That crack splinters the air like a knife to his ears. It makes them ring, and for that split second he can't hear the panting breath barreling his direction. The wolf sends him sprawling across the hard pebbled dirt. There are bones, he realizes, littered between these walls: bones, chewed on carcasses, dried blood.

He pins the animal down, takes a claw across the chest for his efforts. His dagger pierced the thick coat of fur. Blood splashes over his hands, the floor. Not red blood, but thicker, blacker. A sulphuric burst that hits him.

He hasn't got time to think about it. His dagger holds, at least—not breaking, not morphing, not yet. He wrestles another wolf, slices clean down its belly. The ground is slick with viscera, his hands slippery—and the air. He can't explain it, but it shifts. He senses it even if he can't see it, can't put a finger on anything tangible.

What's changed, he doesn't know. Whether it's the wolves, the maze, Jo. All three. Only that something has.