Theo’s efforts individually might not have been effective or very visible, but they gave me some slack to work with, and they did get the attention of someone nearby, the guy with the basket-weave scarf around his neck. Almost Theo’s size, he barreled out of the crowd and kicked Theo hard in the side of the stomach, sending Theo sprawling into the wire, causing me and the woman with the braided shawl to fall in his direction, as he fell on the wire. The wire came free, mostly because it had finished its journey, starting at the base of my wrist and scraping its way up to fingertip. The pain was blinding, and I was dimly aware I’d lost two fingernails along with a good bit of skin.

They said swearing had an anaesthetic effect, making pain easier to handle. I couldn’t bring myself to worm a word, but I managed to make a noise that anyone, in any language, would interpret as something between scream and invective.

Guards barked words in their language, grabbing and pushing to keep my teammates from helping. More guards came, only adding to the obstruction, but they didn’t step into the midst of this.

The woman started to reel in her weapons, and I stepped forward, planting my foot on the threads and the wad of my skin that had come off, probably with fingernails attached. She stepped back, dropping threads, and turned her body away, almost a fencer’s pose. To hide what she was doing with her right hand.

People had backed away enough I had a moment. I stooped down, using my good hand to scoop up Theo’s shirt. She threw another of those lemon golf ball yoyos with thread spooling out, and I used the Wretch, defending myself just enough that the thread would be glance off, be pushed away by the Wretch’s expansion.

A second later, I canceled it, throwing the shirt up and letting it catch on the wire.

I grabbed the cloth and the wire, and used the Wretch to ensure my grip was secure and that the wire wouldn’t cut through cloth and into my hand.

I wasn’t sure what happened next, as I tried to throw it down so I could step on it and make reeling it in hard. It could have been the Wretch, reaching out with another hand and tugging. It could have been the way she had the wires arranged for easy deployment. But it cut her.

She didn’t scream, didn’t yelp, just immediately fell to her knees. Wire had sliced through her hand from between middle and ring finger to the middle of the palm, with a visible gap.