How do you beat Lace in Silksong? Silky duelist Lace serves as Silksong's Hornet-adjacent, popping up at crucial narrative moments, usually to put Hornet's skills to the test.
Indeed, while some Silksong bosses are optional, the lovely Lace isn't, and you won't get far in the metroidvania game if you can't defeat her. You'll fight her three times throughout the game, with her final encounter being one of, if not the hardest battle you'll face. If you're struggling, here's how best to defeat Lace in Silksong, as well as when you'll encounter her various iterations. There are massive endgame spoilers ahead, so only read down as far as you need to.
Where to find Lace in Deep Docks
You need to unlock Dash before you can challenge Lace for the first time, as it's required to open the gate to her location.
Located in the middle of the Deep Docks, Lace's singing can be heard before you can reach her. Head right from the entrance to the Deep Docks, then further right via the lowest path. Keep going right once you hear her singing, and you are greeted with a locked gate, which can only able to be opened from above.
With the Swift Step skill acquired, you can reach the platform above, unlock the gate, and reach Lace.
How to defeat Lace in Deep Docks
As with all Silksong bosses, the most important thing to do with Lace is learn how her movements look so you know what's coming. You should also keep your distance from the boss, and wait for her to come to you before attacking.
Lace has three main moves: a horizontal dash, a diagonal dash, and a double swing. There is then a fourth, more powerful dazzling flurry attack that deals two damage. You'll also have to watch out for her parry, which is immediately riposted for big damage. Fortunately, each attack can be differentiated in the moments before it.
When Lace jumps into the air, dash underneath her. If she holds her blade out in front of her, just stay back, as her horizontal dash is short. However, if you're near the end of the platform, you should jump over her. The swing is even shorter, so it's also easy to avoid. You can get at least one hit in after any of these attacks.
Once you've dealt enough damage, Lace will be temporarily stunned before starting the next phase of the battle. Now she has another move, but this is obvious from a glowing sphere. This indicates the area Lace is about to teleport to, so just dash away from the vicinity of the circle and wait it out.
Occasionally, Lace guards, triggering a riposte when attacked. Lace will lunge out with a flurry of quick jabs, so quickly dash away after triggering the ability.
Ultimately, the best way to defeat Lace is to jump dash over her and attack when she pauses after each move. Once you've learned what each attack looks like, it's easier to avoid them. Finally, heal at the far end of the platform from Lace if and when you need to, and try to avoid dashing off the platform, as you'll take severe damage from the surrounding lava.
Where to find Lace in The Cradle
Though Lace will pop up here and there after being defeated in Deep Docks, you won't clash blades again until you reach the very end of Act 2. Offering one final challenge before you take on Silksong's big bad, you'll encounter Lace immediately after taking the ornate lift up from Cogwork Heart.
How to beat Lace in The Cradle
The second Lace fight is incredibly similar to the first. She utilizes the same moveset, albeit slightly modified. While Lace is considerably more aggressive than she was in Deep Docks, the fight remains a simple case of dodging, pogoing off of her, and, as you can see in our video, making liberal use of some of the best Silksong tools like the Cogfly, Tacks, and Pollip Pouch.
In phase one, her slash attack now has a third slash, and she now ripostes in a downward diagonal motion while mid-air after her parry's triggered. As with her floor riposte, dash out of the way to avoid it.
In phase two, she begins emitting damaging circlets behind her path as she launches upwards into her diagonal attack. You can either position yourself near Lace's landing point and get a quick hit in, or dash under her arc.
In phase three, her big dazzling combo attack is fired off twice in quick succession, instead of just once. It's easy enough to dodge due to the delay, but be mindful so as not to get caught out.
Where to find Lost Lace in The Abyss
If you've made it to Act 3, there's one last with Lace, who turns out to be the true final boss of Silksong. After completing The Old Hearts quest and acquiring the final item needed, Hornet will delve into the heart of the void once more. While we expect to face Grand Mother Silk again, it's Lost Lace who emerges as our challenger.
Ahead of this fight, we'd recommend acquiring the Architect Crest - the best Silksong crest for the job. Due to the sheer freneticism of the fight, you won't have many opportunities to use your needle, so loading up on tools is the optimal way to set up.
For our loadout, we stuck with the Cogflies and Tacks that came in clutch during the second encounter. We also added the Throwing Rings as you get a ton of them, and they deal really solid damage. While it's tempting to utilize the Multibinder/Injector Band combo for that extra mask of healing, you realistically won't be hitting Lost Lace enough to generate the silk required for multiple uses.
