If she’d joined, we might have been able to win this.

I leaned on the rubble to get to a standing position, knowing what I was doing.

The rubble fell. I looked just long enough to make sure it was on course, and then I flew. Back into the darkness.

Something hit me, hard.

Forcefield down, and I was spiked down into the ground, hitting concrete and sliding on a thin layer of grit and gravel for what felt like forever in the oily dark.

Until I was no longer in the dark.

I twisted my face away, searching for a place and a perspective that didn’t risk me seeing Mathers. I looked to the side—

Chastity and Cassie, slumped against the wall, holding hands, eyes open.

I looked down. I was by the massive hole in the floor.

In the gloom of flickering lights, amid dust, amid debris, there was only one thing that was white and clean.

Seven floors down, below the hole, my sister was standing back while people tended to wounded. It looked like someone had been plunged through the floor by telekinesis or some massive attack. She did nothing.

There was a piece of rubble to my left.

I feel strong. I feel okay. I have control. Only one thing holds me back, poisons me.

If she’d joined, we might have been able to win this.

I left it behind, left her behind. I flew, back into the darkness.

The shadows swam around me. It was vertigo-inducing. Slimy.

The darkness faded. A slice of light, reflected off the ceiling, down into a column of space which had no darkness at all.

My cue. I flew hard that way.

The darkness faded, and I was face to face with Christine Mathers, staring into her eyes.

I stabbed her eye with the needle. The plunger jolted, and it fired like a gun, the fluids spurting in.

Images all around us faded. Scenes peeled away. Things the Simurgh had lifted. Dust clouds.

So much of it had been fakery.

We hadn’t heard the screaming for how long, now?

Mama Mathers had the ability to screw up our senses if we saw her. It had to extend to more than sight, because she was amped up.

The Simurgh wasn’t here. Hadn’t been here even when I’d entered the room. Many of the victims weren’t even present.

I noted Imp. Still gone. Chastity. Cassie.

I spat.

People were patching up wounds. Sveta approached me, to hold a bandage to my shoulder.

“Is she already…”

“She skipped ahead. We thought we had a bit longer,” Tattletale said. “She jumped to going after Fortuna ten minutes early. We didn’t do enough for your plan.”

“No.”

I looked.

Dinah had spoken. Now she pointed, one hand held to her head, grimacing.

I looked, and I saw the syringe, empty.

I grabbed it.

There was only one valid target.

The thin Mathers Giant turned to look at me, eyes wide and vacant.