The glint of a seamless edge flashes.

  Air parts. Air crackles.

  My dagger cuts toward the spiteful Leech so fast the point becomes a blur.

  His pupils lock onto it and widen as it closes, like he’s about to go blind on purpose. Then, at the last sliver of distance, the blade slides past his head and kisses air over his shoulder instead.

  And the miss leaves me wide open.

  His hand clamps around my forearm. Cold. Chilling in a way skin shouldn’t be. He pins my arm and wrenches the dagger free. My grip stays unyielding. He snaps bone.

  Pain detonates up my nerves, bright and nauseating.

  The dagger slips.

  It rattles across marble and rings hollow, like the room itself is laughing.

  Before the last ring dies, he shoves me down and lifts his leg to stomp me flat.

  My mind races.

  Weapon gone. Arm broken. Body about to become pulp.

  But I learned more than one thing in here.

  This body isn’t my real body. It’s an interpretation of it, born from my soul.

  So I just have to change the interpretation. Easy. So easy I’ve already done it. My dagger was proof of that. A form of it, just sharper, stronger.

  And if it’s mine, it listens.

  His leg slams down, aiming to cave my chest in.

  My broken arm jerks up and blocks.

  Not because the bone holds. Because the idea does.

  The impact still punches the breath out of me. The taste of iron floods my mouth. But my other hand shoots forward, snatching his ankle.

  His pupils shrink in surprise.

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  I yank his leg sideways as my leg sweeps low, and I take his balance out from under him.

  He goes down.

  And his smile gleams wider, like my little ‘trick’ was the first page of a book he’s already read.

  I scramble on top of him to take advantage. I pin his left arm with my leg.

  He slams his right elbow into my jaw, rattling my brain. Dizziness floods in.

  With dazed precision, I slam my fist down in retaliation, only to hit marble as he dodges. Fingers crack. Knuckles split and bleed.

  I pull my fist back up to rain down on him again while my broken arm contains his right arm. My fist slams down again, and this time my mind isn’t so dazed.

  I hit him square in the face.

  I feel his nose crack, and chilling blood splatters across me. I lift my fist again—

  Before I can bring it down, he frees his left arm and hooks my stomach, making me lurch. Then he heaves me off him with his legs, forcing distance between us.

  We both slowly get up.

  Four feet apart.

  He wipes his face with the back of his hand, smearing gray blood like ash across his cheek.

  I spit mine onto the marble, staining the pitch-white floor red.

  “Not so easy anymore, huh?” I sneer, eyes locked on him, waiting for him to move.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he mocks, his smile crooking wider.

  For a second, my gaze breaks and lands on my dagger.

  The Leech follows my eyes instantly and chuckles at the realization.

  The blade sits equally distant from both of us, and the fact he hasn’t summoned a weapon yet tells me everything I need to know. That’s the only one. And whoever holds it holds the advantage.

  We stare at each other for a single moment.

  Then we bolt.

  The marble rushes beneath my feet. The dagger grows, grows—almost there—

  And on the last step, my injury makes me stumble.

  My foot catches wrong. My balance wobbles. Panic flares hot in my chest.

  I’m too close to stop now.

  So I follow through. Momentum instead of sense. If he gets it, I rip it out of his hand.

  The Leech slides and grabs the blade first.

  Before he can get a proper grip, I’m on him.

  My uninjured arm clamps over the handle and his fingers, blood slick between us. My broken arm swings in to pin harder, to add control, but he catches it with his own.

  I throw a knee for his stomach.

  He shifts back just enough to dull the hit, but it drives his head forward.

  So I headbutt him.

  Pain flares and rattles across my skull, sharp and stupid, and he stammers two steps back.

  With the opening, I throw a right-leg kick.

  It lands squarely on his chest.

  His grip loosens on my broken arm for half a heartbeat. Both my hands pin the dagger in his, fighting for the handle while his fingers stay unyielding around the blade.

  Fine.

  If he won’t let go, I make him.

  I twist, wrench, and dislocate his arm at the shoulder.

  The dagger drops.

  I dip to catch it—

  A kick slams into the side of my head.

  Light explodes behind my eyes. I spill onto my side, jaw buzzing, and the blade skitters across the marble again, that same hollow ring chasing me.

  He lunges for it.

  Before he can grab it, I kick it away.

  He follows it the second it lands and starts after it, but I trip him and sprint for it myself.

  I’m up fast.

  Three steps in, his hand snatches my right leg.

  I go down hard.

  He climbs over me, trampling across my ribs like I’m just debris in his way. I hook his leg, yank, and take him down with me.

  We hit the marble again.

  Inches from the blade.

  I mount him.

  Change of plans.

  He tries to wriggle out, pushing up slow, inch by inch, but I don’t let him breathe. My fists rain down until he’s forced to block.

  Knuckle meets forearm. Bone on bone.

  Each hit rattles my hand, rattles my arm, rattles my teeth, my fists bashing against his guard like I’m trying to punch through a wall.

  The dagger is right by his head.

  Too late to realize.

  He frees one arm from blocking and snatches for it.

  My fist collides with his eye socket. Chilling gray blood bursts and runs, blinding one eye, but the blade flashes through the blind anyway, aimed straight for my neck.

  Time freezes.

  Ticking at a crawl, the point inches toward my jugular.

  My mind races. My will roars.

  His smile gleams as the blade snaps through the air.

  It starts to pierce my skin, a bead of red forming at the tip—

  And it disappears.

  The Leech’s face sinks into shock, his smile cracking into fear.

  The blade flashes again, but this time toward his head.

  My broken arm clutches it.

  It sinks into his eye.

  He dies.

  I stare at the dagger, then at the dead thing underneath me.

  I pull the blade free.

  The blade drops and rattles one last time.

  And I laugh, breathless, in utter elation.

  Finally. It’s over.

  I can go back.