Instead, we locked in the Fractured Mask for a saving hit, and Reserve Bind to ensure we could replenish our tools between phases. The only other compulsory tool here is Magnetite Dice, which has a chance to nullify damage instances. The remaining yellow tools are entirely your choice, though we took Weighted Belt and Ascendant's Grip to mitigate stagger and ensure we didn't slip down the walls during Lost Lace's big wave attack - more on that in a moment.
How to beat Lost Lace
Building on her previous iterations, Lost Lace modifies her basic attacks even more, and adds the full arsenal of void abilities you will have seen throughout Act 3 to her arsenal. There is a lot going on here, so really take your time to build the muscle memory required to navigate this fight. We'd recommend not utilizing your tools for the first few attempts. Instead, focus on dodging and finding windows to get the odd needle hit in.
Lost Lace is also far more unpredictable than most of the other bosses you will have faced up until this point. While it may look like she's sticking to one move, she has different combo patterns she can switch to.
The easiest example we can point to is her triple horizontal lunge. This now not only spawns void tendrils behind Lost Lace's path, but she occasionally stops short of the third lunge, transitioning into an upwards swing before initiating her diagonal dive attack. This isn't clearly telegraphed, so you'll have to work on the assumption that she's always going to do it.
At the start of the fight, Lost Lace will utilize her traditional kit, including the upward slash into downward diagonal, triple horizontal slash, triple (or double) lunge, and parry. She also occasionally sends out an arm of void tendrils which you can either jump over or dodge away from. Lost Lace uses this attack either on the ground, or diagonally while mid-air, similarly to her mid-air riposte.
At the mid-point of phase one, Lost Lace stands still and laughs, signalling a switch-up in her moveset. She'll now add more void abilities into the mix. The first is a set of three homing void bolts, summoned sequentially. Lost Lace telegraphs this by raising her pin and grunting 'HU.'
Lost Lace can also summon void tendrils from the ground. This is also telegraphed by Lost Lace raising her pin, except this time she gives a quick 'YAH.' You can dodge this with double jump, though it requires reaching the full apex of both jumps. As this isn't consistent enough, we'd advise simply standing between the pools.
When Lost Lace leaps into the air vertically and yells 'MIERO,' it means she's about to send out six void blobs. These expand into whirling blades. As long as you're standing directly in the middle of the gap between these, they won't hit you, though it's a good idea to jump dash away so you can stay on the move.
At the end of the first phase, Hornet disappears. Grand Mother Silk will collapse, heralding a void tidal wave after a short delay. You'll know it's coming from the loud crashing sound. As soon as Lost Lace disappears, renew your tools with the Architect Crest's alternate bind. Next, head to the far right wall and clamber up it, jumping and dashing over the wave when it arrives. Then, immediately sprint to the left wall and repeat the step as a second wave crashes in from the right.
This wave clears any outstanding traps you have on the field, so we'd recommend only refreshing your Tacks once Lost Lace has triggered the majority of them. Tool economy is key.
During phase two, Lost Lace can call in a much more aggressive void wave, typically going from right-to-left, then left-to-right. You'll need to use your Clawline to quickly navigate both.
Halfway through the final phase, Lost Lace goes all out, bringing back her dazzling combo. However, this time she telegraphs multiple instances at once. Either stand in the safe pockets of space leftover, or you can follow the path in the order the spheres appear to stay one step ahead of her combo. As soon as the combo ends, Lost Lace slams down, spawning void tendrils around her, so steer clear.
Lost Lace is, ultimately, a fight that requires tons of patience and awareness not only of visual telegraphs, but audio cues. Generally, though, if you can make it through phase one without having to heal, use your Reserve Bind, and with a decent amount of health left, you're onto a winning attempt. As Architect Crest is so expensive to run, we'd recommend pausing and Alt+F4'ing if the attempt's looking doomed to retain the precious currency. Or, y'know, use the best Silksong mods to spawn some more in.
Defeating the fencing pro Lace in Silksong is like a dance, and it's actually rather fun once you get the hang of it. When you're done and on your way to further parts of the Silksong map, you might want to start farming rosaries to spend with merchants. This is especially important for setting up for Lost Lace, as you're going to need plenty of Shard Bundles for consecutive attempts with our loadout.