Sawyer and Bran stopped their own practice battle to watch, and Annika lowered her arms as her practice balls hovered in the air.
Doyle swept Riley’s legs out from under her, but she rolled again, backflipped up, kicked out as she did, aiming—a bit harder than practice called for—at the groin.
Doyle set his teeth, went over the pain—she’d hit her mark solidly—scored a point on her left arm.
“You’d be bleeding.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
They charged. Knives met, crossed. They held there, like pirates, eyes hot before Doyle shoved her back. She recovered, swung into a roundhouse kick, hit him chest high. He grabbed her foot, used momentum to thrust her into the air. She managed to flip, landed, but off-balance enough to have to reset.
He charged again, took her down, his knife to her throat.
“And you’re done.”
“You, too, old man. My knife’s in your gut.”
He lay on her a moment more, admitting only to himself he was winded and his balls ached like a bitch. Then he lifted enough to look down, and sure enough, her knife was hilt deep in his gut.
&nbs
p; “Wouldn’t kill me for long, but you’d still be dead.”
“Good thing I won’t be fighting Lazarus. Get off me.”
“In a minute.” He looked around at the audience. “I’ve got her down, and we’ll say she’s unarmed for these purposes. My knife’s at her throat. What do you do? Annika?”
Without hesitation, she jerked up her arm. He felt a tingle in his knife hand. “Perfect. Aim and reflexes. Bran.”
Bran flicked his hand, and the knife turned into a banana.
“A bit of humor,” Bran said. “But effective.”
“Good enough. Sasha?”
She took Bran’s knife, threw it. It hit Doyle in the back of the head.
“Impressive.”
“I was aiming for your back, center mass. But I’ll take good luck where I find it.”
“Sawyer?”
With a hand in his pocket, he measured distance. In an instant he crouched beside Doyle and Riley, sliced his knife cleanly on Doyle’s throat. And gripping Riley’s shoulder, popped them both back to where he’d stood.
“Good enough.” Doyle got to his feet. “Of course, this is saying any one of you has that split second to act.”
“We’ll make the second,” Annika insisted. “We’re meant to protect each other. If we don’t do all we must for each of us, we fail. If we find the stars but one of us falls, we fail. We thought you’d fallen that night in Corfu, and we grieved. Because we’re family now. Family protects, always.”
“You used your second to shield Riley that night,” Sasha reminded him. “Anni’s right. It’s the six of us who are meant to find the stars. If any of us fall, we fail. We can’t fail. I’ll work harder.”
“You’re better than you were. You’ve had the farthest to come.”
“I think that’s supposed to be encouragement. You’re angry,” Sasha added, studying Doyle. “I can feel it. Angry and starting to doubt if we’re on the right track, in the right place. If the vision I had that brought us here was just wrong.”
“You’re still new at reading them.”
“She’s yet to be wrong,” Bran reminded him. “Impatience, while human enough, isn’t productive.”