“Victoria, as I said, time is short. I’ll be blunt here. Eric did more harm than good. Sometimes that’s the way it is in times of crisis. He just lost his mentor, he’ll be starting from square one working under me. It’s possible he’ll rise in the ranks quickly, if Cinereal’s assessment of him is correct. She always had a great eye for nascent talent.”

I don’t envy you, Miss Militia.

“As for you, you’ve broken many of the rules we set. You’ve been using your power in small ways, reportedly in one blatant, dangerous manner—”

“Touching Eric?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Flinch reflex. Automatic.”

“The same kind that gave your mother massive cerebral hemmorhaging?”

I winced. “No. I have control, now. He reached out to touch me all of a sudden, I was jumpy, it was a soft touch. He did it again later and I used my hand to push his away.”

“Alright. I’ll look into that. Let me continue, I do want to wrap this up. You reached out to command your team in an egregious breach of our rules, we did look at the contents of those messages, and they were more or less in line with what we would have found acceptable. Telling Sveta Karelia to stand down, de-escalating situations, and providing some guidance when the Red Queen went berserk. That was a massive de-escalation, when we had reason to believe Shin wanted a fight.”

“I still need to ensure she has a therapist to talk to.”

“After. We’ll work something out. The Wardens will help you.”

“Because when I tried, a member of the Wardens broke my phone and got aggressive.”

“I’m aware. We will handle that separately. Trust me, Victoria. Please.”

I’m finding trust hard to come by, I thought. My mom with Uncle Neil. My sister. Swansong going and getting herself killed. My dad sticking by Amy without doing anything concrete. Jessica letting me down.

“I’m running out,” I said. “Of trust.”

She gave me a sad smile. Her tone changed, less authoritarian as she wistfully said, “What I wouldn’t give to have had you on my Wards team for that one year, and to see you graduate to the Protectorate alongside Gallant. The past few years have been so unjust.”

I shrugged, swallowing hard. I didn’t want to get into how I’d fantasized about such while in the hospital. “I needed to get knocked down a peg, to course correct. I just… got knocked down all the way, I guess.”