Corinne couldn't bring herself to let go of Micah's hand. She felt as if she was falling, the ground a sea of whirling air beneath her feet, her mind spiralling in circles until she lost all sense of where she was. All she had to halt her descent was his touch. Without it, she would shatter.

The cracks had formed already, cold bites in her skin that seeped confusion.

Confusion and the sweet, electric thrum of magic.

She still recalled the pain. Felt it, even: the burning rod plunged between her ribs, the choking in her lungs, the dullness that settled over her to numb it all and sap her strength until she gave in. And yet it was formed of a ghost's breath, fading to mist. Though stuffed with a thousand jagged thoughts, her head was clear. Her heart beat.

Micah's grip fell limp, and panic shot through all of it. Seizing his shoulder, she shook him, his hand practically crushed beneath hers. "Micah," she urged, sinking lower on her knees. "Micah, come on. Stay with me."

His skin was hot and sticky, coated in sweat. His arm splayed out beside him. It ran with blood from several streams, already forming a patchwork pool of crimson and silver beneath it. He'd mangled it. The gash cut so deep that his knife must have struck bone. She swept the immediate area as if something to bind it with might materialise, terror a rising sea in her chest, drowning her in the dark realisation that she had no idea what to do. That there was nothing she could do.

She was supposed to be dead.

Micah let out a soft, groaning whimper. His eyes flickered half-open. Their silver was clouded, the light in them reduced to glints amongst grey fog. They rose to meet her desperate gaze anyway.

"Sorry," he murmured, the word a fluid slur she barely picked out. His lips curved in far too wide a smile for how shaky it was. He had such a silly, stupid smile. She hated it. Tears filled her eyes.

"You idiot." The shards that formed her voice splintered as she forced them together. "You should have let me go."

Applause pounded the air, and tension snapped into Corinne's muscles. Another pair of hands joined half a second later. The second was disjointed, punctuated by laughter, but the first was slow, deliberate, regular. Even as more joined, an oppressive noise that clogged the room with the itching stench of victory, all she could hear was that steady beat. In a way, it was calming. It gave her a steely kind of focus.

Spying the discarded knife out of the corner of her eye, she snatched it up, her palm coated in the hot, tacky feel of Micah's blood, and pushed carefully to her feet. Even the throbbing in her leg has lessened. Pushing aside all meaning in the action, she wiped the blade over her wounded thigh, wincing as it dragged over sensitive skin.

She turned. Khalida's lips quirked. Parting her hands, she lifted one, and the applause stopped.

Their stares met, and silence reigned.

Even the click of her heel as she moved forward seemed to blend with the quiet, as if she held control over it. Her voice was soft, a silky breeze. "Thank you both for that excellent show. We all enjoyed it tremendously."

Corinne narrowed her eyes. She'd stalked the silence plenty of times before. It was her ally, not her servant. She said nothing.

"Did you not enjoy it?" Khalida lowered her head. "That's a shame. Your performance was exemplary. Did you really think I'd let you die so easily?"

Yes. The instinctive answer was sandpaper in her throat. She swallowed, ignoring the lump that hindered the action, the salty remnants of tears that tingled on her lips. Of course Khalida would kill her. She'd been raised as a tool, a weapon. When a weapon no longer served its owner, it was destroyed.

Yet that acceptance hadn't lessened her fear. It hadn't altered her relief when the pain ended.

Shame nipped at her nerves, yet she found her fingers skimming her chest regardless, finding the torn edge of her shirt and tracing over the sliver of revealed skin. Blood slid under her nails, but the flesh was smooth beneath. She couldn't even feel the ridge of a scar. Had Khalida really had that much confidence that this would work? Or was this just another bluff, another pretence to be shattered the moment it suited her?

Maybe it simply wasn't enough of a spectacle. She planned to break Corinne down slowly, carefully, piece by piece. This was only the beginning of the show.

She backed up half a step, horribly aware of Micah sprawled on the ground behind her.

Khalida chuckled. "Do you still believe there's no faith to be had in magic?"

Corinne snatched her hand away from her chest, digging her nails into one palm as the knife's hilt bit into the other. "So what?" she snapped before she could think better of it. "You'll lock Micah up in your tower and harvest his blood like some kind of animal? Even if the healing does work, it doesn't mean he can make you live forever. You're just torturing him for your own whims."

"Torturing?" A frown marred Khalida's expression. "How twisted has your opinion of me become? I want Micah to willingly assist me, of course." One corner of her mouth perked upward. "Just like he chose to assist you."

Her breath snagged, caught on the memory of Micah, the desperation that had spilled like silver lightning into his wide gaze. An ache built up behind her eyes. Curling a fist, she swiped her coat sleeve over her face, hoping it didn't come away as wet as it felt. She couldn't remember the last time she'd cried. She'd thought she'd weaned herself off the urge entirely. With tears staining her cheeks, she felt like a tiny child again, her knife too heavy a weight in her hand, longing to retreat to somewhere quiet and lonely to sob into her knees. Vulnerability was a net that clung to her flesh.

