“Two,” I said, while she remained silent, glaring. “Swansong provided the Wardens with information about dreams. She got money for it. She’s gone now. Lookout wants some details to prep something we’re looking to do tonight, you want money, do you think we can talk about a short term deal? Brief twenty or thirty minute conversation, couple hundred New Dollars to share with your team?”

“What dreams in particular have your kiddie all up in a tizzy?” Damsel asked. She paced a bit, now. Pacing was better than dangerous stillness. “Do you want to know if I have any fond memories of Swansong? Are you having a service tonight?”

“No,” Kenzie said. “No service yet. All the places we’d normally hold one are evacuating.”

“We can get into which dreams when we’ve agreed on prices,” Tristan said.

Damsel shrugged. She flexed her claws.

She was dangerous. In another time and place, I wouldn’t have wanted to work with her. But Damsel of Distress was chaos, and we needed chaos under control. The only alternative was to extinguish her, and I was pretty sure that the ramifications of that would be far far worse than at least trying this.

“Third thing,” I said. “We can’t have repeat incidents. We need you to back off, for real. We need to know we don’t have to worry about you attacking our most vulnerable areas or causing interdimensional disasters because you’re willing to take those risks.”

“But Antares,” she said, putting an inflection on the name. “You’re prostrating yourself before me, offering me all of these things. Money, free reign, escape. I bet I could ask anything of you. I know you like your discussions over tea or bread and wine with black and white movies. I know our deluded Swansong enjoyed her breakfasts with her desperate little supplicant, but those things don’t have any hold over me. Why would I tie my hands?”

She moved her claws to demonstrate just what hands would be tied.

I could see too much of her eyes, too much energy in how she moved and moved those claws. She was bringing up details she had no right or ability to know. Things she’d picked up from the dreams, from Swansong. Ashley. Using them.

Earlier, I’d thought maybe she was less on edge because she was further from the thin ice. Now, I was thinking it was different. She’d been caught off guard back there, and any variation of Ashley or Damsel that was caught off balance would often rebound the opposite way, violent, devastating, and unpredictable. It had been the case even in our first match against one another. In many unfamiliar situations.