“He wants it,” my mother said. “I saw how he looked when he had to give his daughter away. I saw how he looked when he greeted her in prison, roughly ten years later. He’s a hollow man. The more he dresses up or surrounds himself with pretty things, the more obvious that hollowness becomes. In the end, he’ll die ignobly in a fight against another cape, and he’ll leave absolutely nothing behind except for a lick of his DNA.”

“You don’t know anything,” Damsel said, and her voice was harder. “You’re bitter and you’re straining yourself to paint him as something lesser, because doing anything else would be admitting you’re a distant second to him, as a washed-up heroine and a lawyer without a job. His daughter chose to be with him. Your daughter can’t wait to be out of your presence. So what kind of legacy do you think you’ve left?”

“Hey,” I said. “I drew the line, you just crossed it. That’s it—conversation done.”

Damsel seemed to take that declaration as more of a victory than an admonishment. Chin raised, she stared down at my mother. My mother met her gaze with a level stare.

“Split up,” I said. “Each of you, separate. Please. What we’ve got lined up is going to be hard enough without infighting.”

They didn’t budge. It took my dad stepping in. Quiet through the fights as always, because he liked to think, to do instead of say, but that sometimes meant doing nothing and saying nothing at times when things really needed to be said.

But he guided my mom away, to watch our flanks.

I was aware of how incensed Ashley was as Damsel walked off to the side.

“I’m afraid to ask,” I murmured. Is that you being upset at Marquis being slandered, just as Damsel is, is it in my defense, both, or neither?

“Best don’t,” she said. She gave my arm a pat, flinched as her broken arm crackled, and leaned away, walking on her own.

Other buildings were in view now. They were closer to the manors and towers that Ashley had declared so essential than the rush-built homes closer to the station.

“We’re getting closer,” Rachel said. “Go slow. Something’s off with the road.”

“Off how?” Capricorn asked.

Rachel didn’t reply, only pointing.

In the mud of the road, a hole had been left, angled. As if someone had done a really shitty job of planting a flag, pulled it out, and carried it off.

She pointed at another.

“Slower,” she said. Her wolf’s ears twitched, and as it turned to look, Rachel and Foil did. I was next, and others followed my cue.

Only darkness, off to our left. If there was anyone out there, they were well hidden.

Chastity backed up, stepping onto the slope nearer the ditch.