Alice was lifted off her feet and smashed against the opposite wall in a collision that would have shattered the bones of a normal girl. In this case, it was the wall that gave way, rock cracking behind her with a rumbling clatter, and she was suddenly falling. A moment later, she and her assailant landed hard and skidded across the stony ground.

That, Alice thought, is quite enough of that.

There was still too much dust in the air to get a clear look at her attacker, but she could feel the thing, sitting on top of her with the weight of a pile of rocks. The Swarm kept her from being squished, but it didn’t make it any easier to breathe, and she was beginning to feel light-headed. She yanked Spike’s thread around her as well, feeling the dinosaur’s strength in her limbs. She gathered her legs under the thing and kicked out with both feet, sending it tumbling through the air to slam against another wall in an explosion of rock shards.

Breathing hard, Alice got up. She’d let the devilfish thread slip away in the confusion, but the chamber was lit by a dull red glow that seemed to be coming from her opponent. Amid the billows of dust, she caught sight of a big, dog-like form, shoulders level with her chest. Instead of fur, the thing had lumpy, bulbous black stuff that looked more like rock than skin. It had two heads, side by side on a thick, stumpy neck. The glow came from each mouth and each set of eyes, as though the creature were lit by internal fires.

It had righted itself by the time she got to her feet, and emitted a low, threatening growl like two stones scraping together. Alice stood her ground, spread her feet a little wider, and waited.

She expected it to charge again, going for her throat like the wolves she’d fought in Torment’s palace. Instead, it came forward in quick dashes, pulling up short each time for another round of growling. The light inside it got steadily brighter. Alice worked out what was happening just in time to dive sideways as one glowing mouth opened wide to unleash a torrent of flames, lapping over the ground where she’d been standing.

The second head tracked her, preparing to do the same. Alice could see keeping her distance was not going to work. She pulled harder on the Swarm thread, triggering the transformation, and in mid-roll she disintegrated into a mass of tumbling, bouncing swarmers. Confused, the creature backed up a step before breathing another sheet of fire in her direction. The swarmers charged, slipping beneath the flames, quirking as stray sparks settled in their thick fur. They ran past the fire-creature, around and behind it, and melted together again into a very cross Alice.

“That,” she said, aloud this time, “is enough!”