“Take what you wanted. Take your wounded if you care about them, leave them if you don’t and we’ll give them treatment. I’ll argue to release them after. All we want right now is peace.”

It was like all of the fight had gone out of me the instant I’d banished the Wretch. I just felt that sadness again.

“Weak.” She said the single word softly.

“You’re too strong, you’re too dangerous, it’s not worth it.”

“I wanted to talk,” Kenzie said.

“I want you to shut your mouth for once,” Damsel said. “I can guess what you have to say or to ask and I don’t care, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Trophy Wife said something, approaching by a few steps, when Damsel twisted, looking like she might lash out, out of a purely defensive, paranoid place.

“—go,” was the last word Trophy Wife said, through the pounding in my ears.

I motioned to Tristan, who walked over to where Sidepiece was. She’d broken free of the section of car roof, and now lay slumped against a car. She took his hand without a fight, and wobbled as she made her way toward the rest of Damsel’s group.

Mockument was over there too, but it took Backwoods’s help to support him.

It didn’t look like Damsel believed us, and I didn’t fault her. The Huntsmen only had three of their capes here. The rest were making a more concerted effort to get people clear. Technically, we were matched in number, or slightly ahead in numbers if we counted the members of Damsel’s team that had been knocked out or hurt.

But we were knocked out too. We didn’t have our powers, or we had them and we weren’t willing or able to use them.

Lookout stepped off of Torso’s back, and Snow White worked with Rain and Tristan to help the guy up. He fast-walked to catch up with his group. They had to weave through the cars and the outcroppings of Backwoods’s power, using the gaps created by Damsel’s blasts earlier in the fight as a kind of path.

They left, Hookline and Gibbet grabbing two massive suitcases, including the one they’d dumped jewelry into. Backwoods threw sticks behind him, littering the road. If we gave chase, he’d turn this road into a thicket.

Sveta, off to the side, was the last to release the villains, letting go of Nailbiter. She found her way to us.

“Doesn’t feel right,” Snow White said.

“Really doesn’t,” Sveta said. “What was the reasoning?”

“It’s the old reasoning. Years of cops and robbers distilled into moments,” I said. “Isn’t it?”

“Mm,” Snow White made a sound.

“Lookout, can you do us a favor? It’s okay if you can’t, but—”

“Give me something to do,” she said.