“Izza.” Claude knelt so their heads were level, which earned him another glare.

She placed a hand over her mouth, and nodded.

“She’s mute?”

“Yes,” Kai said, catching the drift. “Can you make sure she gets out of here? Safe?”

“Okay,” Claude said.

“Now, I mean.”

“You want me to leave.”

“I want you out. I want her out. I want all these damn things out.” She waved her hand in a circle to take in all the Penitents. “I want them shattered and I want those pieces ground into dust and the dust forged into a metal we sink to the bottom of the ocean so we can all forget them. I want us not to do this anymore.”

“You mean Jace.”

“I mean Jace. I mean Penitents. I mean gardening the fucking world because the chance of change scares us.”

“I changed, once,” he said. “Inside. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Maybe should think long and hard about what you mean. Because this sounds like one of those ideas where the way you say it matters.”

“Get out of here,” she said, and “thank you,” to him, and “thank you,” to Izza, who extended her hand.

They shook, and Kai didn’t notice until Claude and girl and Penitents were gone that Izza’d stolen her ring.

She did not leave the pool for a long while. She sat there, cross-legged, while lights went off in the windows that ringed the caldera. She willed them off, pressing deeper into the soft space around the pool, where centuries ago the people of the islands imposed a beginning on time. No one watched here. The caldera windows vanished, as did the tunnels carved into the mountain’s shell. She sat on the shore of a world not yet begun.

The silver woman pulled herself up onto the shore, and sat with wings furled and legs crossed and hands resting on her thighs. Moonlight draped her shining skin.

Kai said, “I’m sorry. I had to be sure no one would see.”

I should kill you, Cat replied. For that stunt.

“I see why you might want to. But bringing me here stopped a crime, and probably a war. Not to mention saved a goddess. Your Lady would appreciate that.”

She does, and Kai shuddered to think the woman wasn’t guessing.

“That suit you wear. The metal skin. Is it anything like the Penitents?”

No, she said. And yes. There’s more to duty than compulsion.

“What?”

Love. Honor.

“You don’t sound as though you believe it.”

I do, she said. But believing isn’t the same as knowing.

She ran her hand through the rough gravel. “Maybe.”

Cat stood. What happened to Izza?

“She’s safe.”

I wish I could have seen her go.