“Would you be willing to kill him?” she asked.

I was aware of everyone’s gaze. I was aware of every inch of me, of my already damp costume, and the sudden realization that when I’d said yes, it might have been Amy that was my exception.

Valefor, I could hurt him so badly that he might die without care, and I was okay with that. I could go that far and if death happened, I believed I could make my peace with it.

Peace was also the idea at the root of my thought about Amy. She was the person I might kill for reasons other than protecting others. The circumstances would have to be pressing, I’d have to be worn down or otherwise not at my best and most clear-headed, but I could see myself doing it.

I could imagine myself being less miserable in the aftermath, somehow. Wrestling with shame and self-loathing in the aftermath of something like that was better than wrestling with oblique shame, self-loathing, and the daily fear of either running into her or a repeat incident of her using her power on me.

I knew it wasn’t rational, that it wouldn’t bring me peace or an end to the worrying. But my thoughts could go there.

I had to look troubled, thinking like this. I looked at the others and I finally gave my response—a nod. If I spoke, I felt like it would sound like a lie.

“Good luck, if it comes to that. I really hope it doesn’t.”

“Thanks, Kenz. Me too.”

“Be safe,” Sveta said.

I closed the door. When I turned around, Byron was still there. He wasn’t down at the car. It had been important that he hear.

“Shit, that’s scary,” he said, his voice so quiet that the drum of rain on every surface nearly drowned him out.

“Let’s go. Try not to make too much noise on the stairs,” I said. He nodded.

I ended up giving him a hand, floating on the far side of the railing, my hand on his upper arm as he made his way down.

Doubts crept over me. I couldn’t kill him—I wasn’t sure I had that in me. That had been a lie. I knew I could maim him, though, break him enough that it would take him a long time to heal, and that gave my troubled thoughts some peace—until I remembered I was supposed to be viewing my own thoughts through a lens, that this wasn’t a good thing.

He started up the car, while I floated above, the Wretch out and shielding me from the freezing rain and the wind. I knew the rain was tracing its outline, but the alternative would be intolerable.