In that moment I was sizing up the room, I heard the sound, the gasp.

I turned.

Little Midas with his arm outstretched, and the sixty-year-old cape with the limp was falling down the stairs. His hand reached for the railing, and was blocked by a crude block of gold.

Snuff slammed Little Midas against the wall. I flew toward Mr. Case Twelve. Sveta got to him before I did. Tendrils caught him, arresting his fall, supporting him from multiple points.

Here, everything was upside-down. Villains and violence ruled, Sveta wore an expression of anger rather than sorrow while holding a limp bloody man in her tendrils, and it was an act of caring, not of killing, because she didn’t hold him tight.

By the look of it, though, she might have been willing to hold someone else tight. I saw her look at the crowd, move, and I put myself close enough to her to block her view.

“Your plan,” I told her, in an effort to break the spell.

“My plan?”

“We might have to. What you outlined.”

“You don’t have to,” Semiramis said. She sounded pissed as she addressed the room. “There will be no fight! You’ll seat yourselves or turn away and you will let them leave as the group upstairs arranged! If you defy me, if you press me on this, I will bring this building down on your heads!”

Could she? I wasn’t sure I grasped her power.

But they certainly seemed to think she could. Nobody fought. Nobody spoke.

Sveta carried the Case Twelve to the door, her tendrils forming a bed for him to lie across, unmoving. She opened it without adjusting how she held him.

I remained where I was, as something of a bodyguard, while the rest of the group filed out. Snuff let go of Midas and left the man slumped against the wall on the stairs.

There would be something of a contest here, to decide who had the most say over this band of villains. But if there’d been any hint of law and order here, it was gone now.

Bluestocking was outside, smoking with her overlong cigarette holder. Close enough to hear, not so close she was a participant. Her stare was long and hard as she watched us walk to our vehicle. Then she stepped inside, to take her own actions as a major figure in this miserable little community.

“What’s next?” Sveta asked. “After we get him medical care?”

I put my hand to his throat. Tattletale moved my hand away.

“Pulse?” I asked.

“He’ll live. Don’t worry about it,” Tattletale said, her voice laced with condescension.

So fucking frustrating. I’d welcome a good excuse to fling her into a hillside.

“What’s next?” Tattletale went on. “Engel and Egg, if we can. I suspect they’ve been dealt with.”