A cold finger touched my spine. Other than you, that is. The same nasty thought that had been floating around in the back of my head came back to the front, but I didn’t have time to chase it down because Anna’s face contorted and smoothed itself out in one swift motion. She bolted forward two steps. I braced myself and felt the warm oil of the aspect sliding down my skin.

Anna pulled up short. Her fangs were out, too, and we stared at each other over a field of air gone hard and hurtful, full of sharp edges. I heard soft muffled wingbeats and hoped Gran’s owl wasn’t about to show up and complicate things.

I ignored little flickers of motion in my peripheral vision. The back of my throat ached, the bloodhunger throbbing restlessly in its special place. I tasted copper, and the scent of warm perfume that followed Anna around turned thick and cloying. It was damn hard to breathe with that reek all around me.

Then, something meowed.

No, seriously. I glanced down and saw a large tortoiseshell cat twined around Anna’s ankles. It put its ears back, its head a wedge shape like a snake’s, and hissed at me. Blue sparks crackled from its blind-looking eyes, and I exhaled sharply.

It was an aspect in animal form. Some powerful djamphir have them. It was the first time I’d seen one.

“You’re a very impolite little girl,” Anna said softly. I think she meant to be terrifying, but I was busy staring at the cat. “You should be taught a lesson.”

I looked up just in time to catch her fist with my face.

I’ve been socked in the face before. It hurts like hell, but if you’re wanting to put someone down, a face-shot isn’t the best way. Especially if they’re used to it, or if they know not to pay attention to the shock factor of getting a shiner. Most people who haven’t been trained flinch and think about saving their good looks.

No, if you want to put someone down, go for a gut-shot. Which is what I did. My head snapped back, I loosened up my knees and dropped down, then nailed her a good one right in the belly. My fist went in, meeting precious little resistance, and the cat hissed again, yowling. She folded over; I brought up my knee, and her nose crunched against the bony part.

Shit. Now it was really on. If I was serious about just staying under the radar, I should have just let her hit me.

I backed up, shuffling and hyperventilating, trying to push the red rage away. The world threatened to turn into the clear plastic goop that hardens over everything when the really weird shit goes down, the thing that slows down the world so I can move faster. It’s hard to fight that feeling off, and it’s even harder once the goop closes over you and the world tries to drag you into being slow and, well, human again.

But I stopped, panting. I couldn’t get enough air in through the crimson wash of fury bubbling and boiling around the empty place in my chest. Every muscle in my body locked as I struggled against pure rage. I’d lost it just once at the other Schola; I could’ve hurt Shanks pretty bad that time. It scared me so bad I don’t want to ever go near that point again.

I should’ve put her on the floor and kept kicking, if I was serious. But you could kill someone doing that, and she was another svetocha . And my body froze on that knife edge between rabbit-hunching down in a terrified hole and the cold nasty place that doesn’t care who you hurt.

The tortoiseshell cat leapt, yowling, straight at me. I screamed, a short sharp cry, and Gran’s owl veered out of nowhere, claws outstretched and yellow eyes glowing. It hit the cat with a crunch like continents colliding. Anna, her face a mask with blazing holes for eyes and a bloody rictus-grin under her gushing nose, screamed and leapt for me.

The smell hit me then. Copper, fresh salt, and an undertone of spice and something nasty.

Blood. Her blood.

My fangs stopped aching and turned sensitive, quivering, and I blocked her next strike, slapping her hand down contemptuously and locking her elbow. I twisted and she yelped. I heard the snap of wings as Gran’s owl broke away and gained some altitude. I shoved her and she went down hard, smacking the mats a good one before springing right back up like a bad jack-in-the-box.

It was like I was in two places at once. Part of me was on the ground, closing with Anna as she kicked at my left knee. If she’d connected she might’ve popped it out of the socket or something—it’s amazingly easy to take out someone’s knee and put them down on the ground. But I avoided it and cracked her a good solid punch to the face while Dad’s coaching ricocheted inside my head like a .22 bullet in a concrete room.

The other part of me, calm in a strangely disconnected way, was a sharp beak and feathered wings turning in a tight circle and diving, air flooding past and a fierce hurtful joy spilling through the rage to turn it wine-red instead of crimson. It struck to kill, its target the oddly colored cat crouching on the mats. They crunched together again, in a ball of exploding feathers and multicolored fur.

I got an elbow in the face. She was impossibly fast, but I hadn’t been raised to back down and I was moving pretty fast myself. Too fast, as if I was like her.

Move it move it move it! Dad yelled inside my head, and for once it didn’t hurt to think of his voice. I did what he’d taught me—I moved, fist blurring, and the aspect poured through me. I blocked her strike, almost swept her legs out from under her, and drove her back across the mats with a flurry of punches. Hooked my fingers and got my fingernails in her skin, yanked on her hair when she tried to flee. She hit me a good few times, too, but I was past caring.

You can’t fight past a certain point if you care about getting hurt, and I’ve had some practice in running for my life. That will kind of put a different shine on anything, even a girl fight. Only this wasn’t just a catfight. This was something else. I didn’t even know what word to put on it, unless that word was serious.

We broke apart as if we’d both planned it that way, as if we were dancing. And I could not ever remember the world being so vividly bright before, each color painted on with deep acrylics, the texture of the mat surfaces achingly rough, every chip and fleck in the paint on the walls crying out in its own voice. I tasted copper, the smell of her blood in the air mixing with mine, and the fangs in my mouth physically ached to get some flesh underneath them.

The way my throat ached for hot blood to stroke the rough spot, to soothe the raging thirst threatening to swallow me whole.

I skipped back, she straightened, and the cat leapt as my owl-part missed it by bare millimeters. Another wing-snap, and it veered away, the gym opening like a flower under its belly.

Anna stared at me. My eye was puffing shut, but I could still see her. And the warm balm of the aspect soothed the hurts all over me. I could still feel them, twitching and twinging, but they were strangely unimportant. She snarled, her upper lip wrinkling, and I snarled right back. The dual sounds hit an impossibly deep register, stroking the walls and rattling the wooden bleachers.

The only other time I’d felt the bloodhunger this intensely, I’d wanted to put my face in a wulfen boy’s throat and drink. The Aspect Mastery practice wasn’t doing any good. Because now I just wanted to hurt her, and it scared the hell out of me. The fear spurred the rage, both fueled the hunger, and I almost threw myself at her again. Stopped just in time.

She was looking at me like I’d grown another head. One petite manicured hand came up, lacquered fingernails shaking a little, as if she wanted to touch her nose.