“Everyone! You have a choice! We are going to Earth Shin! We are going to be an authority!”

I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

Sveta did it for me. “Amy!”

Amy shook her head, glancing at Sveta. “There will be rules! This means submitting to my power! It will not be as Goddess’s was! You’ll follow a code of laws, you’ll maintain control and peace, and you’ll protect populations. You’ll be reasonably good! Or you can stay here. You’ll be freer, but you’ll also be a target for heroes!”

She planned this.

I looked at Cryptid.

She planned this with him.

Dot was perched on her shoulders, clearly excited, but Amy’s expression was impossible to read.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.

She met my eyes.

She looked almost angry as she looked away. As if she had the fucking right.

“Come with us or stay. It’s your choice,” she said. She looked at Cryptid. “Is that okay?”

Cryptid seized his head, and moved it in a ‘yes’ motion.

Amy’s expression was both angry and sad as she surveyed everything. Freezing rain streaked down her hood, and her breath fogged.

She met my eyes.

“Red Queen,” Lookout said, under her breath. “Dot called her that.”

My skin crawled.

The Red Queen started to walk away. Cryptid was at her side.

Some prisoners were fairly quick to leave to follow. Ones who knew her from the Birdcage? With them went followers, and once a critical amount had left, a majority followed. Only the heroes really stayed.

Only rubble dust, and mud, now. Scarcely any lights on this hillside.

“What? Chris?” Lookout asked. She giggled, sounding uncertain and Swansong pulled her into a hug, so Lookout’s face was buried in Swansong’s side. It would have been a full-body hug if Lookout hadn’t been hugging the orb.

What just happened?

Others were arriving now. Natalie was with the prison staff. Ratcatcher was with Crystalclear and Fume Hood. They seemed to be free of the influence of the Lady in Blue.

Who had been practically torn in half, now lying ten feet away from me. After seeing my—seeing Amy like that, the grisly scene was somehow one of the least shocking things in the midst of all of this.

“He was just waiting for an opening?” Rain asked.

“Shh.” Swansong.

The assistant warden drew closer. We’d been some of the people on point through all of this. He wanted answers.

I didn’t have any. Amy?

“We need to—to do something about this,” I said.

“Are you up for it?” Byron asked.

I shook my head. Images of Amy and the sounds of her voice were weighing on my mind, interrupting half of my thoughts.

I reached out for Sveta’s ball. Lookout handed it over.

“Sorry,” I told Sveta. I hugged the ball tight. “Sorry.”