She watched the Fallen boy reach up, hesitating, not yet taking the coins.

He’s been killing us—killing me, for a long time, she realized. Just not physically. An ego death.

The coins.

The compromises she’d made. The coldness. The lack of warmth. The inability to feel for the children.

When we give up our tokens, we give up aspects of ourselves. We change the other. Cradle’s been constantly giving up his tinker ability. To Jonathan and me, then to me alone.

He knew.

Giving us the ability to tinker, and making us into monsters. That’s how we bleed through.

Her hand shook as she touched the barrier.

The most galling part of it all—the Fallen boy had never been given anything. Until now. No bleed-through. Just him.

In the near-pitch darkness of her shrinking room, staring at the exchange between the two young men, she gripped the teeth.

All of her anger, in one gripped fist.

She would have a split second to act. When the dream ended, she would pass on her ability, and with it, all of her rage and savagery. To throw it into one room, in hopes they would wake before the teeth could be collected and thrown back.

If that was even a consideration.

She watched, waiting for her chance, waiting to see if the Fallen boy took the coins that would steal his warmth. Whether he did would determine who she gave her teeth to. All her power for the day, and dangerous, reckless rage.

Heavens 12.3

I stared into the glare of a red light that shone out of a hole in the ground. The two Harbingers had found the time to leap up onto the backs of others. I wasn’t so nimble, not after a fall. I chose to rely on base instinct. Fight, flight, or freeze. The latter two were out. I punched the red light, putting fist into glass.

I rolled to my feet, and by the light of a sliver of a moon, the dark gray of snow wasn’t a factor, nor were the combatants, the road, the rises and dips of ground. The only thing that mattered were the handful of red lights near me.

In my hurry to get back I performed a movement that was probably only logical or sensible if one were a seal or if they spent far too much time flying, half-rolling, half kicking, transitioning into a mad lunge—

In my hurry to get away from two lights I found myself with three in my immediate proximity. I started to pull away, seeing them go from stationary red to a mad blinking.

“Forward!” was the shout.

I hurled myself at the red lights, drawing on that one-twentieth of the ability to fly that I’d recouped to move a little faster.