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“You like my dress, huh?” she sighed and hit harder.

“Delay killing me for too long, and you’ll end up naked princess,” he raised an eyebrow.

“But alive?” Shew pressed her sword against his with all her might, their faces close now. Loki was taken back by her words and stare. He looked puzzled, wondering why he liked her so much. Shew didn’t mind if the only way to outlive him was seducing him. She’d spared him once, and she’d expected him to spare her.

“Nice try,” Loki pushed her back, changing his mind. “I eat girls like you for breakfast.”

“Not if I slit your throat the night before,” Shew grit her teeth, and … again … she swung hard.

“I’m just stalling,” he said. “I’m enjoying this tremendously. Did you know I could swing with both hands?” He winked at her.

“You just can’t admit I’m stronger,” Shew said.

Loki wasn’t provoked. He was really enjoying this, and Shew knew it, but it was going nowhere. She wasn’t going to spend all night bantering with him.

“So tell me, princess,” he said, “if you could be anything you want to be, what would that be? And don’t say princess,” Loki spoke as he swung with one hand the other resting on his waist.

“Not funny,” she said, as her arm began hurting. “When will you understand that Carmilla has you by the balls?”

“Balls?” Loki was stuck with her face to face, sword to sword, each one pushing their sword against the other. Their faces reddened.  “I don’t have balls.”

“Of course, you do,” Shew omitted a laugh and pushed him away. “You’re just two centuries too old to realize you do.”

In a swift and accurate move, Loki pushed her back and slashed at her lips.

Shew stood paralyzed.

She’d actually felt the tip of the sword on her lips, like a paper cut. If she’d doubted he was going to kill her for a moment, she had to reevaluate the situation. This was his first true warning.

“Shhh,” Loki had his forefinger on his lips. His stare wasn’t funny anymore, filled with sinister mockery. He was just a charming mass murderer.  It was at this very moment she sensed that he had enough of having fun with the feisty princess he’d admired briefly.

Strike, Shew, strike! One more moment of hesitation and he’ll kill you.

Shew slashed hard at Loki’s arm. When her sword met his flesh, she didn’t pull away. She cut hard through it like a cake. Her guts churned from the inside, but she had to do it. She thought the wound would slow him down and allow her to escape on her unicorn.

Loki held his arm and looked at it as if no one had ever dared to injure him before. He returned his gaze to her, and Shew feared his wrath even more. He had the same look in his eyes he had when he was at Furry Tell.

Out of fear, she slashed at his other arm, forcing him to drop his sword.

Loki glared at her with snake-yellow eyes now. A tight scream escaped him briefly, but then he swallowed it. He was not going to show he was in pain. Still, he sank to his knees from the pain.

Shew did her best not to feel sorry for him, imagining he was someone else.

In his pain, his veins surfaced on his neck and arms. As Shew looked closer she noticed that they weren’t his veins, but his Ariadne Fleece running through his body. Carmilla, wherever she was, must have pulled it harder, urging him to get up, and he did, empowered by the Fleece.

For the first time, Shew realized she wasn’t only fighting Loki, but Carmilla Karnstein as well.

Loki stood up. There wasn’t the slightest sign of playfulness on his face.

He was going to kill her mercilessly.

Shew walked backwards, slowly, unable to take her eyes off him. Where would she go? There was no way she could outrun or escape him.

Loki slashed at her hand, but she managed to hold on to her sword. She raised her hand against the pain and plunged the sword into his stomach.

He bent forward and gripped the blade with both hands, glaring back at her as his hair fell over his eyes.

“Not good enough, princess,” he smiled against the mild pain, but unable to raise his voice.

Afraid he’d part her from her sword, Shew pulled it back, slitting his palms while he still clenched to it.

Loki stretched his back, stretched his neck, and cracked his bleeding knuckles one by one. He took a deep breath as if the pain meant nothing to him. His strength was unimaginable, “feels much better now,” his said, bleeding from his stomach.

Shew realized that killing him wasn’t going to be easy. She turned around and headed toward her unicorn, praying Loki’s wound would slow him down.

It didn’t.

“Going somewhere?” she heard him come after her.

Shew continued toward her unicorn, not looking back, but her unicorn had started running away. For a moment, she didn’t understand, then she realized it must have been running from the huge silver light that was now shining in the sky.

Shew, chasing the unicorn, thought the light might have been the moon, even though it wasn’t a white light. It was like the reflection of glass, as if the part of the sky had turned into an enormous mirror reflecting its light onto the forest. She had no time to look. Loki scared her more than the light.

“Ahhh,” Loki screamed behind her. She heard him fall back on the ground, giving her a fraction of a second to look at the glaring light.

She tilted her head and saw a dragon, a glass dragon.

Shew stopped, afraid of it the same way the unicorn feared it. Looking sideways, she saw the floating glass dragon had knocked Loki down. The look of terror on Loki’s face was priceless. He had never seen anything like it—hell, she hadn’t seen anything like it either.

The dragon was the size of Splash, Cerené’s water horse, and it was made from living glass. It was both beautiful and scary. Its eyes were diamonds, and it breathed orange fire at Loki who crawled on all fours away from it.

A little lower, the dragon’s tail was attached to a blowpipe. Cerené’s blowpipe.

There was nothing to doubt anymore, Cerené was what Charmwill Glimmer was to Loki. She used all of her breath, urging the dragon to fire at him.

“What kind of witch are you?” Loki shouted at Shew, raising his sword to fight the glass dragon.

“Cerené,” Shew yelled. “You’re going to die if you keep breathing. Let the dragon fade, and escape with me.”

“I’m glad I found you,” Cerené panted, giving up on the pipe, the huge dragon dimming a little.

“Did you follow me?” She wondered.

“No,” Cerené said. “I followed the chalk marks on the trees and the Rapunzel plants all over the forest. It wasn’t the smartest of moves, Joy. Even though the Rapunzel plants helped slow down the Huntsmen, the chalk on the trees was how Loki must have tracked you.”

“And my singing, too,” Shew added.

“Now the Queen is sending other huntsmen for you.”

“Why did you risk your life coming for me again?” Shew walked to her and grabbed her arm. Loki was fighting the diminishing dragon behind her. Soon it was going to die.

“I had to give you this,” Cerené pulled out Loki’s necklace, and smiled.

“I hope you didn’t hurt Alice,” Shew said, looking at the necklace one more time. She still couldn’t read it, but she put it back on.

“I don’t care about her,” Cerené said vaguely. “Come on. We have to hide in the cottage,” she pointed behind her.

Shew squinted harder, looking for it, “how did I miss it,” she wondered.

“Doesn’t matter,” Cerené said. “It’s our only hope, although it’s not going to be as safe as I thought, now that Loki found you. The whole idea about the cottage was no one could find it. But we have no choice now.”

They ran toward the cottage, holding hands; Cerené held her blowpipe with the other hand while Shew carried her newly tested sword.