The heat of the fire was reduced to warmth on the outside of the gauntlet's enchanted surface and Anton knew he'd missed, but he was already blinded by the dust and frankly that was an advantage right now; seeing Larrikin's face so warped by possession would only either make him falter or make the gist too much a distraction to ignore.

He didn't see Skulduggery so much as feel his movement and know his tactics. Anton activated the jets on the greaves and leapt and spun at once, his feet lashing out one-by-one to where he judged Skulduggery's head to be. Classically, acrobatically Larrikin, because Larrikin was forefront in Anton's mind; in the fact that he would have loved to see Anton wearing glowing pink and purple armour, that in a sparring match Larrikin would never have stopped mocking him, that Skulduggery right now was against everything Larrikin believed in.