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The edge of Twilight's lip twitched. Then she brought her good knee up between his legs. Hard.

"Except that," she said.

With a soprano moan, Davoren crumpled into a quivering heap. Twilight fell on him, unable to stand on her broken leg. She slapped away his feeble hands and took the healing potion he had taunted her with. She jabbed an elbow into his face, stunning him once more.

Twilight crawled away and uncorked the flask. She drained the sweet liquor, letting it spread to her broken limbs and ribs. It did not heal her entirely, but the pain receded. With a little exertion, she could stand again.

And as soon as she did, she kicked the warlock in the gut, just to stifle any spells, curses, or whatever else he might have mustered.

"H-how?" Davoren managed as he pawed at her without strength.

"Typical Davoren," Twilight said brokenly. "You may be strong… you may be crafty, and you may be powerful… but you don't know the first rule of poison. Never carry one that can harm you."

The warlock's face twisted in a mixture of agony and fury. Dark, perverse words started to form on his lips.

Twilight put a stop to that with her boot. "You'd be surprised the tolerance a wench can build with a century on her hands."

In reply, Davoren spat a pair of incisors.

"What biting wit," Twilight noted. Then she coughed and almost fell. The healing helped, but there was little enough a single potion could do for ribs as broken as hers.

Without the fear of the warlock striking her down from behind, she limped toward Betrayal. Where it lay, shadows flickered along its edge, and she remembered its former wielder. Her eyes grew bleary for a heartbeat, but only for a heartbeat.

"Thtop!" Davoren commanded, with Asmodeus's authority.

But Twilight was unmoved. Of her own will, she stopped and turned halfway to look.

"You neeth me," he said through blood and spittle, his voice slurred without some of his teeth. "My power-to ethcape thith plathe. You'll never make it witho'w help!"

"A good point." She pulled the amulet over her head-so it could find her. "Ruukthalmuramaxamin!" she called. "Hear me! I have a new bargain for you."

As gold energy began to circle around her, Davoren's face sank. "Whore!" he spat. "You had beth watch over your thoulder-my mathter never forgeth a foe! I'll take pleathure in watching you die, like I did with that gold weathel and her corpth of a mate."

Twilight paused. "Hold, Ruuk," she said, dropping the chain back to her neck. The magic faded, and Davoren chuckled-with a cough.

As the elf limped to where Davoren's stiletto lay, gripping her bleeding side, she listened to Davoren laying out his plans for her humiliating demise. She was amused.

As she crossed into the hall, her shadow broke from its spell and hissed back around her, its touch like a chilling caress. Twilight almost took comfort in it.

"Filliken! Trollop! Thuccubuth!" he roared. "I'll thow you! I'll burn a hole in your thull-an keep you alive, begging! Athmodeuth will have hith due tribute by my hand! Your trickery ith nothing to my art!"

Twilight slipped the bloody stiletto up the sleeve of her good arm. Then she tipped up Betrayal with her toe. Tilted, it sparkled hotly in the torchlight. She thought about running him through, but every way she looked at it, it just seemed too honorable.

She settled for stabbing him in the gut.

Davoren's jabbering turned frantic. "Juth like them. Juth like them all! I'm better than you!" Twilight heard the madness in his voice. Blood poured from his lips and his arm reached for her. "I'll kill you-I'll kill you-/W/you!"

Then she bent, not without effort, and selected a nice, heavy rock. She smiled. "Not if I crush all your fingers first."

Surrounded by candles of human fat, kneeling on blankets of skin, Lord Divergence prayed to the demon prince. He demanded power rather than begged. Demogorgon would give nothing to the weak.

And the fiend was pleased with its servant, granting greater powers than