“Keep an eye out? I’ll be right back.”

Foil nodded. I had a glimpse of her face in profile, as she surveyed the area, and I could see an enviable kind of focus and calm there. Jaw set, eyes slightly narrowed and alert as she looked for hints in a collection of half-built neighborhoods.

I dropped to the ground.

The others were very still and somber, except for Aroa, who looked pleased, and Chastity, who had a hand firmly on Aroa’s shoulder.

“What happened?”

“Aroa happened,” Chastity said.

“I told the truth. It’s not fair if you’re getting only half the picture. Love is the most important thing.”

I looked at Precipice, then at Parian.

It was Parian who supplied the details. “She said the reason Love Lost is so upset is because Precipice killed someone she loved.”

Fuck me. These girls were such nightmares to wrangle. I was now in full agreement that having all of the Heartbroken in one place would have been too much.

“It eats me up inside,” Precipice said. “I didn’t kill them by acting. I killed them by not acting.”

“Growing up with Fallen?” Chastity asked. “Do you think that absolves you?”

“No.”

“Good,” she said. “It doesn’t. I’ve killed someone by not acting too. I think.”

“A lot of people, probably,” Candy said.

“The one I’m thinking about is when you were young. Too young to remember,” Chastity said.

“Mom?”

Chastity nodded. “Daddy was tired of her, and he thought I was old enough to look after you and Revere. He pushed feelings into her head. He didn’t want her sharing evidence, so he made her scared of people. Any people at all, she wouldn’t be able to speak because she was so freaked out. He said he made it so she’d be happy so long as she was totally alone and there was no civilization nearby. I’m not sure if Daddy was saying it to get us to stop crying.”

“Probably,” Aroa said.

“Yeah, and you wouldn’t just say that, right?” Chastity asked Aroa. “I’ve told you, if you want to nettle people, you have to give them hope once in a while.”

“He probably wasn’t lying,” Candy said. “He didn’t need to go that far to make us stop crying. He’d just… make us stop.”

“Yeah,” Chastity said. To Precipice, she said, “I could have said something or stopped it, I think. To save my mom from being sent away like some dog in the movies that’s driven out to the wilderness and then left behind while the car speeds off.”

“I remember that day,” Candy said. “It wasn’t like that.”

“It’s a simile, little sister.”

Candy shrugged.

“My thing was different,” Precipice said. “I was older, and it was a lot of—”

“Don’t,” I interrupted him. “Don’t work to convince them to hate you.”