Guards forced us apart, proceeding with a pat-down. They were young, no older than Tristan, and their expressions were hard, their hands rougher.

Checking us over quickly.

It was a mistake to think the guards and security cameras were enough. The same woman with the braided shawl from last night stepped out of the crowd.

I’d expected a shiv. Something prison-issue that had been honed to a point. Failing that, I expected a flail or weighted object.

Not so. She flung out an arm in our direction, and something lemon-shaped, metal, and the size of a golf ball came our way, a thread or wire attached.

I reached out to swat at the tiny lemon, ready to use my power, timing the Wretch with the swat, and then reconsidered—power use, could I get away with it?

I could. I would have, but my hesitation threw off my timing, and I was a hair too late. The projectile whipped around my hand, carrying the wire with it. She pulled, and almost all of the skin between the middle three knuckles of my left hand and my wrist was pulled away, wrinkling up around the backs of my fingers, bound in wire.

Fuck, did it ever hurt. I dropped to my knees, looked back at the guards—and saw the one who had been closest to me stepping back.

She flicked out her other hand, an identical projectile, and it was set to fly around my head. I could bring one arm up, but it would circle around, catch me at one side of the face.

It curved in the air, ready to whip around, and then sailed straight, instead, cutting the guard’s forearm instead. He barked out words in a language I didn’t understand.

Unfazed, barely seeming to realize that anything fucky was happening, she just hauled back on the wire, dragging the length of it up my hand, past the knuckles at the base of my fingers, and up to the first knuckle of my index and middle fingers, skin coming off like someone had taken a potato peeler to it.

Theo pulled his shirt off and threw it over the wire before trying to grab it.

I saw him run his fingertips along the edge of the wire, fiercely enough to make them bleed. I saw some slack appear, as the woman who held the wire—

His fingernails, passing through the wire to lacerate the part of her hand it rested against.