Was it easier, if I thought of the sister I’d grown up with as dead, if I grieved her to some measure while negotiating with myself to decide just when and where she died, replaced by this person?

I knew she was still alive. I knew she was complicated. I knew she probably had a hundred excuses or mitigating factors that went into what she’d done to me and the decisions surrounding it.

But it was sure as fuck not my duty to do anything except what was good for everyone, and do what I needed to do to stay sane.

“Do they know what you did, that Gary Nieves mentioned?” I asked.

Sveta drew closer to me. I kept an eye out for the ear-tug.

My ex-sister opened her mouth, then closed it.

“They?” Marquis asked, in her place.

“Shin.”

“They know as of earlier today,” Marquis said.

“Can—can I hear it from her?” I asked.

“Does it make a difference?” he asked.

Amy reached out, touching his arm, and he moved aside at her bidding.

“Shin knows?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“We need to know, too. What happened when you repeated old mistakes.”

I saw her shake her head a bit, turn to look away—

“You don’t get the option of not answering,” I said.

She stopped where she was. She looked at me, wider-eyed.

“We’re technically a sovereign nation,” Chris said. “We have lots of options.”

“Shut up, Chris,” I said, without looking away from my ex-sister.

“Shut up,” Amy’s voice was faint. “Not now.”

Chris slouched back in his chair, long arms draped over the arms, long hair in his eyes.

I pressed, “You have to tell us. If nothing else, you tell me, because you have zero right to keep anything like this from me.”

Again, that look on her face.

Marquis answered, “You wanted us to keep our distance, fine, we went to another world. I went with her, to keep an eye on things. Now you want to be informed about every happenstance?”

“If I’m asking? Yes,” I said. “And you’re not part of this, Marquis. Please stand down.”

“I’m her father. I’m the only family member she ever had who has at least consistently tried to support her through the good and the bad. I’m not about to stop now.”

No ear tug from Sveta. Should I have picked someone who wasn’t as close to the Amy fiasco to monitor me?

I looked to Vista, and Vista was silent, no signals, ear tug or otherwise.

“By intervening and interjecting you are making things less good, Marquis,” I said. “I want the facts from her. That’s our best road to a positive place.”

“Aren’t facts better from a more objective source?” Marquis asked. “I may be the best you get.”