“He’s not lying,” Marquis said. “I think the trip could be managed. Long but I suspect Amy is willing to endure long trips if it mends bridges.”

“We’re not mending anything,” I said, harsher than I’d meant to sound.

“If—” Amy started. She flinched when I turned her way, stopped talking.

“If what?”

“If you’d be open to the opportunity, if you’d at least talk to me when I went, I could pull strings, maybe get an escort they trust to come with me and watch what I do, I know they want me to do certain healings of famous people here to prolong their lives and enrich their cultures, and I’ve been refusing on principle. If I bartered that healing, I could get permission to come.”

“On the condition you see me?” I asked, my voice hollow.

“On—I’m not doing that or asking for that for me, Vicky. I want you to feel reassured. I want you to not be afraid anymore. I want you to be okay. I will go to whatever lengths it takes to do that. Really. Seeing you would just let me know it’s not making things worse.”

I closed my eyes.

Was it okay to say whatever, if it meant we could get her to Wardens Headquarters? Get her into that building, up to the stairwell, and then have a portal open. Push her through as we’d done to Tattletale, but without any humor in the action. Maybe using one of Rain’s mechanical hands, to avoid touching the dangerous striker-class cape.

And after that just… not open the door again.

“We can talk about it,” I said.

“That’s all I wanted,” Amy said, and the hope in her eyes was naked.

We left the conversation at that. Chris said something to her that she didn’t hear, which prompted her to move closer, and from that point they were huddled.

I fidgeted.

“You did good,” Sveta said.

I nodded, fidgeting more, glancing at the huddle.

“They’re talking about which strings they’re going to pull to get her to listen,” Kenzie said.

“Thank you,” I said. “Keep me informed?”

“Will try. I can only listen to two things at once.”

I nodded.

In the other room, one of the scribe-boys was standing closer to the center, reading from his little notebook.

My mother put an arm around my shoulders, squeezing. She leaned in closer. “I’m proud of you.”

I smiled, and the smile was a lie.

Amy, too, smiled. I couldn’t reconcile that. I couldn’t make peace with it. She’d done it earlier, while chatting with her dad, and it bothered me. She was in a good mood and it was largely because she’d succeeded in lying to herself and thought she’d succeeded in lying to us. She’d broken someone and I wasn’t confident she was confident in fixing that someone.