was a deep, resonant crack as the massive tree began to list, groans and tiny clicks ricocheting off the surrounding forest as the trunk came crashing down. A gust of wind smacked Joy full in the face, blasting clouds of dirt and mulch. The knight had cut down a tree by throwing his sword and was now crossing the riverbed, headed toward her. Her hands tingled as terror splashed through her veins.
Joy squeezed the scalpel and spat wood chips off her lips. She tried to believe what Ink had said, what Graus Claude had said, tried to remember Inq’s advice, but as the rust-crusted helmet cleared the ridge, all Joy could feel was the quiet knowledge that she was about to die in the woods in bare feet while holding a pathetic metal weapon no bigger than a pencil. She pointed the tip toward her attacker.
“Leave me alone!” she said.
The knight ignored her, reaching for the embedded sword, hand open for the hilt.
Joy shouted, “Stop!”
The ground spit up bits of leaf and stone as a line slithered through the earth like a whip just inches from the knight’s plated boot.
Joy stared. The knight paused, and his helmet turned slowly to Joy.
The moment curled like a question mark.
Joy almost shrugged. Almost.
What was that...?
Grabbing the sword hilt, the knight swung around sharply. Joy stumbled back. The sword cleaved and clanged against something invisible, throwing off sparks that died in the dirt.
Joy blinked. That was a ward!
The knight tried another pass, pushing through a cloud of dust that smelled of campfire smoke. Joy could almost feel the sword’s impact against the invisible shield. She smiled unsteadily, knowing that her friends must be nearby, even if she could not see them yet.
“Hey!” Joy shouted into the woods. “Over here!”
The knight drew his sword slowly in salute and charged—ten feet away, nine, eight.
Joy dived around the back of a tree and ducked. There was a punch of impact and a half-imagined grunt as the knight missed her head as she scrambled for the next bit of cover. He withdrew his sword with a snarl and pursued. Joy turned and ran faster, toes gripping the moss. She spun midstride, sweeping her tiny blade sideways—there was a grating shing as a piece of metal split and thunked against the ground.
The knight stumbled back. Joy sprinted up the next swell. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that the lower faceplate had split in half, exposing a gray chin full of bristles, black gums and blue teeth.
In case she had any doubts that this was one of the Twixt.
The wash of fear came again, sparkling and brutal, pushing Joy up up up! through the next tangle of thorns. She bounced off a birch trunk and, misjudging the distance, tripped over a thick branch and skinned her knee. Joy wondered why she was running and not climbing. But what good would that do? The knight had made a tree explode!
As if the thought were a prescient tap on the shoulder, Joy turned to see the knight’s elbow rise, arm cocked, shoulder back, before he hauled off and threw. The sword zinged through the air toward her. She stupidly, helplessly, raised her arms.
A ball of fire and superheated steam burst against an invisible wall. Joy’s hair blew in the aftershock, and she felt moist heat coat her face. A figure dropped from a fissure in the sky, backlit by the wash of flame. He held a straight razor in one hand and her purse in the other; a silver chain swung heavily from a pocket at his hip. He glanced at her with his all-black eyes.
“Joy,” he said.
She coughed and wiped a splinter off her forearm.
“Hi.”
Ink tossed her purse to the forest floor. The fallen sword at his feet smoked and smoldered, dead leaves curling to ash beneath it. The knight barreled forward. The black-eyed Scribe moved, nimble and daring, drawing a complicated design in the air. Another ward gleamed into place. Ink spoke through the shimmer of gold, his voice carrying across the wood.
“I do not know you,” Ink said to the wounded knight. “But you shall not harm her. She is protected under the Edict.” His voice grew taut. “And she is protected by me.”
The armored thing howled, charged and, with a last-moment shift, ran full force into a tree, disappearing in a shiver of pine needles.
Silence.
Joy backed away from the nearest tree, expecting a fresh attack. Ink extended his arm protectively across her body, holding his razor steady against the quiet. Joy pressed close, scanning the forest.
“Where did he go?” she asked.
Ink glanced around the glade. Branches swayed overhead. Leaves rustled. Querulous birds peeped.
“I suspect ‘away,’” he said.
Joy nodded. “Away,” she repeated, breathing fast. “Away is good.”
Ink hadn’t dropped his weapon, so neither did she. The tip of her scalpel—previously his scalpel—shook in her grasp. It looked a lot less confident than his straight razor. She could barely feel it in her hand, her fingers tight and numb, but she could feel him: a solid, calm presence with the gentle scent of rain. She swallowed against the sawdust in her throat.
“Can we go?” she asked. “Away?”
Ink picked up the sword and pressed her hand to his chest. “Away is good,” he said as he sliced the air sideways.
They stepped through the breach with a sharp scent of limes.
* * *
Joy could feel Ink’s hands on her face, the first sensation that pierced the cottony blanket of shock. They were in her room, in her house, and everything had that double-take quality of being suddenly normal, which felt strange.
“Are you all right?” Ink asked.
She coughed, tasting wood on her tongue. “Never better.”
The straight razor was gone, probably back in his wallet, and Joy watched Ink pluck bits of tree out of her hair.
“I thought you said you were only receiving threats,” Ink said. “This was considerably more than a threat.”
“This is the first time someone’s attacked me,” Joy said, brushing dirt from her ruined pants. “There’ve been snide comments, a lot of staring and some ultimatums, but Graus Claude said to ignore it. I didn’t think anyone would actually do anything.” A sigh stuttered out of her mouth. She shook her head, feeling the tension in her shoulders slip toward angry embarrassment. “I thought the Council’s Edict was supposed to protect me.”
“It should,” Ink said and picked up the sword. The smoke curling off it was tinted with mist. He turned it over, not bothered in the least by its obvious weight. “Although this might be evidence to the contrary.” Joy studied Ink’s face. It was still hard to tell if he was being funny or not. He glanced over the blade at her. “Did you announce yourself?”
“Yes!
