Moore's crystalline hut was far too closed off for Seven's liking, but she supposed it had a strange sort of charm—especially considering that it occupied literal hell. The place was practically comfortable, though she had no time to appreciate it. She did wonder how long Moore had been down here to arrange some semblance of comfort. Entire sets of furniture. A kitchen, no less. How many weeks had he spent scavenging in the dark?

  She found Pocket in what passed for a pantry—a carved-out alcove in the stone wall—stuffing dried fruit into his mouth with the kind of single-minded determination that he usually reserved for pancakes.

  "You're not subtle," Seven said, wincing as she leaned against the doorframe. Her ribs protested the movement, a sharp reminder of the beating she'd taken.

  Pocket didn't even budge from the pile. "Wasn't trying to be."

  "Have you ever considered that we might need those rations given where we are?"

  "Prenty in dah bag," he said, still working through the pile.

  Seven sighed, but she couldn't help the small smile that tugged at her lips. It faded quickly when she shifted her weight and pain lanced through her mangled arm and leg. The bandages Moore had applied were expert work, but they could only do so much. She'd taken a beating from that creature—one she had no intention of repeating.

  And while she'd been limited in the amount of shards and dice she could drain above ground, she couldn't help but think that she might not ever have that problem again.

  She'd seen the shards on her frantic flight through the underground city. Seen how they sparkled in the walls like starlight all their own, embedded in the stone as if they'd grown there naturally. Surely whatever Moore brought to her would give her enough juice to deal with his rather unfriendly neighbors—and convince him that she could deal with said neighbors in the first place.

  Moore materialized behind her with a leather pouch that clinked softly as he moved. "I managed to scavenge these over the past few weeks," he said, settling down on a nearby cushion. He emptied the pouch onto a low table, and Seven's breath caught. "Nothing too risky, but they're so plentiful down here that I've been using them for light."

  He shook the bag and dice shards tumbled out—not many, but they were so bright that Seven had to shield her eyes. The glow painted the walls in shifting patterns, alive and electric.

  That ought to do it, she thought, her fingers twitching just looking at them.

  She drifted towards the table and settled down with a wince next to Moore, thrusting her fingers into the pile. That familiar pull sang through her palm, insistent and hungry. The marks on her palm flared gold as she touched the first shard, and the ache in her ribs eased just slightly. Not healed, but manageable. She closed her eyes, letting the Luck trickle into her system, and for once, she didn't feel bad about using it.

  "Better?" Moore asked.

  "Better," she agreed, though her arm still throbbed. She flexed her fingers experimentally, testing her range of motion. And yet, while her body still ached slightly, she could tell that the shards were some of the best she'd ever drained. The power was cleaner somehow. Stronger. With this, maybe she really could fight some of the creatures outside.

  Still, Moore's gaze lingered on her far too long, that familiar worry settling in his eyes. "I know I agreed to have you help," he said, "but I'm having second thoughts."

  "I'll be fine," she insisted. "Better than fine, actually."

  It wasn't a complete lie. The first creature had gotten the drop on her, but she wouldn't be caught out this time—especially with the amount of Luck in these shards.

  "Seven, you just found out about these powers weeks ago if my guess is right—"

  "Sure."

  "—and you're planning to fight a mob of creatures that's juiced with dice and the Thirteen knows what else LMC has thrown down here."

  "Do you have any better ideas?" she demanded, standing up. She crossed the room to where an old steel pipe lay discarded near the wall, covered in dust and obviously barely used. Seven picked it up, weighing it in her hands. The metal was cold and solid against her palms.

  "I don't," Moore replied, watching her spin the pipe a few times. "But in my defense, you obviously couldn't handle that first one. As much as I'd love to get out of here, I can think of better ways to do it than sending the youngest crown heir to her death."

  Seven bit her lip, still turning the pipe in her hands. The weight was familiar—reassuring, even. If she could just figure out a way to—

  Her palm flashed gold.

