The light flashed from my feet, through the crystal pylon, and sputtered out. The scenes changed. Dean in a dozen contexts, all choppy, pieces missing or too dark to see. Then Eric and Sarah and Uncle Neil, with Crystal out of focus. Then Dean again, shirtless, wearing jeans, his face practically scratched out.

“You were the one person who didn’t let me down, if I forgave the whole dying thing,” I whispered. “And I think I could’ve. Especially with today’s close call.”

Dean, sitting by the window in a classroom, staring outside. Except a blot of darkness smack dab in the center of the image blocked most of the view of him.

“You couldn’t confide in me? You couldn’t say ‘hey, I bought my powers’?” I asked. “You had to lie about triggering, and dealing with that? Did it even happen?”

The images gave way. It as the Pelham backyard, Erik, Aunt Sarah and Uncle Neil in the pool. Crystal was in the pool too, but only visible as shadows as she swam underwater.

The Dean images didn’t come back, like I’d scared them away.

Not that I really waited.

I turned away, feeling anxious and hurt to a level I didn’t really want to dwell on, and found myself glancing at and trying to understand a bloody scene.

Damsel’s.

The boy that was dying looked like he was eighteen or so. The scene was dark, black, distorted, stuttering.

Even though it was an event that happened earlier in the chronology, the stutter gave me a glimpse of a hand, Ashley’s hand, reaching for his arm and obliterating it with a burst of darkness. The stump gushed blood. The other arm was already in the same state.

Damsel turned her head and saw me looking. She turned to face me, as the scene behind her changed to something more illicit, Ashley straddling the same teenager’s face, dress draped over the top of his head. Hands—not claws—reached up to run fingers through her hair, to stretch her arms, even cross her wrists at her chest, but never to put her hands near him. Much of it was obscured by more stutters, darkness, and distortion.

I didn’t want to see that part of it. It was eerie, personal. But—

There. The image turned back to blood, annihilation. A mute rendition of a scene where the boy sat in a chair, both of his arms bleeding.

And Ashley, the point of view for that particular scene, stared down at him. Put a foot out to keep him in the chair when he tried to stand.

“The Jewel of Boston,” Damsel said. “‘J’. Accord’s. He had powers but he only ever showed me the one. He could mold himself to be anyone’s perfect person.”