“All right. Let’s test how human I once was then, shall we?”
No, she thought automatically. Even though she had no idea what he intended to do. She only saw the wand suddenly in his hand, and his free one open as if to take hold of something, and knew she didn’t want to see this. And sure enough, he drew a line of glittering blue through the air.
And now he had a knife.
Near transparent, gleaming.
But keen as a shard of glass.
“Don’t,” she said, but too late, too late. He drew that sharp edge down the inside of his forearm, in one stroke. Like someone trying to end their life the fastest way they could, it seemed. And even more so when that red line split open. She could see parted muscle. She could seebone.
“Oh my god, oh my god, what have you done?” she cried, too horrified to even pretend she could cope with this. Blood had already covered his hand. It was pattering onto the floor. This was too much, it just was.
No matter how casual he was being about it.
“Shown you how human I am underneath my skin.”
“And you needed to make a ten-inch gash to do that? Holy shit, you are bleeding everywhere; you are bleedingso much. I have to go get someone. I have to get you to the infirmary.”
“Mina, you know how fast I heal.”
“Right, but—”
“But what? You thought a hole through my body went away in a week, but this flesh wound was going to stick around long enough to need some kind of magical medical intervention?”
“I would hardly call a knife hitting bone a flesh wound.”
“To me it is.” He held up his arm. The one that had been all but split in two a moment ago—but now had no split in it all. There was just smooth skin beneath the coating of blood. “See. All gone. Good as new. And plus now you’ve seen the sort of thing you need to conjure in order to actually kill me.”
“So that’s the only way to cut off your head, then.”
“Yes. A knife forged in magic, with a particular sort of edge.” He turned the blade so she could see. It almost seemed to disappear;it was that fine. “Though of course you need to do it yourself. A spell cast cannot be turned against—”
“The caster, I know.”
“You can hold it, though.”
“What would I want to do that for?” she asked. But she took the knife when he spun it in his hand, and held the hilt out to her. She marveled over the lightness of it, like she wasn’t really holding anything at all. And how it shimmered, in the low light.
But of course that meant she wasn’t paying attention, when he stepped back, slowly, into the shadows. When the shadows started to gather and deepen, until everything dimmed. “For practice,” he said, suddenly so low and deep, into that abrupt veil of darkness. “Now come for me, before I come for you.”
Then she looked up, just in time to see one of those velvet curtains lift and reach for her. Like a ghostly arm, like there was something underneath it—even though she knew nothing was. It was just material bespelled. He was trying to frighten her with cheap tricks.
Yet somehow it was no less terrifying for it.
She stepped back so fast she stumbled and almost went to one knee. In fact, she only managed to stay upright because her hand flailed out, and fell on the back of the chair she’d sat on the other day. It helped her, and helped her again when that red velvet hand stretched farther. It almost stroked her cheek, and she lifted that rickety wooden thing and tried to throw it.
Only the thing wasn’t wooden anymore.
It was melting in her hand, turning pliable and soft and, god, disgusting. God, it felt disgusting. And it wouldn’t let her let it go. It stuck to her hand when she shook it; it seemed to squirmand slither until it became clear. He’d turned the chair into a sort of creature. A snake thing, that looked at her with one gimlet eye.
Use the knife, she thought, as it twisted its way up her arm.
But just as she went to try to stab the thing—unsure if it would work against creatures he had magicked, but willing to try—the velvet hand snatched at her. It got her by the wrist, while she was too busy paying attention to anything else. And after it had, she didn’t need to worry about the snake anymore.
It smothered her so fast she knew she had no more than seconds. She went to scream, and it seemed to fill her mouth. The only breath she could take stuffed her throat with material, heavy and thick and tasting of tattered ruins. Though even if that hadn’t been the case, she suspected the result would be the same.
The velvet had her around the throat and chest.
