Page 57 of Escaping Wonderland

Shadow came down with a huge splash and grabbed the knife handle still jutting from knife-Sithix’s back. The alien reversed his turn but wasn’t fast enough—Shadow pulled up hard on the knife, tearing through thick scales and powerful muscle. The blade only stopped when it hit bone.

With a sharp, hissing roar, knife-Sithix whipped around, swinging one of his knives at Shadow.

Shadow ducked under the swing and slashed his claws across knife-Sithix’s exposed ribs. None of the boruk’s wounds bled, despite their severity, but knife-Sithix seemed tofeelthem, at the very least.

Other-Sithix, maintaining his hold on Alice, was backing away. He remained the true threat.

Shadow phased to knife-Sithix’s opposite side, caught the jutting knife handle again, and twisted it. Howling, the boruk took another swing.

Shadow swayed away from knife-Sithix’s attack, slammed a foot against the boruk’s hip, and straightened his leg. He held tight to the knife grip as knife-Sithix stumbled away, wrenching the weapon free of the boruk’s body. Shadow phased again before his foe could recover, appearing behind other-Sithix.

When other-Sithix spun to face Shadow, creating a small wave on the water’s surface, Shadow plunged into the stream fully and phased again. He rematerialized near the bed of the stream, lying on his back, with other-Sithix’s legs directly in front of him. He thrust the knife into the back of his enemy’s knee and dragged the blade down. It tore open a long, wide gash along the boruk’s calf.

Dark blood clouded the water.

Shadow grinned. A metallic tang flowed into his mouth; that hint of flavor was oddly satisfying.

The ambient sounds of running water were overpowered by a rush of movement. Shadow twisted to see knife-Sithix speeding toward him along the stream bed, tail lashing side-to-side to propel him forward. The charging boruk struck with jolting impact, throwing his arms around Shadow’s torso as they collided. Knife-Sithix’s momentum carried him and Shadow away from Alice andreal-Sithix.

Shadow slammed his hands down on knife-Sithix’s back, sank his claws deep, and kicked off the stream bed. He glanced toward Alice as he broke the surface; her captor, bleeding profusely, had released his hold on her, and she used that freedom to push to the surface and snatch a knife from his belt even as she was drawing in a ragged breath. Before real-Sithix—who was struggling to staunch the flow of blood from his leg—could react, Alice plunged the blade into his left eye. The first inch of the blade pierced the large yellow orb before the metal was stopped by scale and bone.

Real-Sithix roared as Alice frantically swam toward the shore.

Maintaining his hold on knife-Sithix, Shadow forced another phase.

Suddenly, he and knife-Sithix were high in the air, level with the uppermost branches of the trees around the stream. Shadow was weightless for a moment; hundreds of water droplets hung in the air around him, sparkling in the sunlight like a cache of diamonds tossed into a summer sky. Even through the haze of his rage, the sight was beautiful—but its beauty wasnothingcompared to Alice’s.

Gravity reasserted itself.

Shadow’s stomach lurched, and his insides seemed about to force their way up and out of his skull. Knife-Sithix’s weight tugged on his claws, but the boruk’s arms had released theirhold on Shadow’s middle to instead flail wildly—as though they would somehow sprout feathers and keep their owner aloft.

Shadow tore his claws free, ripping off chunks of meat and clumps of scale, and glanced down. Alice was on her hands and knees at the shoreline, head down and shoulders heaving. Real-Sithix was nearby, having hauled himself partially out of the water—which was murky with blood around his legs. He reached up to tug the knife from his eye. Blood spurted from the wound. The ground was at least a hundred feet below Shadow, though that distance was fast shrinking.

He knew what Sithix was now—even if he didn’t understand how it worked, even if he didn’t have a name for it—because it wasveryclose to what Shadow was.

Ghostwasn’t quite the right word for Sithix, however.

Regardless, Shadow’s work wasn’t done. Alice wasn’t safe.

Shadow drove his foot into knife-Sithix’s gut. The blow shoved their free-falling bodies away from each other—and away from what might’ve been relatively safe landings in the stream. Knife-Sithix tumbled, head over feet, toward the vegetation crowding the edge of the forest below.

Shadow didn’t have time to wait until he hit the ground; Alice was only a few feet away from her former captor, and real-Sithix was wounded but not incapacitated.

The world blurred for an instant as Shadow phased. Hard stone materialized beneath his boots, and his insides settled into their normal positions. He raised his head to find himself crouched on the bank of the stream between Alice and real-Sithix.

Alice’s fingers were clutching one of the stones beside the stream, and her wet, tangled hair hung around her face in thin strands. Her breathing was quick and ragged, but shewasbreathing—that was what mattered.

Shadow turned his head toward real-Sithix just as something heavy crashed through the nearby vegetation, creating a chorus of shaking leaves and snapping branches that ended with an abrupt, bone-crunchingthud. Real-Sithix’s attention was fixed on that spot for a few seconds before he looked at Shadow. One of his eye sockets oozed blood, while a glint of fear shown in his remaining eye.

Shadow rose and stepped toward real-Sithix.

“Stop him,” real-Sithix hissed through his jagged teeth. He dragged himself along the bank, away from Shadow. “End him!”

The foliage beside the bank rustled. Shadow glanced toward the movement.

Knife-Sithix—limbs sporting new bends and angles that were wholly unnatural—crawled out of the vegetation, dragging himself by two fingers. Despite the extent of the damage, there was still no blood. The mangled, broken creature curled his fingers and pulled himself forward a few inches before extending them again.

“Oh, my God,” Alice rasped.

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