I take a slow, deep breath. Focus. I have to focus. This exile ceremony could actually be good news for me, for my mission. I need a way to get a message out to as many islanders as possible, as quickly as possible, and the equipment I need to do that is usually present at exilings.

I scan the ground in front of the mayor. There: a chestlike box with blinking red lights and rows of dials and switches. The radio transmitter. I smile, the expression feeling vicious. I thought I was going to have to hunt this down, steal it right out of City Hall. Instead I can take it now, and maybe give these prisoners a chance to escape the mayor’s “justice” to boot.

First, though, I need a distraction.

I turn my head, searching for something that might work to throw the mayor and the cops off for long enough to let me steal the transmitter. If I had a mirror, that would do the trick, but my thoughts alone won’t work to summon one here. Mirage said that Cisco Island is stable because of everyone’s expectations working together. Their minds are a grinding machine, and my will is nothing against it.

At that thought, an unexpected quicksilver relief pours over me. I can’t change anything here. Can’t summon up my fears, can’t let my uncontrolled thoughts loose on my world. I am safe.

I hold back a manic laugh. I am the farthest thing from safe in the world. The woman who sentenced me to a horrific death is less than twenty yards away. I shouldn’t feel comforted just because my stupid brain can’t conjure up scary things.

I shake my head and force myself to focus. I’m still scanning the crowd for inspiration, for something that might work as a distraction. My gaze snags on someone a few rows ahead of me. There’s something familiar about those tense shoulders, the sharp lines of that square jaw—that pretty-boy blond hair.

Elliott. He’s here. Less than a hundred feet from his mother.

Go ahead, shoot him, she told me back at the boardwalk. That’s what she’ll say now, too, if she spots him.

He knows that. He knows what she’ll do to him, what she’s already done to him. But he isn’t trying to keep his head down. He isn’t trying to hide or blend in with the crowd or quietly escape. Instead, he’s staring right at her, like he wants her to see him.

Because of course he wants her to see him.

That idiot. Is he still trying to rationalize her actions? Does he truly still think, deep down, she might actually care about him? Is he even thinking about what would happen if he’s spotted—the pandemonium it would cause when every cop on the bridge comes after him?