Pittacus can’t go through with it. He pulls the noose from around Setrákus’s throat, tosses it aside and stands up. He doesn’t make eye contact with Setrákus. Instead, he peers off towards the Liberator and Setrákus’s research area, watching as the entire place is put to the torch. He believes in his heart that this means it’s over. He believes that Setrákus can come back from this, that he has realized the error in his ways. He still sees his old friend there, lying in the dirt. He doesn’t know the monster he will become.

The Liberator is a long way off. No one back there notices when Pittacus uses telekinesis to drag one of Setrákus’s already-dead assistants across the dirt towards them. While Setrákus watches, wide-eyed, Pittacus uses his Lumen to set the body on fire until all that remains is a charred and unrecognizable corpse. When it’s done, Pittacus looks away.

“You are dead,” Pittacus says. “Leave here. Never return. Maybe one day, you can find a way to heal what’s been damaged, here and inside you. Until that day comes . . . good-bye, Setrákus.”

Pittacus takes the burned body with him and leaves Setrákus there in the dirt. He stays perfectly still, letting his blood pool from the circular wound carved into his pale neck. Eventually, he wipes the tears out of his eyes.

Then, Setrákus smiles.

We linger in that canyon as the years begin to fly by. The ash from the battle is blown away, the scorch marks fading from sunlight. The remains of Setrákus Ra’s machine erode, eaten away by the red dust and the winds that whip through the mountains.

Every year, when there are two moons in the sky, Pittacus Lore returns here. He stares at the wreckage of the Liberator and considers what he did. What he almost did. What he didn’t do.

How many years go by like this? It’s hard to tell. Pittacus never ages thanks to his Aeturnus.

And then, one day, as Pittacus stands in the very spot where he should’ve killed my grandfather, an ugly insectoid ship cuts across the sunset and zooms down towards him. It looks just like an older version of the Mogadorian Skimmers that I’ve seen so many times. As the ship lands in front of him, Pittacus lets flames curl over one hand, the other encased in a spiky ball of ice.

The ship opens and Celwe steps out. Unlike Pittacus, she has aged. Her once-auburn hair now gray, her face deeply lined. Pittacus’s eyes widen when he sees her.

“Hello, Pittacus,” she says, self-consciously tucking strands of hair behind her ears. “You haven’t aged a day.”