Liam came from Mabel’s rear right, both daggers flickering in and out of sight as his shadow trailed unnaturally beneath him. He attacked with no obvious rhythm—high stab, low slash, reverse grip thrust, a sudden spin that brought the butt of one dagger toward her temple. It was not elegant swordsmanship in the traditional sense. It was murderous adaptability. Every angle chosen to exploit the split-second attention she had spent on the others.

Mabel met him with terrifying calm.

Her blade moved like an extension of instinct. She parried one dagger, turned her shoulder to let another skim past, trapped his wrist briefly against the flat of her sword, then forced him off line with a burst of water from under his feet. Liam adjusted in midstep, shadow spilling beneath him as though it wanted to drag him back into balance, but Mabel was already pressing.

Her strikes came tighter now.

Cleaner and faster.

Each movement of her sword was paired with water magic so seamlessly it became difficult to tell where the technique ended and the spell began. Sometimes the water coated her blade, extending its reach by inches. Sometimes it wrapped her arm to enhance a deflection. Sometimes it pooled under her boots to give her impossible changes of direction, letting her slide, pivot, or stop with almost unnatural precision.

She fought like someone who had turned long experience into instinctive artistry.

Liam, Nyxie, and Smoke fought like a coordinated pack trying to tear down something that refused to break.

Smoke circled wide, forcing Mabel to split her attention. Nyxie harried from above and from blind spots, her wings letting her change elevation unpredictably. Liam stayed closest, constantly entering and exiting the pocket around Mabel’s sword range, testing, drawing reactions, baiting habits.

Again and again, they denied her space.

Smoke lunged—Mabel sidestepped and slashed across his shoulder, drawing a spray of dark blood.

Nyxie descended—Mabel spun beneath her and sent a pressurized stream upward that clipped one wing and forced her into an awkward landing.

Liam slipped in on the instant Nyxie touched down, his dagger aimed for Mabel’s side. Mabel twisted, caught his wrist, and drove her knee into his abdomen hard enough to fold him slightly before a burst of water detonated from her elbow and flung him away.

Still they came.

Smoke recovered and attacked with savage persistence, snapping jaws and hammering claws. Nyxie used feints now, making Mabel commit to high guards so Liam could threaten low. Liam began using his own shadow more aggressively, vanishing for fragments of seconds into dark patches created by the shifting lights and the bodies moving across the hall.

For a while, it worked.

A cut opened along Mabel’s upper arm.

A shallow stab grazed her side.

Smoke’s shoulder slammed into her hard enough to force a grunt from her lips.

Nyxie’s claw tore across the sleeve of her uniform and nearly opened her collarbone.

But for every success, Mabel adapted.

She started reading the rhythm.

Not the individual attacks.

The structure underneath them.

She noticed the half-beat Liam always left before committing when Nyxie attacked first. She saw how Smoke favored Mabel’s sword side, trying to pin her dominant arm while Liam struck opposite. She began repositioning not for the current attack, but for the next one. Deny Smoke his charge line. Force Nyxie lower. Turn Liam into the nearest threat so she could feel his presence better.

Then the tide shifted.

Smoke went in again—too direct this time, frustration finally pushing his aggression ahead of timing.

Mabel slid inward instead of away.

Her sword snapped up under his jaw, not deep enough to kill but placed with ruthless precision. At the same moment a torrent of water exploded point-blank into his chest. The combined strike lifted the huge beast off his front legs and sent him crashing sideways across the floor. He hit hard, skidded, and tried to rise—

A lattice of water spears pinned around him in a cage-like formation, slamming down so quickly and so close that even Smoke’s size worked against him. He thrashed once, twice, but each movement made the imprisoning currents tighten and harden around his limbs and torso.

Smoke was out.

Nyxie screamed and dove.

Her humanoid frame blurred through the air with killing intent stripped bare now, every trace of restraint gone. Darkness poured from her claws as she attacked in a frenzy of savage, precise violence—slashes that could gut, thrusts that aimed for eyes and throat, wingbeats that buffeted the air and disturbed footing.

For the first time, Mabel gave ground.

Only a little.

Only because Nyxie was genuinely dangerous.

Their clash became a blur of black and silver.

Nyxie’s claws raked.

Mabel’s sword intercepted.

Nyxie spun low with a sweeping kick.

Mabel jumped, then twisted in the air, water flaring beneath her feet to alter her landing angle.

Nyxie came again before she touched down, one glowing hand reaching for Mabel’s face while the other formed a blade of solidified shadow.

Mabel met it head-on.

