( The pettier trouble, then: he has seen Hermione work her stick prodigiously, inventively, unexhausted. Lily, likewise, wielded it as if an extension of her person, never drained.

He will tire before Hermione does: this much is a foregone, inevitable conclusion. She strikes again, and it comes close, far too close, and achieves a similar outcome even without meeting target — the evasion propels him into the flat, hard belly of a tree, its roots rising, searching, slow to choose both Lan Wangji and Hermione...

— only for a fourth contender to enter their dance, by way of one of the Beastmaster's long-tailed, sharp-clawed creations that seems briefly uncertain, when it breaks its fall with an artless roll and rises up, howling, which of the two duel participants it is meant to attack.

Lan Wangji blinks, then bats away the wet knot of bundled roots that makes for his throat — while the creature decides whom to seize first. )

Fall back. ( This, hissed, to Hermione. They may slaughter each other as they see fit, but these additional hunters are barbaric. )