The monocled menace—because I refuse to call him anything else until forced—stood before us at the plaza's center, staff gleaming, those violet crystals orbiting like smug little planets.
His laughter still hummed in the air, a sound infuriatingly smooth, as though even the apocalypse required a cultured baritone.
I was still trembling with exhaustion from our previous chase, my shirt plastered with Rodrick's blood and my own, and yet some remnant of wit insisted on bubbling up. Because of course it did. My survival mechanism apparently functioned in the same way rats on a sinking ship decide to form a choir before drowning.
"Salem," I hissed, nudging him with my elbow while my pen twitched in my hand, "tell me I'm not hallucinating a magician who thinks the laws of nature are his juggling balls."
Salem grinned back at me, the bastard, even as sweat ran into his eyes. "If it's a hallucination," he panted, his twin blades trembling faintly, "then at least it's a stylish one."
