She raised the length of wood above her head. Darkness sighed, then swiped with his Blade, cutting her weapon in half. He pulled his dagger from the ground, freeing Lift. Yes!

Then he kicked her, sending her sliding down the hallway on her own Slickness, completely out of control.

“No!” Lift said, withdrawing her Slickness and rolling to a stop. Her vision shook as she saw Darkness turn on the Stump and grab her by the throat, then pull her off the steps and throw her to the ground. The old lady cracked as she hit, and fell limp, motionless.

He stabbed her then—not with his Blade, but with his knife. Why? Why not finish her?

He turned toward Lift, shadowed by the sphere he’d dropped, more a monster in that moment than the Sleepless thing Lift had seen in the alleyway.

“Still alive,” he said to Lift. “But bleeding and unconscious.” He kicked his sphere away. “She is too new to know how to feed on Stormlight in this state. You I’ll have to impale and wait until you are truly dead. This one though, she can just bleed out. It’s happening already.”

I can heal her, Lift thought, desperate.

He knew that. He was baiting her.

She no longer had time to run him out of Stormlight. Pointing the Shardblade toward Lift, he was now truly just a silhouette. Darkness. True Darkness.

“I don’t know what to do,” Lift said.

“Say the Words,” Wyndle said from beside her.

“I’ve said them, in my heart.” But what good would they do?

Too few people listened to anything other than their own thoughts. But what good would listening do her here? All she could hear was the sound of the storm outside, lightning making the stones vibrate.

Thunder.

A new storm.

I can’t defeat him. I’ve got to change him.

Listen.

Lift scrambled toward Darkness, summoning all of her remaining awesomeness. Darkness stepped forward, knife in one hand, Shardblade in the other. She got near to him, and again he guarded the steps downward. He obviously expected her either to go that way, or to stop at the Stump’s unconscious body and try to heal her.

Lift did neither. She slid past them both, then turned and scrambled up the steps the Stump had come down a short time earlier.

Darkness cursed, swinging for her, but missing. She reached the third floor, and he charged after her. “You’re leaving her to die,” he warned, giving chase as Lift found a smaller set of steps that led upward. Onto the roof, hopefully. Had to get him to follow …

A trapdoor in the ceiling barred her way, but she flung it open. She emerged into Damnation itself.