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He didn’t need to guess, though. There was no way Rosalie would risk her friend’s life.

Reluctantly he put his sword down, and even more reluctantly he kicked it away when Jace indicated to do so. As he backed toward the side of the entryway, he swept Rosalie with him, keeping his attention on Jace.

He stopped after only a few steps, unwilling to go too far from Daphne. She had been silent since the moment of her capture, and her eyes were fixed on Rosalie as if urging her to do something.

His ears caught the tiniest whisper of steel against leather, and he tensed. Had Rosalie just drawn her minuscule dagger?

Jace walked back to the chest. He needed to carry it himself now that his men had their hands full. His distraction meant he missed the tense readiness in Rosalie’s stance, and the way her eyes didn’t leave Daphne’s.

The two girls held each other’s gaze for a moment before Daphne flicked her eyes in a half-formed nod.

Rosalie responded instantly. Stooping, she slid the naked dagger across the floor toward Daphne and her captor. At the exact moment she moved, Daphne began to wail, her body shaking with distress.

“She’s going to faint!” Dimitri shouted, not sure exactly what was happening but grasping that some sort of distraction was underway.

Jace and the swordsman both turned to look at Daphne as she swayed. The man holding her was struggling to support her weight while still keeping his blade in place. As she sagged sideways, he staggered with her, taking a step at the exact moment that Rosalie’s spinning blade slid under his foot.

He stepped down on it, the force of his body’s weight driving the razor-sharp blade through the leather of his sole. Dimitri expected to hear a shout as it pricked his foot, but instead he froze. For a second he stood there, motionless, and then his arms and legs relaxed, and he crashed to the floor.

The moment his knife arm loosened, Daphne slumped to the ground herself, sliding away from his blade in a much more graceful movement than his. As soon as she was free, Rosalie shouted, “Now!”, and the entire entryway erupted into movement.

Dimitri threw himself across the room toward his sword, snatching it from the ground and spinning toward the remaining armed man. He brought up his blade just in time to meet the descending blade of his opponent in a deafening clang.

All three triplets surged toward Daphne, each attempting to grab her and rush her to safety.

“Not me!” she cried, pointing toward Jace. “Him!”

Dimitri parried again, blocking another thrust from his opponent and preventing him from moving toward the others. He had to keep the man contained, but it was a desperate struggle not to be distracted by the sight of Rosalie moving in the corner of his eye.

Like him, she had also dived for her blade, pulling it free of the downed man’s boot. Dimitri still didn’t understand what hadhappened to Daphne’s captor, but clearly it was a more powerful weapon than he’d realized.

He blocked another attack from his opponent, responding with a lunge of his own that sent the man scurrying backward. The movement opened a clear path for Rosalie to run toward Jace and she did so, dagger outstretched.

Jace pulled a hidden knife from the back of his waistband, causing Dimitri to forget all about his own fight.

“Rosalie! Watch out!” he shouted.

The silver of a falling sword flashed in the corner of his eye, and he swung his own blade up wildly in defense. Leaping backward, he barely managed to escape the oncoming blade.

Frantic energy coursed through him as he regained his balance. He couldn’t waste any more time on his own battle.

Lunging forward, his sword danced in a complicated series of movements. The final thrust disarmed his opponent, sending his blade flying. It landed with a clang, sliding across the floor until it hit the far wall.

Dimitri instantly spun toward Rosalie, braced to see her injured and bleeding. But instead, he saw a struggling mass of bodies and heard Jace screaming his anger.

In the chaos, the triplets had managed to get behind Jace. When he had drawn his knife on Rosalie, all three of them must have launched themselves at him. They had attached themselves to three of his limbs and were hanging there, weighing him down.

Jace was attempting to turn his knife against them, but since both of his arms were weighed down by the full force of a lanky thirteen-year-old, he was having little success.

Daphne rose to her feet, dusting herself off, and looked at Rosalie. “That’s enough of that, don’t you think?”

Rosalie nodded and darted toward Jace. He tried to swing for her, but the triplets held him back as Rosalie pricked the tip of the tiny dagger into his shoulder.

Like his underling, he froze for a second and then collapsed.

“It’s poisoned?” Dimitri asked.

“Not poison, exactly.” Daphne held out her hand for the weapon.