“Which still leaves options,” Faultline said. She glanced at Egg but she wasn’t going to push for him to leave if the others weren’t.

And Weld and Sveta couldn’t. Not after what they’d done.

The conversation continued. Egg had a hard time listening, as emotions stirred.

They were traitors. All of them. Faultline had stolen good capes away at the end of the world, working on infrastructure and backend, gambling they’d be ahead if everyone made it through Gold Morning. She had only been part of the final fight because she’d been forced to be. Gregor and Newter and those others had been the same, because she called the shots.

He didn’t blame them so much as he blamed her. She called the shots, she owned the shots. A team only worked if everyone was on the same wavelength, willing to follow the leader. Sveta and Weld had fucked things up by refusing to do that, by actively misleading, refusing to be on the same wavelength, and handing their entire community, now a third of what it had once been, the worst possible result.

No answer, no fix, no revenge.

The rule of thumb for what was right was to ask the question: ‘what if everyone did that?’

What if everyone decided to sit out on the important battles instead of agreeing to fight?

What if everyone fixated so much on what they wanted that they forced the results nobody wanted?

His body cracked, hip to shoulder. Then from the midpoint of that crack around his ribs to his spine.

Rhea slithered against Gobbles, who slithered against Hurk, warring for space in a sea of yolk that dwarfed the shell that contained it. If he split, probably only one would get out. Rhea was the smallest. The others were the size of a house. He tended to prioritize Rhea, because she was most cooperative, and liked to stay close to home.

If they were all traitors, then… Egg looked at the boy at the edge of the group.

Sveta caught him looking.

“…bringing us back to the notion that if we can’t find any weaknesses, we make some,” Faultline reiterated, as part of the ongoing conversation.

“I don’t think that’s how Titans work,” Weld said. “Slician and Sveta can back me up on this.”

Egg stared at the boy with parted hair, and ordinary clothes. Nothing that gave anything away.

The boy turned his way, eyebrows knit into a slight smile, the rest of his expression betraying nothing.

Blackforest shuffled her feet. Egg forced himself to relax, looking back.

What would Gregor do, here? What would Engel do?

How was Egg supposed to lean on people as role models in a situation this fucked, surrounded by people that were at times outright toxic, when the role models had disappointed him as those guys had?

He felt so lonely, standing on the sidelines of this.

He had nothing, nobody. Just Rhea, just Gobbles, just Hurk.