Devilry kicks me in the face, then runs up the steps.
“You vicious little witch!” I snarl, clambering to my feet and chasing after her. “Stop trying to ruin my gorgeous face!”
“Ha!” she yells. “Gorgeous? I guess you’ve never looked in a mirror. You’re aggressively ordinary.”
“That hurts.” I grab for her ankle, but she’s too quick. She races down the undamaged part of the upstairs hallway, ducks into a room, and tries to shut the door. I slam my forearm against it, then use my whole body to block it from closing.
“Fine, maybe I’m not gorgeous. But I’m cute, right? You gotta give me that, at least.”
“I don’t have to give you anything.” She reaches through the opening of the door, slashing at me with her knife. I twist out of the way, then catch her arm and ram it hard against the doorframe. She squeals in pain, and I shove the door wider.
Devilry kicks me through the gap, bruising my shins. Then she whips her blade at me again. Despite how fast she’s moving, I recognize the knife as mine. I pluck her dagger from my hip and jab it toward her face. She jerks back, but not before I open a shallow cut along her cheekbone.
“That dagger is mine,” she hisses.
“Trade?”
She hesitates, then nods.
“No deal. I like this one.” I swipe at her again, but she ducks and releases the door so suddenly that I stumble into the room, off balance.
She’s on my back in a second, her legs locked around my waist, her chest compressing my pack against my spine while I stagger forward. Seizing my hair in her fist, she yanks my head back and sets the knife to my exposed throat.
But I’ve already grabbed her forearm, and I shove the blade away from my skin. I whip my body forward, breaking her hold and pitching her onto the floor with a loud crash. This room has stone pavers, not wood, and I know that impact had to hurt.
While she’s recovering from having the breath knocked out of her, I tear my pack off, tossing it aside so I can fight better. But she doesn’t stay still for more than a second. She springs into a crouch and delivers a spinning kick to the back of my ankle. I slam flat on my back, her dagger flying out of my fingers.
I was right. These stones hurt.
Devilry leaps on top of me, astride my waist, with one palm braced on the floor and the other hand holding the dagger to my neck.
Deftly I pluck a silver knife from her other hip sheath with my left hand. I consider thrusting it into her spine, between her shoulder blades, but she hisses, “Don’t even think about it. I’ll slit your throat before you get it halfway in.”
Relenting, I let my left arm fall back against the floor, above my head. I don’t let go of the dagger, but I allow her to see it so she knows it’s not an immediate threat.
She’s nose to nose with me, panting, seething. “Don’t fucking move.”
“I’m not.” The fingers of my right hand touch her leg, lightly brushing the hilts of two smaller knives.
“Don’t,” she warns again. “I swear I’ll do it.”
I could yank one of the knives out and jab it into her side, but she’d kill me the second I did. So instead, I move my fingers up to her thigh, right near her hip joint, and squeeze lightly.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she demands.
“Getting a quick feel before I die.”
“Asshole.”
“I really am. And you’re fucking gorgeous.”
Maybe I’m imagining it, but I could swear there’s a hint of humor in the glittering violence of her gaze.
“Flattery doesn’t work on me, fuckwad,” she says. “Flattery gets you cut open and bleeding out on this floor, do you understand? Take your worthless gang of murderers and leave this fortress if you value your skins.”
“Wait… you’re not going to kill me?”
She licks her lips, then snarls her frustration through gritted teeth before launching herself off me. Before I can rise, she kicks me hard in the ribs.
