She wished Otto were here. He would rattle off a half-dozen theories about time travel and paradoxes and changing the timeline, and at the end of it she’d still have no idea what was going on, but she’d know they could figure it out.

“What will you do? If you escape, I mean,” Eleanor said.

“Does it matter?” Ash asked.

“Of course it matters. Are you going to—to build armies and conquer other worlds?” Eleanor asked.

Melia made a face. “That’s what our parents want to do. Gather more prisoners to Empty and turn into soldiers and weapons and beasts so that we can conquer more worlds, get more prisoners.” She walked over to the stone fountain in the middle of the garden. She peered down into the water and ran her fingers lightly over her face. Her features shifted—her nose getting smaller, her jaw stronger, her eyes larger. Her lips turned a deep red, and shimmering purple appeared on her eyelids. “There’s nothing beautiful here. I hate it,” she said distantly.

“There are so many worlds, and I’ve never gotten to see any of them,” Thea said. “I want to see all of them. Go everywhere.”

Ash chuckled fondly. “I don’t know if you’ll have time to see all of them,” he said.

Thea shrugged. “Then the sooner I get started, the better,” she said, and he grinned. He loved her. There was no other explanation for the way he was looking at his sister. He adored her, and Eleanor had never seen Mr. January show the slightest bit of affection for anything.

“What about you?” she asked him.

He lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far. I just want to get me and my sisters out of here.”

Eleanor looked between them, troubled. It was strange. They were nothing like the People Who Look Away—not yet. But it was like she could see exactly how they would get there, in this horrible place. How it would turn them wicked.

How Ash would learn more and more to bargain and lie. How Melia would put on false faces until there wasn’t a real one left. And Thea—little Thea, splitting herself into pieces.

How could you stay whole in a place like this?

She didn’t want to feel sorry for the People Who Look Away. And she wasn’t sure she should. Whatever may have happened to them, they’d still done horrible things.

But with a shock she realized that maybe, just maybe, they might have ended up different. Maybe they still could.

“Do you think it’s possible to change what happens to us?” Eleanor said softly.

“You mean like fate?” Ash asked.

“Fate. Yeah, I guess,” she said. “Do you think that people are stuck with who they’re meant to be, and there’s no way to change it?”