“The good guys will back it up,” I said. “Scion is a fragment of something bigger. We killed it. Its partner—gone. Based on what we know, they left a trail that ensures their kind won’t be coming after them. All we have to do is manage the fallout. And that’s not easy. Things they set up are unraveling, that’s why we’re getting the broken triggers.”

“The disasters, people getting powers and dying immediately?” Lynn asked.

“Taking other people with them,” Hamza said.

“Yes.”

“And he gave you dangerous impulses, so you aren’t in control of your actions?” Gary asked, his voice dripping with doubt. “You’re not to blame.”

“Scholars have known or theorized about that for a decade. It’s not a secret, and it’s not a free pass. As you guys said, my so-called sister hospitalized me. I’m not forgiving or forgetting, I’m not giving her a pass. A person destroyed me and I’m not going to bang my drum and demand they see the inside of a prison.”

My voice was raw with emotion, rancor both for my sister and for the people who were making me talk about her. It wasn’t the image I wanted to convey, but given a choice between silence and speaking on this, I was going to favor the latter.

“We can’t afford to dwell that heavily on the past. I’m trying to focus on the present moments and on the days ahead. We can’t make it if we let fear rule us.”

“Amen,” Capricorn said.

“You make it very easy to fear you,” Gary said. “You don’t give us many reasons to trust you.”

“You don’t give us much reason to trust you,” Swansong said, barely audible behind me. “If you can’t help us, stay out of our way and let us do what we need to.”

I wanted to correct that, to reject it.

I let it stand.

“When I asked if you knew where powers came from, I meant on the personal level. How did Lookout end up with powers? How did I? You were asking the question when you talked to her parents.” My voice was very level as I spoke.

“There are theories,” John said. “The Triumvirate released a book that seemed to confirm the most popular.”

“That it took an event,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Good or bad?” I asked.

“That was the idea. The greatest and strongest came from good events. The lowly and the monstrous came from the violent, ugly moments.”

“It’s prettied up,” I said. “The part about good things giving powers. That’s not true, that’s the old government trying to keep kids from trying to force it, like your two people in black raincoats that you mentioned earlier.”

“They did get powers.”