Farooq-Lane’s hands were so frozen that she could barely feel the hilt, but it seemed to her the sword wanted her to succeed. Even as her fingers were too numb to guide it, the blade chose an effective path for itself. However, Bryde’s blade wanted him to succeed, too, and so a battle waged. It did not matter that neither Farooq-Lane nor Bryde were swordsmen. The swords were made to fight, and they would fight, and Farooq-Lane and Bryde would wield them.

Rosebushes shredded.

Stone planters cleaved.

Trellises sprung in all directions like split rib cages.

But neither the sunfire blade nor the starlit blade took any damage.

She had been right when she guessed the only match for FROM CHAOS was this other sword.

She was tangentially aware that outside the vivid light of the blades, Moderators and Zeds fought. Gunfire sounded. The swords’ furious dreamt light both warmed Farooq-Lane’s chilled body and repelled bullets, slicing them as easily as they sliced anything else.

Bullets!

She was breaking her promise.

Declan Lynch had come to her and asked for her help and gotten her word. She’d really believed it when she promised him Ronan would be untouched. The Moderators had been killing Zeds and now they were going to kill her integrity, too.

This felt more intolerable than anything else to this point. She’d promised.

“I only want you,” Farooq-Lane shouted to Bryde as the swords met again. “If you really want the others to get away, you’ll give up. We know it’s you. I know it’s you.”

Bryde said, “You don’t know anything you think you know, Carmen Farooq-Lane.”

“Don’t play your mind games with me!” she shouted.

“I don’t play games,” Bryde said. “I just turn down the volume on the shit that doesn’t matter.”

Suddenly, she was hit from behind.

The blow hit the middle of her spine so sharply that her knees buckled. There was no arguing with it. She was down on her knees, and then she was down on her face. Gravel bit her lips. She felt the winning sword tumbling from her hand. She felt her vision flicker.

She felt everything going wrong.

Gunfire speckled like the sound of castanets behind a dancer. She heard someone shout.

She had trusted Liliana. It was supposed to be all right.

Three Zeds bolted from the rose garden.

They were on foot; they had to be. One of them had smashed their dreamt hoverboard across Farooq-Lane’s back. This was why her spine stung, why she still felt pain shooting up to her neck and her fingertips. This was why Hennessy’s sword burned the dry grass a few inches away from her as she gingerly sat up.

This was how Bryde had gotten away.