Madeline gave a modest shrug, causing the flames to cast an eerie green glow onto her face. “Well, that would have been one way to get the remodeling done a bit quicker, wouldn’t it? Maybe I’ll take your advice and do that. Just destroy the whole damn thing and start fresh—after I’m finished with you.”

She drew her hands back, then shoved the acid flames at me. Once again, she was quicker than I was, and all I could do was stand there and take the full, brute force of her magic.

The flames washed over me, searing through all the Ice crystals that I’d coated my skin with, and forcing me to reach for my Stone power to harden my skin just to keep Madeline from incinerating me on the spot. Even then, the pain was intense, but I gritted my teeth and endured it. I even tried pushing back with my own magic, throwing my Ice power at her time and time again, but the acid flames gobbled it up before the cold could so much as nip at her fingers.

I was losing—badly.

Good thing it was all part of Plan C.

Madeline kept throwing and throwing her magic at me, in wave after hot, caustic wave, and it was all I could do to stay upright. But I held my ground. I might be losing now, but I was going to kill her in the end.

All because of Madeline’s vanity.

I looked past the roaring green fire of her magic at her crown-and-flame necklace. The emerald seemed to almost be glowing with the same power that was coating her fingers, and the gold chain glimmered like a strand of sunshine around her throat.

I focused on that shiny band, reminding myself that I’d already won. Because her necklace was made out of gold—not silverstone.

Pretty is as pretty does, and as expensive as that necklace was, it might as well have been tinfoil wrapped around her throat for all the good it truly did her, along with her matching ring. Because they were both gold, which meant that they couldn’t hold any of Madeline’s power, and she wasn’t wearing any other jewelry.

But I was—and mine was all silverstone.

My spider rune ring rested on my right index finger, while my spider rune necklace was nestled in the hollow of my throat—and both of them were filled to the brim with my Ice and Stone magic.

Madeline didn’t have any extra reserves of magic like I did. All the power she had, all the acid she was using, was what was naturally in her body. To be sure, it was impressive, certainly more raw magic than I had, but it wasn’t going to be enough.

Every time she’d confronted me before, Madeline had been wearing a silverstone necklace and ring. But she’d been so sure that I was dead that she’d lowered her defenses and started wearing gold ones instead. As soon as Silvio had shown me a photo of Madeline sporting her new gold jewelry, I knew that this was how I could finally challenge her to a duel and win. This was how I could finally finish her.

Arrogance will get you, every single time.

I didn’t have to beat Madeline with my magic. Didn’t have to punch her. Didn’t have to touch her at all. Oh, I would have been happy if I’d managed to kill her any of those ways, but those were just the feints I’d used to sucker her into my ultimate trap. My plans within a plan, just like all the ones she’d used on me.

Because the truth was that all I had to do was outsmart her, outlast her, just like I had the fire in the Pork Pit.

Then she’d be mine for the killing.

So I pulled back on my power, using the bare minimum to keep Madeline’s acid from melting me where I stood. It was agony, since I could still feel the acid flames licking at my body, could still sense my skin blistering, could still smell my own flesh burning. But I used just enough of my Ice and Stone magic to let me endure the horrid sensations. I even staggered around, then fell to one knee, as though I were finally weakening. Through the green flames, I saw Madeline’s crimson smile widen and the white flash of her teeth as she stepped forward, eager to finish me off.

I grinned back, although I doubted that she realized it. If I could have, I would have whispered the age-old adage: Step into my parlor, said the Spider to the fly.

Madeline just didn’t realize yet that she was the fly.

But she kept coming and coming, completely focused on directing every single scrap of power she had at me. The acid flames intensified. So did my pain, and doubt filled my mind, just as it had in the restaurant when the fire had come for me. I wondered if I’d miscalculated. If she had more power in her body than I did in mine and in all my silverstone jewelry put together.

If she was going to incinerate me with her magic after all.

But this was the path I’d chosen, and there was no turning back now. Even if I’d wanted to try to fight her with my own power, there was no point. Not anymore. Her acid was so hot, so caustic and corrosive, that it would eat right through whatever Ice and Stone magic I could summon up, other than what was keeping me alive at the moment.

So I huddled there on the floor and concentrated on my own magic and the low, urgent whispers of the stone around me. The marble had experienced the cruelty of Madeline’s power, just as I was feeling it now, and they wanted me to end it and her just as badly as I did. I thought that the crowd was screaming for my death—and my friends were just screaming—but I couldn’t tell. The world had reduced to a solid wall of acid green fire, creeping closer and closer with every passing breath.

I don’t know how long I crouched there on my knee with one hand braced on the floor, steadying myself. It could have been a minute, it could have been an hour. There was just pain and the stench of my burning flesh and then more pain. So I concentrated on the feel of my power. On that hardness deep down inside me that was Stone, perfectly matched and married to the bitter cold that was Ice. Two complementary elements brought together in one person, and now, in the one protective shell of my magic.

Madeline towered over me, more and more acid flames erupting from her hands, like fireworks exploding in my face over and over. But I maintained my control, and I held on.

And eventually, finally, at last, she started to falter.

It was just a small tremor, just the faintest hiccup of her power. As though one gas tank were empty, and she was plugging herself into another one for round two. Maybe that’s exactly what she was doing.

But that’s the moment I knew that I’d finally won—once and for all.

I drew in a breath, careful not to suck in any of the green flames, and let loose with a bloodcurdling scream, as if I were mere seconds away from fully succumbing to Madeline’s unending waves of acid. I screamed again and again, then let my voice choke off, as if I were suddenly overcome with more pain than any person had a right to bear.