“I’m okay with sharing it with you.”

“I know, but I’m not your therapist, and I can’t be a support in this moment.”

“Because of Riley Davis?” I asked, angry. “Bonesaw?”

She stopped.

I saw the emotions, like so many of the ones I’d just tried to explain in a ramble. No hate, no anger, but sadness and shame. Feelings so weighty and consuming that she could have ego-crushing feelings about those feelings.

It was a horrible moment, my own stomach wrenching with a regret that I’d said it like that, for those reasons. Time seemed to crawl.

And in the midst of that slow, horrible moment, people started moving. Like a starter pistol had gone off, but no pistol. Voices getting louder, people running. Doors opening fast enough they banged against the wall.

I pulled away, heading back to the others. To a point in the hallway that I could see through the situation room door, as people rushed out and squeezed in.

The timer was still ticking down. Four minutes on the clock.

But Dauntless was attacking, striking out with his lance from miles away, to carve out chunks of the Chevalier, sending him crashing into a building. The Chevalier got to his feet and continued to retreat.

Sundown 17.6

Dauntless continued his assault, striking out repeatedly, with a spear of lightning that curved and arced around clusters of buildings. There were a lot of buildings, so each attack had to be timed. The Knight kept its heavy shield up, retreating, enduring strikes that sometimes sent him skidding back a hundred feet. Sometimes he fell with the impacts, tearing up road and toppling heel over head. Always getting his shield up and in the way before the next strike, always keeping the shield at an angle so he would be driven down and back and not purely back and away. When intervening buildings provided cover, it ran, shield over its back. Glass fell from nearby windows with every heavy footfall. Like the world wept with its passing.

Fucking Amy.

Dauntless only advanced. He didn’t walk, his body more a pillar between sky and ground than a body. He flowed forward, scraped past the city, navigating a path that favored lakes and water, parks and open spaces. Some buildings fell, but the damage to the city proper was minimal, all considering. Had he been moving in a straight line, he would have caught the Knight already.

His weapon remained extended, a spear of light and lightning, with fat, bloblike sparks larger than cars dripping off of it as its energy reached capacity, then exceeded it, waiting for the next clear shot.