The spike-headed woman was getting too close. Past this point, the window of opportunity threatened to close.

I used the steps I’d walked away from the ledge to get a running start. Sveta tried to grab me, and if she’d still had her powers, she might have succeeded.

Arms out in front of me, legs behind, flying without flying.

Over a chasm that might have been bottomless.

If I didn’t clear the chasm, then the odds were in my favor, probably. I’d fall into the darkness below, and I was betting the chances were pretty good I’d still be falling in a few minutes, when we woke up from the dream.

I cleared the chasm.

Meaning only hard crystal lay below me.

I twisted, angling my body, saw my reflection—

And I slammed hard into the crystal, terminal velocity. I felt bones break.

I brushed past her, she brushed past me.

I slipped away into oblivion. She knelt with one knee on hard crystal, hand balled into a fist, fist flat against the surface.

She was me and I was her. Switching places. Thankfully with no momentum conserved between the two selves.

I looked back in time to see Damsel jumping. I smiled.

The spike-headed titan gave chase, and I ran. To lead it away from Damsel, and to have any chance of getting where I needed to be in time.

The titan was like a cyclone behind me, tearing everything up, but it was the spikes that radiated down, the claws that extended into crystal, and she didn’t whirl. She only charged my way, picking up speed as she went.

I saw her claws bite deep, her body reflected across the path in front of me, and I followed that reflection, looking up again, to see she stood in my way.

Operating by different rules. Spikes and claws of infinite length and that seemed to extend to weird rules about reflections and placement.

I barely slowed, only heading left, because Damsel had landed, emerged in a tattered black dress and gnarled black mask across the eyes, and she was running to the right.

Because she was competitive enough she wouldn’t let me succeed while she stood back.

I had that competitive streak too. I’d had it as a basketball player. The drive to prove myself.

The spike woman extended hands to either side. Spikes plunged down, directly for me. I twisted mid-stride, knowing I’d fall, but her accuracy was good, and a claw as wide across as my hand was plunged into that hand. Bones shattered, and flesh became a ring of meat no wider across at any point than a pencil was, fingers barely hanging off of the wreckage of it.

Pinned to the crystal floor.

Why was Teacher afraid to let me in here? Why had he backed down, at the end of the raid on his base?

Because I’d been in tune with the Wretch.