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By the tihtmare was all the way inside Furious at the loss of tihthouse It was a leap unlike anything she had tried before It was as if her thick, -loaded h the air, hurled but also tuht She cartwheeled, head over heels, had plenty of tihthouse but absolutely no way to avoid crashing into it

The impact knocked the wind out of her but was not painful No, the painful part hen she fell to the ground, banging off the portico

She was htmare, mad that she couldn’t control her body, mad at what felt like some kind of psychic interruption from the Watchers

With one powerful foot she kicked in the door Inside, things were much as she expected There was a small desk and a chair, but really the only important feature was the steel spiral staircase

“Counterclockwise Of course”

Soe that in ancient castles the spiral staircases alent counterclockwise, because in the old days of sword fighting you defended your castle from the top down A spiral that went counterclockwise ht—was free, while those co up the stairs had their sword hands cramped

This was one of those pieces of data Shade had never i useful But as it happened, she was in a tower, and she was facing, in effect, a swordsht

The stairs were narrow, too narrow for her to squeeze past the luhthouse to ave her

Knightmare stopped at a platfor it side to side, daring her to try to get past

“Who are you?” Knightmare cried

Shade vibrated to a stop just beyond the sloeep of his sword arm “Shade Darby Pleased to Meet you”

“Leave me alone!”

“Can’t You’re The Villain I’m The Hero” The silliness

of her response would havenausea as ghostly tendrils tickled the boundaries of herto find an open

“It’s not my fault! I can’t control this creature!”