Any areas of safety Palatine had created were gone. The room was utter black. Cicero had milliseconds to react and she was already coming down off of a swing. She had no time to pull back her axe and swing again. Instead she shoved her axe down and embedded the sharp tip into the ground. It stuck, her arms went rigid, she held herself suspended in a precarious balancing act that nonetheless prevented her from falling into any of the blackness.
(Chicago, chapter 30)