  Strength flooded into her arms like lightning through water. The pipe groaned, the metal screaming as she twisted it into a U-shape as easily as if it were clay. Grinning, she held it up at Moore.

  "What about now?"

  It took Moore several seconds to recover. When he did, he seemed more irritated than impressed. "Why didn't you do that to that thing outside?"

  "Because nothing I've drained above ground had the same kind of power that the shards you just gave me do," she explained, flexing her hand. The gold marks still pulsed faintly on her palm. "Down here, it's like…almost like they're singing."

  "Singing," Pocket repeated, his mouth still half-full.

  "Yeah," she said. "It's like that time when they showed me the way out."

  "Be that as it may," Moore went on, his voice taking on that lecturing tone she knew so well, "I have little inclination to believe that you're going to have better luck against a pack of creatures than you would against the one."

  "Look, we need to get through that tunnel," Seven said, keeping her voice level. "I'm still getting used to whatever's going on with me, but I promise I'll turn back if I have problems." She met his eyes. "Regardless, someone needs to try something—I don't intend to sit down here and wait for them to come get us."

  Pocket chimed in, looking bloated in the corner. "They're not going to come get us remem—"

  "Pocket."

  "Sorry."

  Seven sighed, then settled onto one of the scavenged stools by Moore's lopsided kitchen table. The wood creaked beneath her weight. "I'm just tired of waiting around," she said, her voice suddenly quiet. "Tired of waiting for the bets to swing in my direction."

  She met Moore's eyes and let the pipe clang onto the ground, the sound echoing in the small space. "Sometimes you have to make your own luck."

  Moore watched her strangely for a moment, wearing an expression she couldn't quite decipher. She waited for his inevitable scolding—for the reminder that she shouldn't be betting at all. That she was a distant heir to the throne, not a gambler. That she should have been more proper, more prepared, more something.

  It was always something.

  And yet, when Moore spoke, she caught something else in his low tones. Something she hadn't heard in decades, perhaps.

  Pride.

  "Three weeks in exile," he said slowly, "and yet I barely recognize you."

  He hung his head, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he ran a hand through ragged hair that had once been coifed. Then he met her eyes again, and there was a warmth there that made her chest tighten.

  "You've changed," he went on. "I thought…all this time, all those bad decisions, I thought we'd lost you for good. But now, I wonder if it wasn't that we'd lost you, but that you were too far ahead for us to see you."

  Seven ducked her head, pawing through the pile of shards with a few fingers as her face grew warm. The praise felt foreign—uncomfortable, even. "It's just survival," she argued. "I never would have figured out these powers or anything else without being forced to use them."

  "Still," Moore said, crossing his arms. His voice softened. "You have survived, and that's saying a lot given that I'm fairly certain LMC and Rook have it out for both of us at this point. Survival isn't something to make light of."

  Seven kept her eyes on the drained shards—on her only hope of getting her and Moore out of this mess. She gripped a few of them in her palm until the force of it stung her hand, the edges pressing into her skin.

  "Let's try to keep it that way," she said quietly.

  ***

  Seven spent the next hour laying out a plan; Moore, at least, had plenty of information about the city he now inhabited, and, trapped inside with nothing to do but scavenge for food and avoid the creatures outside, he’d occupied himself by drawing maps of the area.

  There were tunnels throughout the city, many of which Moore had used to enter other buildings undetected. Those tunnels were the only reason he hadn’t starved yet, but he hadn’t yet found one that connected to a lift or a way to higher levels. That main tunnel, it seemed, was reserved for the creatures stalking in front of her currently.

  The tunnel cut through the heart of the cathedral city, past the jagged spires and empty streets that stretched out in all directions. Seven had seen glimpses of the city during her frantic flight from the first creature, but she hadn’t had time to appreciate just how vast the place was. Or how empty. In fact, had she not narrowly missed another run-in with several of the same species of creature that had nearly gored her earlier, she would have thought the city abandoned.

  That thought evaporated from her mind entirely as she crouched behind a fallen pillar with Pocket huddled inside her tattered shirt. In front of her, not meters away, something far worse than the fanged thing from earlier stalked back and forth.

