“Telling you runs the risk of cementing your feelings on the question. You wouldn’t make an objective choice.”

“As opposed to saying an Undersider dies?” Imp asked.

“It’s Cassie,” Chastity said. “I can’t think of anyone who is as important to enough of us.”

“Oh.”

“Letting you come to the conclusion makes it softer.”

“Does it?” Sveta asked. “I can’t help but feel manipulated. Once you do your thing, if there are no blind spots around, don’t we effectively lose all free will? You can guide us to whatever conclusion you want. The outcome is decided.”

“I could guide you to any conclusion I wanted without giving you a list of options to choose from.”

My heart did a kind of double-beat, hard in my chest, before launching into a rapid-fire beat, the danger of this whole circumstance making itself abundantly clear.

“I determined the three outcomes you would collectively be least unhappy with, and stopped asking there.”

“Why not push further?” Sveta asked. “Why not use your power to choose?”

“Because determining victory here requires a hard and firm decision on what victory looks like. Maximum lives saved? Best long-term outcome? Do you want your enemy dead?”

“And you can’t choose yourself?” Sveta sounded accusatory. I didn’t blame her.

“I’ve only stopped and made choices for myself five significant times since Cauldron began. Three of those times, the outcomes were catastrophic. One of them led to my being captured. The other two times, the outcomes were neutral. Here, with the stakes as high as they are, I won’t gamble and I won’t make my own decision about what ‘victory’ is.”

“Teacher defeated with plan disrupted, heroic losses, city suffers moderately,” I said. “Teacher pulls the trigger before being defeated, minimal or no heroic losses, city suffers deaths in the hundreds of thousands—”

“Suffering only in the short term,” Contessa said. “Benefit in the long, excepting interference of a blind spot.”

“Blind spot could mean the option where people suffer in the long run doesn’t happen, then,” I said.

“It is not in my experience that a blind spot affecting my outcomes ever helps. But it’s possible.”

Right. Fine. Shit.

“Or?” Tristan asked. “Third option?”

“Or Teacher likely gets away, his plan disrupted, the heroes suffer moderate losses, the city suffers moderate losses. No more than four thousand injured or dead.”

“That’s supposed to be a result we’re happy with?” Tristan asked.

“There is nuance. Teacher has a good chance of escape, his plan disrupted, he attempts some more operations, proving to be a headache for you and other heroes, but is soon captured. There is a chance he dies before leaving this facility—I can’t see or simulate enough about him to know with any certainty. It’s immaterial.”

“It’s not,” Imp said. “That bag of rats clothed in human skin needs to be gone.”

I privately agreed.