“Materials from Shin have been about thirty percent of what Gimel received to date. Cheit’s fifty, if I remember right. Ten percent from Nun and other associated corner worlds. Something like six percent from Gimel itself, three percent from Bet, reclaim and scavenging. You guys wanted to put as much as you could into rebuilding. Shelters and businesses first, Gimel having its own supply and manufacturing chains came second. The numbers for supplied food versus what Gimel produces on its own are different, but I think last winter they were sort of close to what I just said.”

“It’s ‘you’, huh?” I asked. Still hollow, harrowed, emotionally wrung out from nothing except being in this room, in this position. Under her power. “Gimel is ‘you’ and Shin is ‘us’?”

“You know what I mean.”

I looked down at my cot. There were a shallow set of railings running along the edges to keep the mattress within bounds. I wondered if I could grab those, fly, leverage strength, and use the cot as a weapon to kill Amy and the guard in one shot.

If I had to.

That made me feel better.

“Let’s talk,” Amy said.

That made me feel worse.

“Is that an order?” I asked. “A directive? Not a request, obviously, not an option?”

“If I say it’s an option you’ll say no,” she said.

“You’ve lost every right to dictate terms, Amelia.”

“Call me Amy.”

“You don’t get to choose what I call you,” I told her, my voice low. “If that guard wasn’t here and if I wasn’t worried it would cause an incident, I’d have other names for you.”

“I don’t get to choose, I don’t get to dictate,” she said. “You know… there’s never once been a time in my life where I got a real say in anything? I was a kid and Marquis decided I’d live with the Dallon family, and then Carol and Mark got to decide when my bedtime was, when and what I ate, and what I did for homework. When I had friends they were your friends or it was just you and I never really got a vote.”

“That’s being a kid.”

“It happened even later. I didn’t choose my costume, it was Carol showing me some sketches and saying A, B, or C.”

“Sketches done with your input.”

“And it was other stuff, it was the times I got forced to go out heroing, and it was school and it was career path and—”

“And that justifies it?”

“And I’m not going to dwell on it, but…” she floundered.

“But what?”