  Different from the furry thing that had nearly killed her, these creatures moved with far more purpose, their actions deliberate, their bodies sleek and angular as they traced the same paths through the sprawling hallway ahead. She squinted, trying to make out details, and her stomach dropped when she saw their arms.

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  Rapiers. The creatures had rapiers for hands, the blades catching the light as they moved in formation down the street. Some were heading toward the tunnel entrance—the same one she needed to get through. Of course, getting through would do her little good if she couldn’t find a way to get back to Moore. If she found a way out but LMC sabotaged the lift or had her arrested as soon as she emerged, what good would that do?

  No, she needed to find a way to clear a path for Moore. There would be no returning to the surface today—not without her old mentor in tow.

  “That’s not good,” Pocket whispered beside her.

  Seven didn’t answer immediately. She was too busy counting. There were around a dozen of them in total, moving in a loose pack. Eleven smaller ones, and one that was easily twice their size, its blade-arms longer, glinting in the red light of the magma nearby. The alpha, she guessed. The others kept their distance from it, deferring to its path, moving aside when it changed direction.

  Seven watched them for a moment, racking her mind for some way past the things. She could fight a few, perhaps, but all of them? Doubt slithered into her mind. And yet, something else settled there too—a memory.

  Her father’s estate. The fencing master he’d hired one summer, back when he still thought she might be useful for marriage alliances. She’d been better at it than her tutors expected—fast, precise, able to read her opponent’s movements before they committed to them. Her father had officially pulled her from the lessons after that, of course, but Seven had hired the man with her own coin, some of it filched from her father’s vaults. It had been her only taste of success in a world that wanted to forget her, and luck take her, she liked it. Was good at it, even.

  She’d nearly forgotten about it in the years after Rook’s betrayal. Had set the rapier aside with Beggar’s Chance, opting for simpler games like dice poker to fill her time. There seemed little point in mastering a complex art when, at the time, she’d been bound for the gallows.

  But she remembered the footwork, the give and take of battle. The way a blade moved through the air, the resistance as it met another blade. It had seemed a foolish pastime for a princess, perhaps, but now, she wondered if it might save her life.

  “I have a terrible idea,” Seven said quietly.

  Pocket turned faintly green. “Oh no.”

  “What if I challenged the big one to a duel?”

  “Oh no,” Pocket repeated, more emphatically this time. “If I had known that was going to be my last meal, I would have finished off that sack of flour.”

  “Watch how they move,” Seven interrupted, nodding toward the pack. “The smaller ones defer to it. They’re following pack hierarchy. If I take down the alpha, maybe they’ll let us through.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Then I run very fast and come up with a new plan.”

  It wasn’t much of a backup plan, but sometimes you just had to commit and hope luck was on your side. She touched the shards in her pocket, feeling them warm against her fingertips, then stood and began picking her way closer to the pack.

  The tiles beneath her feet were smooth, worn by time and whatever had walked these streets before the monsters came. Seven moved from shadow to shadow, her heart hammering against her ribs. The creatures hadn’t noticed her yet; they were focused on their patrol, their blade-arms scraping against the stone as they moved.

  She got within thirty feet before she called out.

  “Hey!”

  The effect was immediate. All seven heads swiveled toward her, blade-arms raising in unison. The alpha stepped forward, its blades glinting, and Seven felt her mouth go dry. Up close, it was even bigger than she’d thought. Easily eight feet tall, its body was armored in what looked like overlapping plates of black armor.

  The smaller creatures chittered, their blade-arms scraping together in a sound that made Seven’s head ache. They crept forward, and for a terrifying moment, Seven held her breath, ready to dart between their number. But then the alpha raised one arm. Seven froze, waiting, watching. The blades slowed, scraping against the stone, then stopped.

  Seven’s pulse hammered in her ears. It seemed improbable that something this stupid would work. And yet she’d gambled for less. Just usually not with her life.

