Thegn tries to wrench his wings free, but the grip from the damn girl’s new hands is just too tight. Her elbows are locked, so trying to open or close his wings to shake free is no good. He looks down and gives a yank on his scythe. Nope. That’s stuck in a pinch between her feet and her lower hands.

Smiling, she gives a push with her feet, leveraging herself so she can control the angle of his wings. He checks their trajectory. Bitch is treating me like a damn hang glider. Got us on a straight line back to that canyon town.

He can see the dark swarms on the pathways and rooftops of the burg. The Umbrati horde is there among the fires and muzzle flashes, disregarding the town’s defenses. Waiting for him.

He feels tiny paws clinching the fabric around his shoulder. Oh my. She’s got you in quite the state, doesn’t she?

“Caffiel. Almost prefer the hive to your smart ass.” The words hiss through his teeth and he enjoys the momentary look of confusion in the girl’s face before she realizes he isn’t addressing her. No matter. He wants the rat to hear that. Besides—

Thegn takes advantage of her moment of distraction and tries again to yank free. He pulls both at his wings and at his scythe. No dice. He rolls his eyes and lets out an exasperated sigh. For fuck’s sake.

He releases the scythe and it immediately turns to ash, vaporizing right out of her grasp. With nothing holding her in place, her feet shoot forward and her lower arms flail backward. Her upper hands never lose their grip, though. Instead, she pulls with them, swinging her legs and planting her feet right in the center of Thegn’s chest.

But his hands are free now. Thegn rolls his bony fingers into fists. He takes a swing at her midsection and connects hard with her ribs. However, she doesn’t crumple at the force of his blow like so many other people would.

She doesn’t let go, either.

Instead, she clamps down with the lower arm closest to where he hit, trapping his hand in place. Then her other lower arm shoots forward and she wraps her fingers around his neck. He grabs her wrist with his remaining free hand, but it’s all he can do to keep her from squeezing and crushing his trachea.

Despite all of this, he finds himself smiling. He looks down her arm and into her face. “It’s been too long, Durga.”

There’s a flicker of recognition, but it disappears just as quickly. She pulls herself closer to him, her green eyes blazing through her dark mask of a face, their foreheads nearly touching. There’s a sweetness in her breath that he can barely smell with the wind whipping around them. “The name, is Corva!”

She leans back, upside down with her face toward Bule, and pulls down on his wings. Her feet wedge against his chest and she straightens their course.

They’re very close now. Thegn can see individual grunts crawling over each other, turning their steel-plated faces up to the sky. He can hear the cacophony of that grotesque throat-clearing noise they make.

It’s liquid-sounding and guttural, like the whole mass of them is dry heaving.

Disgusted, Thegn leans into the glide, trying to speed up their descent. Let’s see if a game of chicken with the ground will loosen her up.

You may want to have a look to your left.

Thegn turns his head to see what it is that the rat’s referring to. Sure enough, two groups of Umbrati grunts are working their way to a small cleared-off rooftop. The first team is carrying an enormous crate made of a fine wire mesh. It’s impossible to see the contents of the crate, but with its darkness and increasingly pervasive buzzing, Thegn knows exactly what’s in there.

“Shit. If it isn’t one thing—”