I barely managed to avoid being brained by the pommel of a thrown knife. I had no clue who had done the throwing. Right now, my biggest challenge was finding space to fight without killing, or being killed by, my own people.

Technically, Carnades was one of my own people. That thought was just scary enough to make me risk a quick glance behind me. The mirror mage had his hands full, literally and figuratively, as one Khrynsani had jumped him and another was about to join the fray. I’d never thought of Carnades as the brawling type, but I’d learned never to underestimate survival instinct. He had nothing left to lose except his life, and everything to gain by taking ours and leaving the goblins with the blame.

Carnades’s hands were around a goblin soldier’s throat, his hands flaring with silver light. The Khrynsani let out a shriek you wouldn’t have thought could come from a grown man. The screams stopped and Carnades tossed him aside, the dead goblin’s throat a smoking ruin of blackened flesh.

Mychael wrenched the helmet off of a dead goblin and hurled it at the mirror they’d come through. Just a normal throw probably would have done the trick, but Mychael didn’t want to risk anything except a direct hit. There was magic behind that helmet missile, and it hit, turning the mirror’s reflective surface into a spiderweb of shattered glass. Nothing else would be coming through that.

Stopping the flow of goblins was good, but taking their escape hatch away had the undesirable effect of turning homicidal Khrynsani into homicidal and desperate Khrynsani.

But the remaining Khrynsani were outnumbered and they knew it.

Or they should have.

Anyone in their situation looking halfway happy was, in my opinion, all the way suicidal. If that was the case, these boys were about to get their wish.

One of them grinned until his fangs showed.

Mychael swore, seconded by Tam.