  “You and me,” she said, drawing her sword. It felt strangely light and familiar in her hands—as if her Luck made her blade easier to handle, somehow. “No one else,” she went on, her voice steadying in spite of the ridiculousness of the situation. The creature tilted its head at her, and she settled into a fencing stance.

  That, at least, seemed to get its attention. The other creatures’ heads turned in unison towards the alpha, and after a painful pause, it brought its bladed arms overhead, and, of all things, nodded at her.

  Seven nodded back, her hands sweating, a bead of sweat trickling down her back that had nothing to do with the temperature.

  The smaller creatures fell back, forming a loose circle. Seven’s fingers tightened on her sword, and she tried not to think about how foolish this idea was. She was going to fight one of these things with a sword?

  You still have Luck, she reminded herself, though it did little to dissuade the panic fluttering in her gut. Not for the first time, she wished she’d done more to master her powers before being thrown into hell.

  She pushed the thought out of her mind as the alpha moved, its speed blistering. She barely got her blade up in time, and the impact was so violent that she felt it rattle her bones, a chunk of Luck slipping away—likely to deal with the force of the blow.

  Seven forced herself to remember the rote patterns of swordplay—of the hours she’d drilled this exact thing, though admittedly with a sword master and not a demonic creature. She danced backwards, tugging on her Luck to give her a bit of extra speed, and the marks on her hand flared beneath her sword grip. The creature was fast—faster than anything that size had a right to be—but, miraculously, Seven was faster.

  She ducked beneath a sweeping overhead slash, the blade whistling past her ear, and twisted to lunge forward with her own weapon. The tip scraped against the alpha’s armor with a high shriek of metal on metal.

  The creature barely reacted, dancing away as if on a summer stroll.

  She gritted her teeth, swearing under her breath. Not enough, she thought. She’d have to pierce the thing’s armor, not just glance off of it.

  The creature seemed to sense an advantage and pressed forward, its blade a blur of motion that Seven could barely decipher even with her Luck coursing through her veins. She gave ground to the thing, her feet the only source of stability in a world of chaos. They felt steady and sure on the tiles, her spacing automatic, the muscle memory from so many sun-drenched courtyards in Veilhome kicking in to guide her movements.

  And yet, as she backed up, parrying idly, she watched. The armor shifted faintly with each step the thing took, and she thought she saw just a tiny crack in it—a spot where the plates didn’t quite match up. She angled her body sideways, narrowly missing getting gutted by one of the blades, and lunged at the same time.

  Her blade snapped into the opening. It gave way, sinking deeper than it had before, and the alpha shrieked, the sound vibrating the tiles beneath her feet. It stumbled back, and Seven pulled her sword out as it did so.

  She could hardly believe her luck. The odds of that working had been…Seven shook her head and pushed the thought away. She didn’t have time to let the thing recover. Instead, she launched forward, her blade finding another gap in the thing’s hip, and then another at the knee.

  Whatever she’d hit first must have done some serious damage, because the creature had slowed considerably. Seven tugged on her supply of Luck, grateful for the pile of shards Moore had given her. It coursed through her much like the molten lava churning through channels on either side of the room, and for once, she thought that luck might actually be on her side.

  She twisted, dodged, and made one final lunge towards the creature. Her blade found its throat. Seven winced, but she finished the attack anyway, trying to pretend that it was anything other than flesh.

  The alpha went still, Seven’s sword embedded in his throat. Seven ripped it free, and it toppled backwards with a crash that echoed throughout the empty streets.

  She stood over it, panting for a moment, her blade still raised. She felt strangely dizzy—an odd mix of elation, adrenaline, and panic. She tore her eyes from the creature, trying not to think about why it was here or what she’d done to it.

  Anything to get Moore out of here, she reminded herself.

  For a moment, everything was silent, and Seven dared hope that her plan had worked. If she’d earned the rest of the pack’s respect, maybe she could even bring Moore through here unharmed.

  The smaller creatures approached her, but they didn’t seem to be aggressive—only curious. They chittered as they did so, and a wave of relief washed over her. Several backed away, lowering their weapons. She was halfway to sheathing her sword when the nearest one lunged.

