Sumi circled the windmill, humming and picking ripe tomatoes from the garden beds. “I thought you needed sunlight to grow tomatoes,” she commented idly. “You could sell a shade-growing variety for a whole lot of money, I bet.”

“Sumi,” hissed Christopher.

“What? The world doesn’t stop spinning because you’re sad, and that’s good; if it did, people would go around breaking hearts like they were sheets of maple sugar, just to keep the world exactly where it is. They’d make it out like it was a good thing, a few crying children in exchange for a peace that never falters or fades.” Her face hardened. “We can be sad and we can be hurt and we can even be killed, but the world keeps turning, and the things we’re supposed to do keep needing to be done. It’s time to get up, Jacqueline Wolcott. It’s time to remember what needs to be done for this cookie to crumble the way you want it to.”

Slowly, Jack lifted her head. Alexis had reached the gate.

“The ocean caught your mermaid,” she said, voice soft and broken, like the wind whistling through the eaves. The lightning in her heart was running out. “She’s gone to the Drowned Gods. The goblin went after her. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop her.”

Jack looked at her with an all-encompassing blankness in her eyes. “What?”

“The mermaid ran and the goblin followed,” said Alexis, before repeating, “I’m sorry.”

“Ah.” Jack closed her eyes for a moment as she stood, running gloved, bloody hands over her hair. “Complications. Why must people be so difficult? We’ll go to the abbey. We’ll get them back. And then I want Dr. Bleak’s head, and the time to bring him back, and my own body, and for my sister to pay for what she’s done.”

“Sounds like you want a lot of things,” said Sumi. “Let’s get started.”

Jack looked at her. “Aren’t you worried about your friends?”

Sumi shrugged. “They’re your friends, too, or Kade is, anyway, and you don’t sound worried.”

“I’m too terrified for anything as simple as concern.”

“Good enough for me,” said Sumi. “You don’t live long enough to come back through the doors if you’re not a hero. They’re heroes, or they were. They’ll remember themselves or they won’t. If they do, they earn themselves a little closer to home. If they don’t…”

She shrugged again.

Jack blinked, slowly. “Sometimes I can forget how terrifying you are,” she said. She pulled off her soiled gloves and dropped them into the mud. “This body is too weak for any real lifting. Will those of you with more upper body strength than a dead rat please bring the body? We have a great deal of work to do.”