Tristan, on the other end of the room, was getting his armor on. He watched intently, still silent, but for a few of the strategic comments he’d dropped for Goddess.

“Natalie,” I said. I was desperate for an out. “Can we talk organization?”

“Please,” she said.

“We can step outside,” I said. “If you don’t mind your jacket getting wet. Give these guys some elbow room.”

Natalie nodded.

“Stay inside,” Goddess said.

There went that plan.

Why did this have to be so hard? One person standing in the center of the room while her squirrel-like companion made small talk was harder to deal with than just about anything.

“My Red Queen has fixed a few of my kind. Big ones, weird ones. She could fix you. She can make you just as wonderful in shape and strong enough you don’t need the body.”

“Don’t volunteer me,” Amy said. “Things are more complicated than that.”

“But you can! You can make her any shape at all, and then she won’t need that machine anymore! Then I can take a hand or take an arm! It’s all so colorful!”

“That’s enough. I’m sorry, Sveta.”

Sveta didn’t respond, only giving Amy a cold look that, ten minutes ago, she’d been directing at me.

“But I want—” Dot started. Amy brought up a hand, and stroked Dot like Dot was a cat. I saw the contact, and revulsion gripped my entire body.

Natalie looked between Amy and me, and then stepped closer to me, hand moving as if she was going to touch me. I flinched, and she stopped.

I nodded, and she touched my upper arm, just below the ornamentation of spires there. She moved between Amy and me, blocking my view, and the gratitude that rolled through me could have stopped a moving vehicle.

I hated feeling weak and powerless in front of people like this—in front of Lookout, who couldn’t understand. In front of Sveta, Tristan, and Goddess.

I looked away, tried to swallow and it got stuck, caught somewhere between up and down, in a position that paralyzed, too ominous for me to figure out how to breathe again. I really truly felt like forcing it would leave me either choking, if I moved one way, or outright coughing out a mouthful of vomit.

Fuck her. Fuck her for being here. Fuck her for intruding, for not getting it. Fuck her for her selfishness.

In anger, disgust receded. I could swallow, the motion hard enough it hurt.

“What’s going on?” Natalie whispered. “This is Goddess’s mind control effect? And you’re resisting it?”

“I’m not resisting it,” I murmured. “Every iota of my being is telling me that it’s not a problem, it’s minor, I’m making the sensible calls. But Byron said I’m affected.”

“Byron is—” she turned to look in Tristan’s direction.