Then the words turned into a howl. The sound was pain rammed into her ears; it was like barbed hooks thrust through and turning in her head, tearing at her brain. She stumbled back and jammed her hands up under the flare of her sallet to cover her ears. The visor fell down, and her vision suddenly became a narrow slit, like a glowing window on a dark night.

She wasn’t prepared for the sudden heave and snap as something within forced the small body past its limits. It came up and off the cot, directly at her like a cast-iron round shot from a catapult. The impact staggered her, even a small person was still a hundred-pound weight and Mary Liu or the thing that wore her was moving fast.

The lames of the breastplate spread the impact, and she went back into a crouch, grunting as if she’d been hit with a war hammer. Black beat at her vision, a black place where cindered suns collapsed inward upon themselves.

“Don’t come in!” she shouted, and the sound echoed through the cavern that was Fen House. “Don’t come in! If she wins, shoot her dead and fire the prison!”

She fought for breath. The chill was gone; hot, heavy darkness crested over her. Then a flash of light, a spear of light, and she was back in the cell. Teeth were reaching for her eyes, wet and yellow. Tiphaine ducked her head and reared back, then butted the brow of her sallet into them. Something cracked, something howled. Arms gripped her with astonishing strength and broken teeth grated on the steel of the bevoir over the throat, squealing and catching on the metal as they chewed at the steel.

Don’t try to respond conventionally, something within prompted her. You’re not fighting little Mary Liu. Use your head, and not just as a battering ram.

She didn’t try to break the hold; instead she turned and rammed herself three steps into the iron bars. Tiphaine weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. Her armor was a third again more; and she could throw that weight into the saddle with a flex of her legs. The impact rattled her head but the arms dropped away. Mary leapt across the cell and grabbed at the mesh of welded rebar across the outer window, legs braced with monkey agility. Tendons stood out in her pale soft forearms, and one ripped loose. The steel did too, and she turned and hit the Grand Constable with it.

Tiphaine could feel the alloy steel of her armor flex under the blow and tasted her own blood. She stepped into the next strike, grabbed the bar on the downswing. The grinning meat-puppet gripped it in both hands and twisted. Tiphaine held on grimly, counter-twisting, pain shooting through her right hand.