But the Custodian had dropped the equivalent surface area of a town. We had a few minutes. I made a hand motion for Rain to keep an eye out, since he was positioned at the far end of our cover. He nodded, twisting.

We were ready, but—

—But we were distracted, because Chastity was saying something else, momentarily drowned out by chaos. “—leaked it to Lookout.”

“What?” Swansong asked.

“We wrote it down,” Chastity said, “because we couldn’t remember the options, but then Capricorn looked, and Lookout can see through his eye.”

Byron looked Swansong’s way, one eye glowing behind the eye-slit of his helmet.

“Idiots and imbeciles,” Swansong said.

“It’s too late to do anything about it,” I said.

Swansong banged her head hard against the concrete behind her. “Use Lookout’s time camera tech, work out a way to go back in time, and make sure these idiots aren’t deprived of oxygen at birth.”

Her three extended fingers indicated the Heartbroken and Capricorn.

“Go easy,” I said.

Byron answered, “I’m sorry. Heat of the moment, I was making sure everyone was present. I had a lot to do in a short span of time.”

“What does it mean?” I asked. “Lookout saw, so…”

“Lookout tallied votes from her team and Tattletale,” Byron said. “We have their votes.”

I blinked, to bring up the communication log from Lookout, as I worked to get my glove off. My heart was heavy.

“It doesn’t matter,” Sveta said.

I stopped, my hand at my glove, the injured hand making me very aware of how injured it was, as I held it in place.

“We have to make a call,” Rain said.

“No, we don’t,” Sveta said. “Fuck this, and fuck her. She’s too scared to make a decision, so she foists it off on us, and… what? We have to live with the fallout? Just so she can have an easier time of it?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Chastity said.

“Do you really believe that? Or are you standing in for Imp now?” Sveta asked.

“Can we really afford to debate about this?” Byron asked.

“No,” Sveta said. “So we jump straight to making her decide. Because if we decide, then it utterly destroys us, no matter what we choose. Why? For her convenience? Because she’s a coward?”

“Says the coward,” Juliette said, her tone dry. “You don’t want to make a hard call.”

“I made a call. I heard the three options and decided which one I liked most before she was done, because of course I did. But I’m not going to share it, and I’m not going to give my choice to her,” Sveta said. “Knowing what we know, it’s—”

Something detonated close by.

“—tantamount to murder, with what we’d be putting into motion.”

Sveta looked at me, looking for allies, for help.

I so badly wanted to be that for her.