Within her cell, Colt stood by the nursery bookshelf, looking spooked.

Love Lost beckoned.

Unsteady, Colt picked her way along uneven floor, over toys and a fallen changing table. Toward the dais.

Two of them, one cell.

“What the hell?” the Fallen boy asked.

In reflex, her hand twitched. Ready to punch the barrier, to do something to silence him. The sound of his voice bothered her as much as anything she’d experienced, and she’d talked to a nurse who had been proud to spread hepatitis among her patients, who had been smug about it.

“What is this?” Colt asked.

Love Lost put a hand on Colt’s shoulder. She didn’t trust herself to talk, so she relied on the gesture.

“You brought someone,” Cradle said.

People with powers can have kids with powers. She counts?

The cells are inflicting a bad joke on me. Taunting me with the loss of my daughter by giving me the last one I’d ever want.

“What was that dream?” the Fallen boy asked. “Did you guys—”

“Shut up,” Cradle cut him off.

“I saw it,” Colt said. “I felt it. What is this?”

“It happens every night, but tonight was different,” the Fallen boy said.

“It happens every night?” Colt asked.

“Yeah,” the Fallen boy said. “This happens. This room.”

Love Lost’s grip on Colt’s shoulder grew tighter.

Colt pulled free, shrugging it off.

“How was it different?”

“It was everyone,” Cradle said. “What you saw was—not the way things happened.”

“I hope not,” Colt said. “What happened in those first two dreams was pretty awful.”

Cradle shook his head. “All three. But what happened in the originals was worse. And it’s been that worse, accurate version every night for the last year and three months.”

Colt hugged her arms to her body.

“I think it was your dream,” the Fallen boy said. “Somehow.”

Colt shrugged. “I dunno.”

“It was what we wanted,” Cradle said, looking at Love Lost.

“I know I didn’t want people to get trapped like that—”

“The new girl being here means someone might actually believe you when you say that,” Cradle retorted.

“Fuck you,” the Fallen boy said.

“Christine Mathers,” Love Lost whispered.

Colt looked between her and the rest of the room, then echoed her, louder. “Christine Mathers?”

“Mama Mathers,” the Fallen boy said.

Love Lost saw the look on Cradle’s face change. They’d been plotting to deal with the greater group of the Fallen for enough weeks now that it was a familiar subject.

“She watched everything I did. If I’d gone against the group, I would have been castrated,” the Fallen boy said. “I would have been driven insane. She can do that.”

“That’s scary,” Colt said.

Love Lost turned away. Sympathy for the devil.

“It doesn’t excuse anything,” the Fallen boy said. “I was stupid, I could have done more.”

“Probably,” Cradle said.