It tightened, webbed lines denting her skin, as Khalida closed the distance between them. Corinne flinched away from her outstretched hand.

"I know." Khalida spoke with feather-soft care, a comfort that Corinne might have believed had she not had the benefit of experience to seek out its artificial weave. "You always rebelled against the idea of magic. It must be difficult to come to terms--"

"I don't care," Corinne snarled, "about magic." Her veins hissed, singing with a boiling heat that smothered all lingering trace of the healing power's cool sweetness. Her glare burned with the effort of keeping herself from shaking.

Khalida raised an eyebrow. "How ungrateful you are to the miracle that saved your life."

"No." She stoked the fire in her blood, keeping it flowing without haste, steadying it. "Micah saved my life. And you--" With a hiss that grated in her lungs, she grabbed Khalida's arm, jerking her forward. The knife's point hovered half an inch from her neck. "You will not lay a finger on him, or I will spend the rest of the life he gifted me doing everything I can to destroy you."

The click of pistols being armed all around the room registered at the back of her mind. She ignored them. If they wanted to shoot her, then so be it. She'd already died once today. She could do it again.

Khalida's laugh tickled her nose. They were painfully close, but Corinne didn't dare let go. "Such a weighty promise for one stupid boy."

Red-streaked strands of hair dangled in her face. Corinne had to push aside the urge to run her fingers through her own hair, if only to check that they no longer matched. She drew in a sharp breath, the air like smoke to breathe, and narrowed her eyes. She knew the threat that would dance in them. The same flame roared in her chest, its tendrils curled in her fingers, reflected in the red-streaked surface of her knife.

Fury's haze crawled in at the edges of her vision, but she didn't care. At least this time its direction was just.

"I mean it," she growled.

A sickly sweet smile adorned Khalida's lips. "Then let's see how good you are at destroying."

She snatched Corinne's arm, dragging it sideways. Corinne fought back, her knife's point just nicking Khalida's chin before she was forced to jerk back and twist out of the grip. Her rifle's mahogany coating flashed in the corner of her eye. She feinted right, then lunged for it, her knife slashing towards Khalida's wrist. It dodged in towards her hip, the rifle flipping up to point Corinne's way. Instinctively, she kicked out.

The sole of her boot connected, and the gun slipped from her mother's grip.

She didn't have time to be shocked at how easily the strength had come, nor at how any trace of the wound in her leg had vanished. She dived, snatching the rifle up from where it hit the ground, and spun on her heels, her heart smacking into her ribcage. Her hands slotted into their usual place. The butt of the rifle dug into her heaving chest.

Khalida's smile hadn't wavered. "Very good," she purred. Leisurely, she pulled a second, black-striped rifle from beneath her coat, resting it gently in her hands, mocking in the way it rose slowly to point Corinne's way.

You can't win, it whispered, hollow, phantom laughter embracing its barrel in strings of shadow. You're surrounded. You're alone. You're dead.

Her teeth dug into her tongue. She gripped her rifle so tight it ached, determined to hide the quivering in her fingers. Fear pounded in shocking icy waves that threatened to dampen the fire lashing her upright. All Micah had done was for nothing. She was going to die anyway, and she would die afraid. The little cornered girl crushed by the weight of the darkness.

With a long, careful inhale, she sunk into a crouch. Silver blood stuck her fingers together as she shifted them. I'm sorry, Micah.

"I'll do it."

The voice was small, but it snapped the silence with ease. Numb warmth prodded at her heart. She set her jaw against it, feeling her fear solidify, a band of chilled steel that wound her lungs in dread.

Micah's eyes shone with the dim reflection of the moon split into twin pools as he lifted his head. His tangle of matted hair concealed most of one, its silver ends dipped in blood. He pushed himself up with his uninjured arm, his face paling with the effort, but that gut-wrenching determination had set his features with new strength. "I'll help you. I'll... I'll do whatever you want. Just don't hurt her. Please."

The feeble thread of the final word broke in two, a rubber string that rebounded on Corinne. More than ever, she was aware of the invisible chains that bound her feet, the way she froze in place, the will to rush to his side and embrace him in the hope that her touch would mend his pain clamped uselessly to the floor. She pinned him with her glare instead, though guilt writhed through her in the form of a serpent. "Micah, no."

His return stare was too fierce for the usual softness of his expression. "Yes."

"Excellent!" Lowering her rifle with a flourish, Khalida glided over to him, the pleated edge to her cloak skimming the blood-soaked ground as she leaned over him. "I'm so glad you came around, Micah. This will be so much easier if you decide to cooperate early on."

That fierceness whipped to drill into her. Even wet with tears, his eyes held a new, searing kind of light, painted in the same silver glitter as the swirls of colour that decorated the pool around him. "I'll cooperate. Now let Corinne go."

