Felicity kept her fingers curled in the back of Voss's collar until Marx gave Shadow back his practice blade handle first. "The other way works, too," he told him. "If somebody gets that close to you again, try stepping toward him. He's counting on you to pull away." He passed the other blade back to Draco and let the bear catch his wrist to see for himself. The second time Shadow remembered to move his feet, and he kept his blade.
"That was worth getting off the cart for," Felicity told Marx. "Yesterday you'd have let a man knock himself silly against you before you got around to showing him why."
"I know where we're sleeping tonight. Makes a difference in how many stupid questions I'm willing to hear." He didn't bother hiding that one pleased look he gave her before he turned back. Draco had picked a fresh partner. Some of the people passing the park stopped to watch and stayed for another go once they saw that a fellow who fell down got a hand up and another chance.
