“I do like winning,” Pyrre mused. Then her arm flicked out, one of the two knives streaking end over end through the doorway. “But your old friends are quite good, and I think it might prove a disappointment were we not to continue winning.”

Valyn rounded on her, rage taking him by the throat, blotting out everything but the assassin’s face. He brought his sword level with her neck in a single smooth motion, and despite the new blades in her hands, blades that she seemed to keep drawing from some inexhaustible supply, she made no move to resist. If anything, she looked amused by his sudden fury.

“Are you planning to kill me?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Before you do, I’d like to observe, in my defense, that I seem to be the only one here capable of actually beating your talented colleagues.”

Something coiled and furious, some beast buried deep in Valyn’s brain, was snarling at him to kill her, kill her, kill her. It would be simple enough, a single gesture and it would be done. With an effort, he held the sword steady, forced down the voice, dragged a few jagged words from the depths of his chest.

“Killing them is what started all this. . . .”

Pyrre waved a knife dismissively. “They started it,” she said, “when they crept up on us in the night with weapons drawn.”

“I could have talked them down,” Valyn spat.

“Really?” she asked. An arrow whistled past Valyn’s head, then another as he threw himself against the wall. “They don’t seem like the conversational type,” Pyrre continued.

Two more arrows. They were shooting blind with all the smoke. Evidently, the Flea had given up on taking people alive.

“What’s the play?” Laith called. He’d taken up point a dozen paces away at the head of the stairs while Annick and Talal continued to hold the door.

“Kill her or don’t kill her,” Gwenna said, her fingers a blur as she rigged the charges, “but quit fucking talking.”

“Don’t kill her,” Annick said. “We need her.”

“Valyn,” Talal groaned. “Please hurry.”

Valyn locked eyes with the Skullsworn, his blade hovering at her throat. “No more deaths,” he ground out.

Pyrre pointed down the hallway with a knife. “Why don’t you tell that to them?”

“No more killing,” he said again.

“I like you, Valyn,” Pyrre said. “You’re a nice young man with a strong sense of civic virtue. But I don’t work for you.”

Valyn took a breath, pressed his blade against her throat until it just drew blood. The assassin didn’t pull back. She didn’t even flinch.

“Are you willing to die for this?” he demanded.

She smiled. “I don’t think you understand. Skullsworn are always willing to die. It’s what makes us different, you and me. It’s what makes me better.”

“Valyn!” Laith snapped.