The prisoners stopped jeering. The Cleaver took a step back.

She buried the scythe blade in his chest. He fell to his knees, black blood dripping on to the floor.

The prisoners were muttering now, cheated out of seeing her die. Tanith pulled her sword from the Cleaver’s body and ran for the steps.

She heard a crash from elsewhere in the Sanctuary. The Repository. Valkyrie and Skulduggery were in trouble. Urgency lent her speed. Just as she neared the top step, however, one of the prisoners laughed.

She looked back, saw the White Cleaver standing, pulling the scythe from his body. She turned for the door again, ran the last few steps and then the breath went out of her. She looked down, at the tip of the scythe that protruded through her chest.

The Cleaver walked up the steps towards her. That was some throw. She almost laughed. Her sword fell from her grip. He took hold of the scythe. He circled, moving her around, looking at her like he was observing her pain, remembering what it was like. A twist of his hands and she was forced to her knees. She gasped when he removed the weapon. Her body was shutting down.

He raised the scythe. Tanith looked up, ready to die, but when he had circled her, he had passed through the doorway, and was now standing out in the corridor.

She lunged, slamming the door in his visored face. She pressed her hand against it and whispered, “Withstand.” The sheen spread over the door just as the Cleaver began to pound on it from the other side.

Tanith tried standing but her body couldn’t take any more. She slumped to the ground. The prisoners watched from their cages with delighted eyes, and as her blood seeped through her tunic, they started whispering. The whispers filled her head, slowly flooding every recess and corner of her mind. Time dragged, became something abstract. Unreal. How long had she been sitting here? How much blood was there left for her weak heart to pump through the wound?

She started crawling. Down the steps. The strength left her arms and her weight fell forward and she tumbled the rest of the way to the floor. It didn’t even hurt, though. Not on any level she could feel. Those whispers blocked the pain, and she started crawling again, to the cages. There was one held off the ground, and inside it was a man with dark hair, whispering with all the others. He reached down and she reached up and his hand found hers and he pulled her, helped her to stand. He never stopped whispering. None of them did.