I nodded, unable to speak, as if I was the one being choked.

“Follow the protocols,” he said.

Sveta had reached us. She had straps that had been used to bind boxes closed.

“Follow the protocols,” he said. “You’re compromised. You know you just interacted with a strong master. Your team’s at stake. Master–stranger protocols.”

It was such a subtle effect, wasn’t it? I felt like I’d barely been influenced.

I released him. Sveta grabbed my wrist, hard, like I was the danger, all of a sudden.

“It’s fine,” I said. “Trust me.”

I wasn’t sure it was fine. I wasn’t sure I trusted this. This course of action felt wrong.

“It’s fine,” Byron said. “I won’t cause trouble.”

Sveta bit her lip. She released my wrist.

I didn’t feel quite as lousy as before. Less fear, less bile, less anger. A whole lot more doubt.

As if Goddess and my sister both were power so great that they had their own gravity. As Byron had said, they left chaos in their wake. Devastation, if we weren’t careful.

“The Major Malfunctions have something?” I asked, trying to change the subject away from Byron.

“They moved on to another prison employee. He turned out to be shady. They’re waiting for backup before they act on it. It’s what we’re looking for, and it’s what Goddess wants.”

I closed my eyes for a moment.

“I’ll go with Byron,” I said.

“You’re sure,” Sveta’s tone made the question a non-question, more of an accusation. I was crazy to do this.

“Have to be. We can’t leave the kids alone with him. He is interested in helping, right?”

“Yes,” Byron said.

“I can manage him. Can you get the info from Kenz?” I asked.

She gave me a dubious look, but she went to do it.

When it was the two of us again, I lowered my eyes to the ground, and with words I scarcely believed in, lit by a glow of warm feeling. That feeling emanated from a scene in the back of my mind, of me studying classifications with my boyfriend. I’d honor that memory by throwing myself into this morass of doubt, this wrong feeling, when the last thing I wanted was to feel the weight of more wrongs.

“You’re going to have to steer me away from the wrong kinds of actions,” my voice was a whisper, words in confidence to a person I didn’t know well enough to have confidence in.

“Okay. Thank you,” Byron whispered back.

“We have to get ahead of this whole thing, fast, before Chris or the others do their things,” I said.

Gleaming 9.4