You know just what to say, Narek would observe. I guess he’s right. My skin blasts heat and sears the floor under my shoes. I’ve been coming at this all wrong, with nerves and fear and whining. When I should just take a cue from Figueiredo and give into the anger. Now that we’re at the end of this tangled line, it’s so clear—so bright it’s like winter air freezing my nose—that he doesn’t know anything. Even with his millions of machines and this giant eye hulking behind me. He doesn’t know that I am more him than he is.

“I’m embarrassed that I thought you were this better version of me when I first saw your footage,” I say. “I could practically hear you following me around and making fun of me like a shadow. I guess I was that stupid.”

Figueiredo throws his hands, his face smeared into a bitter grin. “Look at you—this weak, self-important man who makes little movies instead of doing something useful. Who can’t make a goddamn decision and always needs help. Dressing like a child. Poisoning your brain and body and marking up your skin like a criminal. I’m the real thing. You’re the bad copy.”

“You know, I’m surprised you even want Tiago back,” I start, some part of me surprised how I can shape my voice almost like his, the stab of a dull knife. “I might be an idiot, but even I could see how you hated him as much as you loved him. How you envied him so much it tore you up inside. How you never could’ve built your first machine without him because he was the one who found the energy source. The spark. The secret when you were too blind and stupid and high off your own brain to see it. And it killed you, didn’t it? Tiago’s mind? Because you never really wanted an equal. You wanted someone around you, just close enough to work the spotlight and take none of the credit.”

I’m so close to the All-Eye that I can almost feel it quaking. Like it’s scared of me.

“You don’t know anything,” he spits.

“As much as you think you’re at the center of all this, he made you. And you’re nothing without him, and that absolutely terrifies you and—”

He rears back and swings a fist. Once it slams into my jaw, I reach for the All-Eye and open a gate in an instant, sending us both tumbling through.