Gary was saying, “Yet our current mayor, tell me, should I call her Jeanne or Citrine?”

“Call her whatever you want,” Tristan stated. Which—shit. Sounded combative.

“Call her Jeanne Wynn, I think,” I told Gary. I couldn’t afford to let the others stumble through this, with their own worst traits being highlighted. I couldn’t let myself sink into my own worst mires of thought. That was what Teacher wanted. More confident, I turned his way and said, “The amnesty where we said ‘your past crimes don’t matter unless you commit more’ came into effect as a combination of deals we had to make to get people on our side to stop the end of the world—”

“The world ended,” Gary said.

“To stop it from being worse. So people struck deals, and to some degree, all of this was a wake-up call for an awful lot of… awful people, and there was a lot of room for second chances.”

“We’re still talking about Jeanne Wynn?”

I had more vigor as I talked. Citrine was a safe subject. Not an easy one, but a safe one. “I’m talking about a lot of people. Mayor Wynn’s power doesn’t change how she leads. It doesn’t influence her decisions. Am I happy about it? No. She was a member of one of the groups that had a stranglehold over my hometown. But they kept the peace, and that’s better than some. If she wants to be a regular mayor, use her experience with capes to make decisions in a city where cape stuff is pretty major? I think I can make peace with that.”

“If she’s lying about who she really is then can we trust her in anything else?”

“I think to make that decision for yourself, you need to look at how she’s done. Again, I’m not dancing with joy given past history, but I’m personally giving her her second chance, and objectively speaking, I think she’s doing a good job.”

“It’s the face she shows us. She was second in command of a crime syndicate, until the leader died, at which point she assumed control. Protection rackets, pressuring politicians, sheltering and hiding villains on the run from law enforcement, kidnapping, ransom. She has murdered people. You’ll jump in here to talk about amnesty, I’m sure—”

He let the statement hang, pausing to give me room to do just that. I didn’t take the bait.

Be calm. Process. Think about the fact that he’s a vehicle for Teacher’s weaponized information and misinformation.

“—But we didn’t get a say in that. No vote or referendum was held, none of the unpowered were counseled that I’m aware of. We weren’t asked if we wanted to make this deal—”