Leaving the loops where they were, I grabbed the hook. I had a split second to decide what to do with it, and… there wasn’t a building or landscape feature in reach that I could latch onto. Given scale and momentum, I doubted it would have mattered.

Instead, using my strength, I impaled the one wing and hauled on it. He fought me, and it was an arm wrestling contest, with the distinction that neither of us were using our own strength.

I almost faltered, feeling the doubt creep in, knowing that a particularly violent crash with steel cabling whipping around everywhere would be worse. Then the feeling disappeared.

It wasn’t enough to steer Lord of Loss far enough away to matter. But Parian had her combined animal, almost shaped like a hand planted on the ground, with the arm extending up and out. Akin to a spear planted in the ground to stop a charging horse. Lord of Loss rammed into it and the vibration that ran through him rattled my brain, shaking my senses to the point that I momentarily lost touch with everything.

We spiraled out, and a combination of jarring impact and a cable looped around my arm kept me from flying up and away from the crash site.

I lay where I was, cold and hurting from head to toe, a steel cable draped behind me and two uncomfortably beneath me, and I thought about how I’d need to kick Precipice’s ass, after this. I knew he was trying to make Lord of Loss hesitate, that I’d caught only the edge of the effect, but he needed to put one and one together. If the Heartbroken’s power wouldn’t work, why would his?

Lord of Loss was pulling himself together. I was just about as fast as he was, which wasn’t fast at all.

A silver blade hit Lord of Loss in one wing. He’d been leaning on it for support and balance, and it broke with the pressure.

I backed up, skirting the hole that Parian’s stuffed spidersnake had made as the impact had driven it into the ground. Mass was rising up, but it was enough competing parts that they were getting jammed up in the hole.

“How’s Parian?” I asked.

“Not good. We’ve been trying to get out, stick to shaker protocols—”

“Don’t fight them on their turf,” I said.

“But she covers so much ground with that power.”

I nodded, my jaw set. Fuck, I hurt all over.

There weren’t any good escape routes on foot, and I didn’t trust carrying a whole team by air. It was one thing if I carried Kenzie’s projection cube with straps. Another thing if it was a team of people, some injured.

Aroa had a bloody nose, but her eyes glittered. Chastity had three glowing fingernails. Candy—

“I still have a shot. I’m saving it for Nursery, right?”