Sveta reached up, touching her cheek. I was caught between observing her and paying attention to the gestures that punctuated certain words. Monsters, index finger curled into a hook. By the faint change in her expression, perhaps something obscene.

“—they would deposit the monsters and the unsolvable riddles in my world. We solved most. My understanding of powers helps, our labs help more.”

“I could help too,” Amy said.

My heart sank into my ankles, plunging through and leaving cold toxicity in its wake, curling through my midsection.

“All our heart’s desires, and we just have to bow and scrape for the rest of our lives?” Swansong asked.

“I’ll give you a heart’s desire each, if you’ll find this person with my power. You have the means, the knowledge, and the talent. No servitude required. I would go home and conquer it fairly, again.”

“I’d go with her,” Amy said. I winced a little at the sound of her voice. “I would be gone forever, if you wanted. Like I tried to do, way back then, except I’ve been thinking about this a lot, the last few weeks.”

I knew just what arguments had struck home for which people. I worried some had been tailored to specific individuals.

But there was no way we could conscience handing her power or agreeing to this, when it meant potentially putting an entire Earth into servitude. We’d say no, and—

“We’ll think about it,” Capricorn said. “We need a bit of time to discuss.”

“Minutes? Hours?”

“A day?” Capricorn asked. He glanced at us. “At a minimum?”

“Time is of the essence. In a day, things might be too far gone. Your Mama Mathers, Rain, is gone. They’ll find out soon. Your Valefor is healed and gone. Warlords from your old Earth have been snatched up, and people don’t yet know.”

“Half a day,” Capricorn said. “Maybe. It’s—”

“Amy,” Bianca said, and her voice was low.

“I say yes. Play fair with them, give them their time, agree to some of my dad’s stipulations for your next term of rule, I’ll come with you, be your lieutenant.”

I heard a whisper.

“And Dot too.”

“It’s easier and cleaner to gather my army. Let the hounds come en fucking masse. One fell stroke.”

I had a sense of her way of speaking now, as it belatedly clicked. Like a girl from an overly formal private school or college, bucking at the confines. Spoiled and dangerous.

“That’s not clean at all,” I said, as diplomatically as I could.

“If we run out of time, if we let them get too much of an upper hand, it will be the opposite of clean. Ask your Amy.”

“It’s bad, Victoria.”

“Don’t—” I said. “Don’t say my name, don’t address me, thanks.”

“Okay.”

“It’s bad. Alright,” I said. “But there are options. Better ones.”