boot.

  "You cheated," she said. She sounded delighted. "You didn't even sword-fight properly. You just... used science."

  "Pirate," Wilhelm corrected, sheathing his blade and checking his reflection in the dead man's breastplate. "We call that 'Tactical Impropriety'. Never bring a sword to a physics fight."

  He knelt down. Looting time.

  "Let's see... loose change... a lint ball... oh, hello."

  He pulled the boots off the first knight. They weren't standard issue. They were black leather, wrapped in shadow-stuff that smoked faintly in the rain. They felt light. Impossibly light.

  Wilhelm whistled low.

  "Fancy shoes," he murmured. "Way too nice for a guard. Someone raided the royal treasury before coming to work today."

  He kicked off his own soggy, cheap boots and pulled on the legendary ones. They shrank instantly to fit his feet. Snug. Like a second skin.

  He stood up. He felt... bouncy. Like he was standing on springs.

  "How do they look?" Wilhelm asked, striking a pose. One leg out, hands on hips.

  Clara tilted her head. "Like you stole them from a goth ninja. They're cool."

  "Right then," Wilhelm grinned. He looked at the high wall next to them. "Let's test the merchandise."

  He focused. The boots hummed against his soles. A hungry, draining sensation.

  "Up."

  The cost hit him like a punch to the gut. Oof. Over a liter of blood just to jump?

  But then he moved.

  He didn't just jump. He launched.

  The air under his feet turned hard as stone for a split second. CRACK. A boom of displaced air.

  Wilhelm shot upward, twenty feet in the air, clearing the alley wall effortlessly. He flailed his arms, screaming a little "Wooooaaah!" before landing on the roof with a surprisingly graceful roll.

  "Ow," Wilhelm muttered, clutching his chest as the blood loss dizzied him. "Pricey. Very pricey. But effective."

  He peered over the edge. Clara was down there, looking up, arms crossed.

  "Show off!" she yelled. "Get down here and carry me! I'm not jumping that!"

  Wilhelm laughed. A breathless, wheezy laugh.

  "Coming, Your Highness! Just... catching my breath. And maybe my lunch."

  He looked at his stats. 3.3 liters left.

  "Worth it," he whispered, tapping the boots together. "Definitely worth it."

  The roar of the battlefield hit them before the sight did a wall of noise that would have made King Thalan Stormsongweep with jealousy. They sprinted past the Statue of the Weeping Cat, a House Whitefield relic that looked ridiculously serene and soft while the world burned down around it.

  The noise.

  You can’t describe the noise of a battlefield to someone who hasn’t been there. It’s not just clashing steel. It’s the wet thud of bodies hitting mud, the screaming of horses (why do people bring horses to a siege?), and the sizzle of Enmagic frying the air.

  Wilhelm and Clara stood at the edge of the Cathedral plaza. Or rather, the slaughterhouse formerly known as a plaza.

  "Wow," Clara whispered. She was vibrating. Literally bouncing on her heels. "Look at the colors! That green fire? That's acid. Nasty stuff. Takes the skin right off."

  Wilhelm gagged. "Please. I just had a tart. Don't ruin the tart."

  He looked for his brothers.

  Brandan was easy to find. He was a whirlwind of gore near the fountain, his hammer turning Angels into scrap metal. But he was slowing down. Even a bear gets tired when bees keep stinging it.

  And Baldur...

  Gods.

  Baldur was fighting Alexander Shadowgrove near the steps. It wasn't a fight. It was an execution that was taking too long.

  Alexander moved like... like a rumor. Fast, insubstantial, elegant. He wasn't even sweating. He parried Baldur’s heavy, exhausted strikes with a flick of his wrist, looking bored.

  Baldur looked like a burnt briquette. His armor was fused to his skin on the left side. He was limping. But he kept swinging. Swing. Step. Swing. Step. The metronome of death.

  "He's playing with him," Clara noted, uncomfortably accurate. "Alexander could end it. Snip. Head off. He's enjoying the struggle."

  "Right," Wilhelm swallowed. He pulled his rapier. It felt like a toothpick. "Time for the performance of a lifetime. Or a very short death scene."

  He looked down at Clara.

  "Okay, Shortstack. We agreed on the script?"

  "You threaten me," Clara grinned, a wicked, toothy thing. "You scream like a maniac. I look helpless. And then we own them."

  "You are disturbing," Wilhelm muttered. "I like it."

  He grabbed her. Rougher than he intended, but his hands were shaking. He spun her around, pressing the cold steel of his blade against her neck. Not cutting. Just touching.

  "Ready?"

  "Showtime, Shiny Pants!" she giggled.

  Wilhelm took a deep breath. He channeled every ounce of panic, every drop of rum-fueled bravado, and stepped into the light.