“Whatever I do, if I include her, if I leave her behind, it feels like a damning wrong choice. If she was the one thing I focused on, I think I’d still get it wrong, but she’s not, and the end result feels like the worst of both worlds.”

“I talked to her. She found someone on her wavelength. A darkness manipulator.”

“Yeah.”

“Let them meet. She’s strong, she’s determined. She’ll find her way.”

“But I worry.”

“As do I, my friend.”

We walked through Hollow Point, past broken windows and empty streets and stores.

We stopped at a clothing store, and Ashley pointed at some articles that were still on the mannequin. I opened the door, wanting to get closer, but when I did, there was only darkness within.

More Damsels appeared in the glass, peering at us. One of them reached out to scrape the interior of the glass with clawed fingertips. Ashley seemed almost bored with it.

“Let’s keep walking,” she said.

I nodded.

When she walked past me, however, she was careful to skirt my shadow. I looked down, and I took a step back. When I did, the shadow remained on the sidewalk, while my own shadow followed me.

I stepped forward again, and I scuffed it with my toe. It came away, like a smudge on glass. Below the pavement was grass and a fallen plank, and the plank had yellow graffiti on it.

I remembered that graffiti.

“Your plan. It’s spreading faster.”

“Pollution. I was spreading it more intentionally during the ugly parts. Maybe it’ll make a difference. Or reduce the chances I’m stuck in here for hundreds of years, reliving those parts. It’d be nice if people like my uncle could hold onto memories of time with his son for another hundred years, while the bad stuff disappeared.”

“Let’s hope,” she said. She touched a window.

I looked through it. Inside was what could have been a bed and breakfast, or a hotel room.

In a chair was a body, head obliterated, the white carpet beneath the chair soaked with blood.

Not mine. Not my recollection or memory.

Ashley sighed, turning away in the same moment a lone Damsel stepped into the faint set of reflections in the glass.

I gave it a lingering look, then moved on.

“Have you seen the others?”

“Sveta is hard to reach. It’s an imperfect connection, distorted. I watched from a distance.”

For an instant, we were in the crystal landscape again. What had been red and black was so lit up with white flickers that it was luminescent.

Seeing Swansong amid it, it looked like it was entirely her element. Bright, chaotic, and intense.

“I saw Sveta and Rain earlier.”

“Rain’s managing. Supporting Love Lost and Colt, and being supported in turn.”

“You already mentioned Kenzie.”

“On the other side of a ravine. Talking was difficult, but we managed it.”