Her sword and Nyxie’s shadow blade collided with a shrill metallic cry despite one being magic-born. Water wrapped around Mabel’s weapon, thickening along the edge. She stepped in instead of out, jammed Nyxie’s arm at the elbow to kill the leverage, then pivoted sharply and drove the pommel of her sword into Nyxie’s midsection.

Nyxie staggered.

Mabel followed with brutal timing.

Her leg swept Nyxie’s planted foot. A coil of water wrapped one wing and yanked downward. As Nyxie lost balance for the briefest instant, Mabel’s blade rose in a clean, merciless line toward her chest.

It was the perfect finishing strike.

And that was exactly when Liam moved.

He had been waiting for that moment.

Not for an opening.

For commitment.

As Mabel drove in to finish Nyxie immediately after neutralizing Smoke, Nyxie’s body vanished.

Not leaped back. Not broken apart.

Vanished.

Mabel’s pupils contracted.

Too late.

The space Nyxie had occupied rippled with dark distortion, and Liam appeared there in the same instant through Shadow Swap, emerging already inside her guard, already moving. One dagger hooked her sword arm off line while his shoulder slammed into her center. His leg cut behind hers. His weight followed with ruthless efficiency.

Mabel hit the ground hard.

The air left her in a sharp breath as Liam pinned her, one knee anchoring her down, one hand controlling her wrist. His other hand held a dagger mere millimeters from her eye, the point so close that the cold glint of the blade reflected in her pupil.

For the first time in the fight, stillness fell.

Dust drifted.

Water hissed across cracked stone.

Liam’s chest rose and fell, controlled but heavier now. There was blood at the corner of his mouth, a tear across his shoulder, bruising already forming along one side of his ribs. His red eyes looked down at her with calm, sharpened focus.

"I win," he said.

For a brief second, Mabel only stared up at him.

Then she chuckled.

It was soft. Slightly breathless. And somehow still amused.

"I’m impressed," she said, her voice steady despite the blade at her eye. "But Liam... you really shouldn’t forget that I also have Spatial Magic."

Liam’s expression changed by a fraction.

Then he felt it.

Cold steel.

Right at the back of his neck.

His body stilled.

The Mabel beneath him began to fade—not dissolving into shadow, but thinning like an afterimage losing substance. The sensation of weight under him disappeared almost at once. Liam’s eyes narrowed, and he turned his head just enough to see behind him.

There she was.

The real Mabel stood at his back, her sword resting lightly against his neck. Her stance was composed despite the drawn-out fight, though a few strands of hair had escaped and there were visible signs of battle on her now—cuts, dust, a sheen of sweat, a darkened patch at her side where Liam had grazed her earlier.

Even so, her gaze held that same infuriating composure.

Liam was silent for one heartbeat.

Then a smirk tugged faintly at his mouth.

"Honestly, I haven’t forgotten nothing," he said.

Mabel’s brow shifted slightly.

Liam’s smirk sharpened.

"If someone forgot something," his voice lowered just a little. "It’s you. Because you should know better than to be standing within my shadow."

The realization hit her instantly.

Her eyes flicked downward.

Because in the chaos of their positioning, in stepping behind him to place her blade at his neck, she had planted herself directly over the wide, stretched shadow cast by Liam’s crouched form and the fractured lighting of the hall.

And Liam’s shadow was never just a shadow.

The next moment, the darkness under Mabel’s boots moved.

Not like liquid.

Like a hand.

Her footing vanished.

Mabel’s eyes widened as the shadow swallowed her legs to the knees in an instant. She shifted immediately, trying to Blink away with Spatial Magic, but Liam had timed it perfectly—striking during the smallest lapse between realization and execution. The shadow surged higher, dragging her down with crushing unnatural force. Her sword arm jerked as she tried to reposition, but the darkness bound tighter around her hips and waist, locking her in place.

A split second later, she sank completely to just above the shoulders.

Only her head and the tops of her shoulders remained visible above the dark surface.

The sword slipped from her grasp and clattered across the stone.

Silence returned to the hall in full.

Smoke remained trapped in the distance, still growling low in frustration. Nyxie had remanifested nearby, breathing steadily, one hand resting over where Mabel’s earlier strike had landed. The air was hot, wet, and thick with the residue of magic.

Liam rose slowly to his feet, then turned and looked down at Mabel where she was embedded in his shadow.

After a moment, he crouched in front of her.

There was exhaustion in him now. Real exhaustion. But there was also the quiet satisfaction of a trap sprung exactly as intended.

His dagger lowered, resting loosely in his hand.

Then he said, calm and certain,

"Guess I still win."