I could see through her eyes. The room was a whirling blur of color and darkness, light and fire, a spectrum of things I’d never seen. Was this how Rephs saw? There were auras everywhere. I was sighted—but now I was blind, and her eyes were refusing to see. They didn’t want me to see. These weren’t my eyes. I forced them open, looked down at my hand. Too large, gloved. My vision clenched. She was fighting me. Hurry, Paige.

The knife. The knife was there. Hurry. I reached for it. Just moving my hand was like trying to lift a barbell. Kill her. My ears rang with screams and strange new sounds, voices, thousands of voices. Kill her. My new fingers curled around the handle.

The knife. It was there. I drew back my arm, and with a single stab, drove the blade into my chest. The emissaries shouted. My vision tunneled again. Everything flickered. I twisted the knife with my new hand, grinding it into whatever the hell it was that made Nashira’s body. No pain. She was numb to the bites of an amaurotic blade. I stabbed again, this time on the left, aiming for where the heart would be on a human. Still no pain. But when I raised my arm a third time, I was thrown out of her body.

Spirits scattered across the room, extinguishing every candle. The Guildhall descended into chaos. When my vision returned, I couldn’t see a thing. My ears were full of screaming.

The candles came back to life. Nashira lay across the boards. She didn’t move. The knife was embedded in her chest, right up to the handle. “Blood-sovereign,” a Reph shouted.

The emissaries had fallen silent. My hands shook as I dragged myself across the boards to Nashira. I looked at her face, the eyes devoid of light. The spirits of Bone Season XVIII still hovered around her, as if waiting for her to join them in the  æther.

Then a dim glow filled into her eyes. Slowly, her head turned. I felt myself shivering uncontrollably as she rose to her full height.

“Very clever,” she said. “Very, very clever.”

I kept moving, my fingers scraping on the boards. As I watched, she pulled the knife from her chest. There were gasps from the audience. “Show us more.” Drops of light fell like tears. “I have no objections.”

With a flick of her hand, the knife was in the air. It hung there for a moment, as if on an invisible thread—then it came flying toward me. It caught my cheek, leaving a glancing wound. The candles guttered.