Jin heard the jaws close beside his ear.
He dropped. The knife slashed upward, caught something hard and skittered free.
A pale eye opened in the dark.
Three more appeared behind it.
Jin snatched a clod of earth and threw it at the nearest shape. It passed through a pale cheek and burst against something beyond.
Real jaws snapped shut on the falling dirt.
He turned toward them.
The creature moved. Its copies crossed each other, the real scrape of claws lost beneath the pounding of his own feet.
Knowing there was only one body hadn't made it obliging enough to stay in place.
“Inside!” Garran shouted.
Jin scrambled toward the doorway. His yellow shoe struck the threshold just as a weight hammered the wall beside him.
Clay dust filled his mouth.
The darkness ended at the wall's broken corner. Beyond it the road was still bright, the trees painfully green. Within the yard, the creature's eyes moved between bodies he couldn't separate.
Tamsin crouched beside the workers.
“It folds light around itself. Keep off the floor.”
Bram pushed a stool under the gray-haired woman's foot and helped her onto the window ledge.
Garran stood outside the doorway.
One foot planted. Sword held across his body.
The first bite came low. He stepped over it and cut down.
Glass cracked.
A clear plate flew out of the dark and broke against the gatepost. The creature howled.
Rook's bell rang twice.
The darkness slid toward the building.
Garran backed up one pace. Another. The real claws scratched the threshold between two illusory sets.
Jin heard the difference.
He walked three tight steps from the inside wall to the threshold, registered them, returned and pointed his knife toward the doorway.
At the start he pressed his heel down twice, finding the weight Garran had taught him. A braced launch. Something solid to drive from.
“Kessa. Get him back.”
She caught Garran's collar.
The creature sprang.
Jin set his heel.
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Marked Step caught. For a heartbeat the ground felt solid enough to stand against anything he could actually hold.
He selected Replay.
The route pulled forward.
His planted leg didn't.
Pain shot through his knee. Jin gasped, his hips twisting between the two demands.
He released the hold too late.
The burst threw him against the doorframe instead of through the opening. His shoulder hit wood. The knife flew from his hand.
Garran shifted his sword to his left hand, shoved Kessa back with his shoulder and reached for him with his right.
The real jaws closed on the veteran's right forearm.
Blood splashed Jin's shirt.
Garran struck with his sword. The blade broke a second plate off the creature's back. A foreclaw caught the guard and wrenched the weapon from his good hand.
Rook rang once.
The glassmaw backed away, dragging the sword by its guard. Garran's arm came free.
Jin caught him beneath the shoulder.
“I had it,” he said.
Garran's breath hissed between his teeth.
“Then have me. Lift.”
Jin lifted.
Together they staggered behind the inner wall.
Kessa thrust at the creature's mouth. Her point struck bronze beneath the jaw, forcing its head sideways.
She twisted the shaft and swung the butt toward Rook's outstretched hand.
The bell rang wrong.
A harsh, split note.
The dark shape in the yard stopped.
Rook looked at the bell. A crack ran from its rim to its crown.
“Away,” he snapped.
The creature turned toward his voice.
For the first time, Rook took a step back.
He snatched a different bell from his chest strap and struck it against the broken one. The new note shivered through Jin's teeth.
The glassmaw crouched.
Rook backed toward the road, keeping the bell moving. The creature followed him, its false bodies passing through the shattered gate without disturbing a splinter.
The real foreclaw scraped the sword over broken stone as it followed.
Kessa started after it.
“Stay,” Garran said.
Rook reached the bright road.
The folded darkness shrank with the beast. He stooped, picked up Garran's sword and slid it under his belt.
“Dawn,” he called. “The farms pay double. Tell them who improved the price.”
Kessa hurled a broken piece of gatepost.
It struck the road behind his heel.
Then he was gone between the trees, still ringing.
Nobody cheered.
Jin looked at Garran's arm. Kessa was already binding it with a strip torn from the veteran's shirt. The gray-haired woman came down from the window and put her hand against the wall.
A crack ran through it from floor to lintel.
“My boy sleeps on the other side,” she said.
Jin couldn't find anything to say.
He picked up his knife instead.
The blade had bent where it struck the glass.
He tried to straighten it with his thumbs. It didn't move.
Tamsin crouched beside him.
“Show me the step.”
“It doesn't work.”
“I noticed. Show me anyway.”
He stood, planted his foot and demonstrated the hold. After it faded, he walked a short route and showed her the burst separately.
She watched his feet rather than his face.
“Two different patterns,” she said.
“From two different worlds.”
That made her look up.
Jin held her gaze.
“The planted one doesn't work where I come from.”
Tamsin took the cracked glass plate from the dirt and turned it between her fingers.
“Then stop asking one foot to belong to both at once.”
He stared at her.
Behind him, Garran shifted his bandaged arm and swore at the empty place where his sword should have been.
Jin closed his fist around the bent knife.
“Show me how.”