  She barely twisted aside in time, the sword missing her ribs by inches. Another took advantage of her imbalance, coming at her from the left. Several circled behind her, and the entire pack descended on her at once.

  “Oh come on!” Seven brought her blade up to parry a strike aimed at her face and fell into a dance she never thought she would need before. When she was bored with regular training, her sword master had set up sessions with several other swordsmen at once.

  Seven had hated them.

  Exhausting, stressful, and sometimes even embarrassing, she’d viewed them akin to some sort of sick punishment.

  It turned out that having it happen outside the training arena was no better.

  She spun, kicked, and blocked the best she could, but she couldn’t tell if her glancing blows had done any real damage. Worse, with so many of the things attacking her at once, she didn’t have the time to spot the weaknesses in their armor, and every blow she landed with her sword was quickly forgotten.

  She tugged on her Luck again, desperate for its speed, and moved on instinct. The Luck helped, but the creatures were nearly as fast as she was even with Luck. She’d need something else to defeat them, though several finally fell to her blade.

  Worse, she was tiring. Even Luck didn’t last forever, and as Emmet had warned her days ago—or had it been last week?—her body couldn’t quite handle the strain of her powers yet, even if the rest of her was determined to use them.

  The creatures closed in on her, and Seven realized that she was in deep shit. One sliced across her shoulder after a poorly timed parry on her part. Another nicked her thigh when she was just a touch too slow.

  She tried to look for an exit in the fray, but the creatures were so thick that there was only her blade, their armor, and the increasing knowledge that if she didn’t find a way past them soon, she’d be doing LMC’s disposal work for them.

  Seven gritted her teeth, sweat running down her back, and blinked blood from her vision.

  That was when she heard Emmet’s voice.

  He crashed into the nearest creature with a makeshift club that looked like it had been ripped from a building’s support beam. The creature went down with a thud, and Luca appeared behind him, his face pale. His clothes were torn, and he held another makeshift weapon in his hands, his arms shaking, but his eyes were fierce.

  “Turns out we’re sharing an office space today,” Emmet said, swinging his weapon at another of the things. Seven plunged her rapier into a nearby creature when an opening appeared. “Also turns out LMC considers us all guilty by association.”

  “You’re joking,” she said, grunting as she kicked a creature backwards, her leg screaming.

  “Is there something funny about being thrown into the depths of hell that I’m missing?” Luca snapped, squealing as he batted away another creature with surprising determination that seemed mostly born out of terror.

  “Well it’s kind of funny on a cosmic sort of level,” Emmet argued, swinging again.

  “Luca wasn’t even helping us,” Seven snapped. “Why did they drag him down here?”

  “Too many meal tickets,” Luca explained. “Too much shared interest in mathematics and architecture, apparently.”

  “I don’t even like math,” Seven said.

  “Gambling’s just math where you can lose with the right answer,” Emmet said. “Now, if we can focus on killing these abominations, I’d like to figure out why LMC throws its best miners down here, wouldn’t you?”

  “Agreed,” Seven said, smiling in spite of everything.

  Luca and Emmet were sloppy fighters, but Emmet was tall and broad, and together, the odds evened out until only a few creatures remained—and with most of their pack gone, they fell back, no longer interested in fighting.

  Emmet helped Seven to her feet, and she stood on shaking legs, her mouth half-open to explain about Moore’s hideaway.

  The words didn’t have a chance to leave her mouth.

  The ground shook. Sporadically at first, then with a slow, rhythmic rumbling that grew stronger with each passing second. Seven drew her sword again, then looked towards the tunnel entrance.

  Ice crept into her limbs.

  “I don’t suppose you ever figured out what, exactly, was following us that night in the upper sector?” Seven asked Luca, her voice small. He shook his head, his eyes too wide.

  Tiles cracked and buckled, the wall trembled, then burst all at once.

  What stood there in the entrance made Seven drop her sword with a clang.

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