Even though the area around the stairwell turns was small and they could pass through it almost instantly, danger still pressed close behind them. On the 30th Floor, the sudden increase in gravity nearly left Shade unable to move his legs, while Miss Novare was pressed directly to the ground.
Gravity of that magnitude was enough to turn an ordinary person into a mixture of flesh and bone. There had to be some evil entity in this floor's corridor capable of controlling gravity. Fortunately, it did not reveal itself, and they struggled through that area.
When they reached the 33rd floor, the candle and candlestick lights all vanished in an instant. In that darkness, the lethal sensation and the pain in his left arm holding the candle made Shade instinctively block to the side with the sword in his right hand. Then, struck by tremendous force, he was hurled back into the stairs below.
The sword clattered down the steps. As the candle in Shade's hand lit up again, Miss Novare's scream came from the darkness. Relying on his memory, Shade reached into the darkness again and pulled her back onto the lower stairs. The bones in the Bloodkin girl's left arm and shoulder had all been shattered, but fortunately, Bloodkin recovered at an astonishing rate:
"What is in the darkness?"
This was the first time they had encountered a situation where the light of a match could not be used. Fortunately, Shade lit ten matches at once, and the combined glow finally illuminated the darkness. They crossed over the 33rd floor during the matches' brief burning time. After the flames went out, the Bloodkin girl looked at the darkness below with lingering fear:
"I could feel that the gaze watching us was filled with brutality and wrath. And when