Christian's frost erupted in a savage explosion, crystallizing three shadow-forms mid-lunge. They shattered with a sound like breaking glass, dark particles evaporating before they hit the ground.
"That's seventeen for me," he announced, a hint of three-thousand-year-old smugness bleeding through his usual stoicism. "You're falling behind, Eddie."
Eddie, a blur of lethal motion across the foyer, dispatched another shadow with his silver-edged blade. "Eighteen," he corrected without looking back, sweat gleaming on his dark skin despite the plummeting temperature. "And I'm doing it with actual physical effort, not your hand-wavy ice magic BS."
"If you two testosterone factories are done comparing kill counts," Jamie called from his position by the east wing entrance, "we've got a situatio
