“Harbinger Two told me that one of the dead is definitely me. I think the reason I’m thinking of Etna, the big question mark, and trying to put her face onto one of those bodies is that I don’t even know what the face of the guy I took down looks like.”

“Imagine a smashed pumpkin filled with hamburger patty,” Swansong said.

“Not funny.”

“No. But it’s reality.”

“It’s what I did to my mother.”

“Not the face. That was intact.”

“Uuuugh,” Antares groaned.

“She’s alive. She’ll live. That’s better than some outcomes,” Swansong said. “That the violence happened at your hands is something you learn to live with.”

“Do I want to, though?”

“Lookout’s content, Capricorn’s intact, Precipice doesn’t have to worry about his cluster for now, possibly ever, depending on how you want to resolve that…”

Antares sighed.

“Sveta gets to end the day hugging her boyfriend. I’m intact. The Navigators are healed and being cared for. Hopefully we’ve broken the back of this… stupidity that overtook the villains of the city.”

“Not stupidity.”

“Mania?”

“Pushback. I don’t know. This… thing, that was Dauntless. It’s like a giant nail stuck in the middle of things. It’s frozen the entire situation. We’re all so caught up waiting for the other shoe to drop that we’re back to where we were a year ago.”

“I’m happier than I was a year ago,” Swansong said. “So is Lookout. She’s not with her parents anymore. So is Precipice, I think.”

“Sveta?”

“Work on that. Focus on that.”

“Trying.”

“Good. Perfect.”

“And,” Damsel said, deciding to approach before this became any more saccharine, “you don’t need to worry about me anymore.”

“What?” Swansong asked.

“I’m going. I have the money, I have what I need. I’ll send my people to get my things in a few days.”

“You don’t have people,” Swansong said.

That irritated. Damsel bit back a reply, because appearance was too important here, with potential enemies and allies watching. Swansong didn’t have people either. Not in the proper, respectable way. She was so ruined by this whole dynamic that she would have said she was an equal or partner. A member of a team. But she was following orders and being subordinate to someone who had been the ‘coach’ just a little while ago.

“I will. Besides, it’s not like I can stay.”

“You could if you wanted,” Swansong said.

“I cut you. You won’t be able to rest easy with the knowledge that I could do it again while you sleep. You know I would.”

“I know who we are,” Swansong said.