My heart pounding, breath coming hard, frustration welling up inside me, I had to force my thoughts back on track. Not instinct—plan, logic, law. My train of thought from before. My impulses still shaped my thought process. The first place my thoughts went was to Goddess—she was a ruler, she had a system of laws, and she had some idea of what she was doing, because one didn’t rule a universe without knowing something. She studied powers, too.

No use, though, because I didn’t have her on speed-dial, and I didn’t know what she would say or do.

The second place my thoughts kept getting caught on was the master–stranger protocols, because I’d been thinking about them so recently. What was the law, the rule, the textbook way to do this? Other protocols, other rules or by-the-books procedures.

This, for all intents and purposes, was a trump power, because it affected or involved other powers. Penetrating supposed invulnerability?

S.O.P. for trumps was to get the hell out of dodge, reassess, and step carefully.

I heard a pained noise from Caryatid. The flames were re-igniting at her sleeve and shoulder, perilously close to her face.

“Put out the flames, I’ll let you go!” I called out.

Bag still in hand, back to the window, she tried to lift it. Ignoring me.

“Listen to me!” I screamed the words. Then, in anger, lashing out in much the same way I might have struck her across the face with the back of my hand, I used my aura.

This time the fire exploded.

Purple flames became purple-white and blindingly bright, filling my vision in the course of filling the room. I threw up my forcefield on reflex alone, and my thoughts followed a moment later, with a stark awareness of why that was a bad idea.

The light that had washed over me became heat. As the glare faded, the heat remained. Even after being active for only a moment, I could see the vague profile of the Wretch, coming to pieces in dribbles akin to burning oil and scraps like flaming paper.

The woman across the room was busy extinguishing flames that had ignited curtains near her, not looking nearly as bothered by it as she should have been.

“Caryatid! Are you okay!?”

“What happened!?” Still a voice without confidence, tremulous, small and afraid, like it belonged to someone years younger. Hearing it was almost enough to make me forget what I’d needed to say.

“Don’t use your power! The fire ignites powers!”

I saw the woman at the other end of the room react to that. That observation was blunted by the more pressing fact that I was on fire and I could feel the heat. My costume had absorbed the worst of it.