The explosion illuminated the hallway, illuminated Coalbelcher, who was now visibly on fire, nice clothes burning, especially where the blackness had leaked into it—handprints and all. The ‘skull’ where his face hadn’t been painted black was now the only part of his head that wasn’t on fire.

Guards in the background were cowering, shielding their eyes, and retreating.

Then Cryptid was there, lunging out of the doorway at the side of the hall, into the corridor and positioning himself over Coalbelcher, not caring about the flame. A skull was illuminated in orange, and limbs with forearms, biceps, calves and thighs as long as I was tall were bent and cocked, ready. The hoop he’d had around his shoulders before was now around his waist, cinched tighter to act as a belt. The fabric was like a loincloth.

The tail was the catch, prehensile, sneaky, stabbing along the edge where floor met wall. I planted my boot on it, crushing it to the point it broke. The part I’d separated from its owner flailed madly.

“You can see in the dark,” he remarked. “So can I.”

The hand snatched out, forearm consisting of multiple pieces that acted like crossbow and arrow, the arrow remaining attached to the rest of it. All to double the length of his arm. It made him faster at reaching than I was at flying. It seized me and then pulled me with it as it reeled in, slower than it’d reached out.

I wrapped my legs around it, gripped it with my good hand, and flew backward.

It pulled him off balance, pulled him closer to us.

That was what he was afraid of, after all. Getting close.

He braced himself, and I used Wretch strength. The Wretch hit and broke his arm in two places that I could see in his silhouette. It provided the strength to pull him forward onto his stomach, limbs out around him.

“Burn us!” Cryptid hissed.

“Do and he dies,” Ashley said, quiet.

Coalbelcher didn’t. I was betting he liked his gig more than he liked Cryptid.

“She’s bluffing,” Cryptid said, his voice like a hiss from the bottom of a well. “She can’t kill. She’d be giving them evidence and they’d cut off supplies to millions.”

“Reasonable doubt,” Ashley said, her voice barely above a whisper as she fumbled her way to stand beside me, her hand pointing in the direction his voice was coming from. “That’s all I need. I’ll blow a perfectly square hole in you.”

“New trick?” Cryptid asked.

“Nah. I can’t do perfectly square,” Ashley said. “But I can do messy, and Vista can make messy neat and square.”

“Yeah,” Vista said.

“She can’t work in the dark,” Cryptid growled.

“Tinker tech. Warden provided. You’re a tinker, you can recognize it when you see it.”

“Bluffs on top of bluffs,” Cryptid said. “You—”

He fired off an arm, reaching.