He might have read my mind, because he proved why I couldn’t just leave him to his own devices—he reached out with a hand, as if to point. Again, the lance emerged from within, stabbing out, rotating as it emerged this time. A hundred feet long, and the tapering point closest to me was still thick enough I could have wrapped my arms around it, if I didn’t have the Wretch to do it for me.

Again, to much less effect than the last time, I deflected the point. With the Wretch doing the heavy lifting, I was free to look back, seeing what he was aiming for.

The cloth snake flanked our group and kept a good five or six of Lord of Loss’s soldiers from approaching. It was winding through and among cars. If I were him, I would have speared the snake and flicked the cars to put them in the others’ way.

For now, I could keep it from being accurate. It struck ground close to the snake, then swiped to one side. Cloth tangled around the lance’s point, and the snake tore, losing a quarter of its total length. The thing started to deflate, and then the tail section twisted itself together, tight enough to offer a seal.

In the movies or comics, sparks would have flown as the Wretch fought the rotation and force of the lance. Here, it was only movements of cold air, some collected ice and snow shedding and falling as a deceptively gentle rain to the street below.

He drew back, his entire body pulling away to help bring his lance far enough away that I wasn’t embracing its length anymore.

He laughed. My expression behind my mask could have been stone.

I couldn’t stop it. The next one would strike home. Every time he repeated himself, he was more forceful, more consistent.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

That he was being such a gloating asshole about it made me feel worse.

Options. What are my options?

If I couldn’t deflect, catch, or otherwise influence the hit—predict the target and move them? Or something else?

Just thinking about my options helped matters, my confidence surging back… and in the wake of that, I was aware that my emotions were jumping all over the place.

Precipice. Fucking Rain.

He’d hit me with his power, after being explicitly asked not to. Why?

To signal. There was no visual indicator he was using his power.

He wanted me to act… and I had an idea what he wanted me to do. I flew at Lord of Loss. Another hit, like the one I’d delivered before, only the silver blades weren’t in place.

Even if this didn’t work, it might delay the next telescoping lance from coming out.