Tiamat yawned, catlike and unhurried, and stretched her arms until the delicate bones of her shoulders clicked. The lair's crystal lights caught in her midnight hair and ran along it like water.
'How intriguing,' she thought, lips curving. She had not meant to push that hard. She knew exactly how much she'd allowed out—no more than a calm tenth of herself—yet even that had been too much for the moment. The problem, if it could be called one, was simple.
Arthur Nightingale was stronger than he had any right to be.
In the last few months his edge had thickened and his timing had grown clean, the way steel sings when it has been tempered correctly. His fight with the Second Calamity—Gideon Ironmaw, the steel-devouring terror with the laughter like millstones—had carved away hesitation and left behind a ruthless sort of clarity.
