“Shin has a manufactured slave class, doesn’t it?”

“What?”

“She has a servant who can make armies. Nothing behind the eyes, nothing between the ears. They follow simple orders and they can use weapons. Yes?”

“You want an army?”

“No,” he said.

Test subjects, not an army.

He saw the suspicion in her eyes. Her hands clasped each other now. She worked by touch—touching her hands together was alike another man resting his hand on the hilt of the knife he had holstered at his belt. A security thing.

“Would you fight me?” he asked her. “Would your father?”

“What are you doing, Lab Rat? What do you want?”

“All I want is for you to do nothing. She senses danger. I’m… perpetual danger for her. But she wants to keep me close. She likes me. She thinks she’s safe because she can beat me. I’m just a changer.”

“And?”

“And when I take the form of Twisted Betrayal…” he said. He drew a syringe from the case, and he held it out, producing a droplet. She removed her glove to touch it once again. “It’ll be a sightly different formula to the one she thinks she can handle.”

“And all you want is for me to do nothing?”

“Do it and I’ll fix this. I will give you Victoria however you want her. If you want to talk, I’ll get you there. If you want to keep her forever—”

Amelia shook her head.

“—I can get you there,” he said, lowering his voice.

“I just want answers. I need to think about what I’ll do for her.”

“I can give you answers,” he said. The thirteen-year-old was gone for the time being. “All I need…”

He repeated himself to lull her in. He’d had to do it with the more vulnerable members of his cell block.

“Is nothing?” she asked.

“And if Goddess can’t rule Earth Shin, then you let me help you and your father.”

“And give you slaves?”

“Mindless drones.”

“And you want to be a monster? And how is it you’re going to get Victoria—”

Her voice rose slightly as she talked, and she shook her head, as if the ‘no’ was already there and she was fighting her way to get to it.

“Amelia,” he interrupted, and his voice was rougher. “Do you want me to act, here? Don’t overthink it. Do you want someone to step in?”

Again, the hands touched. Insecure.

She nodded.

“I know where the last member of her cluster is. I found her before I found you. We had a chat.”

“Like the one you just had with me?”

“Don’t overthink it,” he said. “Don’t signal anything to her. Just… work with me. Accept what comes and don’t get in the way. Do you want me to give you something, so you seem less dangerous to her?”