"Are you sure?" Esmond asked. "Let's see whether you still believe that now."
The homunculus moved before his voice finished fading. She didn't charge with anger - anger would have required something alive to feel it. Her body simply obeyed, pale mana threading through the artificial channels beneath her skin and pooling around her bare feet in compressed plates that cracked against the floor and catapulted her forward in a vicious burst of speed.
Trafalgar met her with Maledicta, and the collision rammed pressure through the room. The floor split beneath his boots, the walls groaned under Matteo's wards, and a row of old shelves burst behind him, vomiting books, glass cases, and alchemical records into the air. The homunculus clamped both hands against his blade, fingers curling over the edge without flinching while dark, dense fluid wept from the shallow cuts opening across her palms.