With a hum, she traced a finger through the blood, tilting it into the red-tinted light to admire it. "I think it would be a shame to separate the two of you, would it not?"

"I said let her go," Micah snapped. The words tripped into one another, fluid and murky. His nails curled into the floorboards. Even at a small distance, Corinne could make out how much his arm shook. His breath trembled with the same heaviness as he sucked it in. "I-If you kill her, then I'll never help you. Never."

Khalida's smile grew smaller and softer. Deadlier. "So pure." The words fell like a whisper, but drifted like smoke throughout the room, easily audible. In a sickeningly gentle gesture, she swept aside a lock of Micah's hair. Her hand lingered there for a moment before it lifted, motioning to her followers scattered across the room. Reluctance pulsed in waves, but obedience overwhelmed it. The guns lowered. Corinne swallowed hard, her relief hollow, her skin prickling. It was too easy to let her own rifle drop to point downward.

In the brief, drifting track her gaze traced away from Micah, another's eyes snagged her attention. She stiffened.

Not alone.

"Positively overflowing with self-sacrifice, aren't you?" Khalida sighed as if the notion made her wistful, a tinge of that magical longing. "How angelic of you. You must have such a heart."

Micah's sharp inhale found her ears, a needle prick of pity that stabbed her gut, but she didn't let herself look at him. Rivo held her focus. His eyes were as hard and stilled as always, sturdy as the tree bark they stole their shade from. They carried calm along with them, a firm hand on her shoulder, a grip to steady her shaking hands. The slightest, poking edge of a smile broke through. She couldn't bring herself to return it, but she took its aid nonetheless.

"You're not alone," he'd said to her once, his voice a deep whisper that held her tight in that shadowed alley. When he first offered her rescue, a chance to escape the place that held her in a bloodstained noose, she'd fought him. But it was in that moment she recalled her simmering doubts losing their fire. She'd trusted him then, and she could trust him now.

"We can fight this together."

His chin dipped in a small nod.

"It's a travesty you could ever think of yourself as useless." Khalida tutted, tapping at the quiet of the room. All eyes were on her, all attention hanging off each carefully placed word. Her followers remained here to observe her show. Sometimes their focus wandered from what was important, it seemed. Rookies.

Now, Rivo mouthed, and they moved at once.

All Corinne needed to see was the blur of the fist he threw at the man beside him before she spun away, locking onto her target and snapping her trigger closed in one swift motion. A gruff cry provided the echo to her shot. Against the wall, the man holding Lilith -- Corinne knew his name, but didn't care enough to recall it -- collapsed to one knee, a rapid scarlet patch blotching his thigh. He sneered, his pistol whipping up, only to be knocked aside by a well-aimed jab from Lilith. Her shredded polka-dot jacket flying out with the movement, she pulled a blinking metallic object from the side of her trousers and smacked him upside the head with it. The man slumped to the ground.

Corinne's smile was faint, pinched between her teeth, but its amusement trickled deeper. Rivo might have coaxed her from the darkness, but Lilith had been the one to show her the colour beyond.

The snap of a second gunshot tore through the air, jolting away the moment of confidence before it could linger too long. Knife wedged into her belt and rifle hugged to her chest, she leapt, skidding around the creaking spiral of stairs and shoving herself into the gap behind them. More noise clogged the room. Chaos had erupted.

Another second, and Lilith joined her. She panted, her face gleaming with sweat and eyes alive with an equal mix of adrenaline-fuelled hope and sheer panic. She waved the device still pressed into her hand in its form as a makeshift weapon. "I hope you saw that."

Corinne ducked her head in a movement too frantic to be a nod. She tossed it around the stairs instead, stealing a glance of the fray that had broken out. Rivo had stolen himself a pistol and now ducked behind the Serpent's bar, scarcely visible save for the weapon's barrel as it appeared and vanished within the space of a heartbeat. His captor lay in a crumpled heap in the corner. With two down, that left them three more to deal with, not counting Khalida herself. She sat back on her heels beside the curled-up form of Micah, a passive kind of pleasantness washed over her expression, as if she were completely at peace amongst the mayhem.

"Micah," she murmured, almost absentmindedly. Whipping back around, she shoved her rifle into Lilith's hands, leaving her to fumble to catch it. "You know how to shoot?"

"Obviously." Lilith lifted the gun with an awkward heave. "Well, mostly."

"Try not to die." She felt for her knife. It would be far more logical to remain here and do the shooting herself, pick each of them off from a safe spot, but after all that had happened, she was willing to dispense with logic. After all, Khalida had accused her of being too reliant on bullets. Perhaps it was time to prove her wrong.

Heart pounding in her chest, she pushed away from the stairs and entered the chaos.

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I may or may not have forgotten to write a fight scene somewhere around this chapter, so be prepared for many much making it up as I go along. Corinne decided to direct her spite at me :/ She's very mad at me for some reason. I can't imagine why. 

- Pup