My skin felt uncomfortable against the meat of me beneath. I felt betrayed, even though I knew exactly why she was doing what she was doing.

“We can,” Amy’s voice came through. “Shin won’t back down on this. We won’t trust you to handle everyone’s crises, and the Machine Army is a big enough threat that it counts as everyone’s problem. We want our Chevalier out there.”

“Where is the collaboration in that?” I asked.

“Our forces standing next to your forces. I manage the Shin Defense Initiative, you handle your side. Ongoing relationship.”

“I don’t see the relationship there. That sounds like you doing what you want and expecting me to go along,” I said.

“You’d be free to do whatever you wanted. I’m not trying to control you.”

I saw Darnall move in the corner of my vision. He was staring at me.

I wracked my brain, thinking about options. The pieces in play.

“I preferred talking about powers,” I said.

“You would,” Amy said, like she was familiar with me, and we were having a casual conversation.

“Nah,” I said, and it was really hard not to inject a terminal amount of venom into the negation. “This is about you. You were never that into the boots-on-the-ground cape stuff. You never imagined yourself as team leader of a cape team.”

“No, I never did. But I kind of stumbled into something way bigger,” she said.

“But you don’t enjoy it, you don’t go straight to the capes and how you can use them. You’re more introspective.”

“Sure,” she answered. “Yeah. So? It’s not possible, we can’t possibly lead our individual sides?”

Her voice got more bitter toward the tail end.

“I don’t think it’s possible, for a lot of reasons,” I told her. “But I think there are other possibilities.”

Knock down a wall… erect another.

Narwhal was looking impatient.

“What possibility?” Amy asked.

“Problem solving. Inventing solutions. Putting our heads together.”

Gag.

The silence was always telling. Like Amy was digesting, processing, and testing a possibility against every damn possible contradiction she could come up with. Did it challenge anything essential? Did it threaten a fragile worldview she was holding up? Was it a trap?

“…Sure. What are you thinking?”

I looked up at the screens.

The ‘Gibborim Knight’. The Nursery-Agent. The Dauntless. Two more. Many more pending.

Two of those were immediate concerns.

And the timer was ticking down. Interception imminent.

“Don’t send the Gibborim Knight.”

“Victoria, that’s not—”

“Fucking listen to me, you miserable, deluded little monster!” I snarled, with the venom I’d been suppressing. A hostility that seemed to surprise more than a few people present. “Fucking listen for five seconds before you reject an idea, or I swear—”

Narwhal put a hand to my shoulder, holding me back.