“And Tristan?” I asked her.

We were plunged into ruined city.

She shook her head.

“No?”

“Too far to reach. Connections are broken, and you’re not the only one poisoning the paths. It makes it harder.”

“Which raises the question,” I said.

“Does it?”

“Will this work? Does she realize she’s losing?”

“She’s realized. Why do you think we’re moving between scenes so fast?” she asked me.

“It’s—why?”

“If this were water, it would be churning,” she said, looking out over the landscape of lightning in the shape of crystals. “Powerful people are being pulled out, one by one.”

I drew in a breath. I felt dizzy when I realized what she was saying.

“I suppose I’ll see you again one day. Perhaps my contrarian sister will cede all ground and I’ll give you a call, after. Perhaps she’ll find a middle ground, and accept some parts of me. Or maybe you’ll die, sixty years from now, and you’ll be recorded in the annals of this place.”

“It’s not Valhalla.”

“It’s not Hell either, not quite. It’s a last test. A question mark, drawn out over hundreds or thousands of years.”

“I don’t… look, just in case there isn’t time—”

“There isn’t.”

“Shit, look, you understand this place as well as anyone. There’s still unanswered questions.”

“So many.”

“Titan Fortuna was drilling. What was she drilling for? What was she doing, and why?”

“I don’t know, my dear. I know the person within the Titan found a kernel of strength, and she managed to send Valkyrie to where you needed her. Valkyrie used her power once, then returned to Fortuna’s side.”

“But the drilling.”

“I can’t see, I can’t go there. I do hope you find the answer.”

“Damn it,” I swore. “Shit.”

“Tarnation,” she told me. “Be happy. I do believe we won.”

I drew in a breath to respond.

⊙

I gasped for breath, and that gasp seemed to only fill my lungs to ten percent.

“Easy does it, easy.”

The woman who knelt beside me wore a winter jacket, and was middle aged. I was in an unfamiliar room—one I’d chosen. It was the most intact room in the building that we’d made our headquarters in.

My cell phone—I’d placed it over top of my chest, just to be sure the signal would reach. It slid from my chest and onto the bed as I tried to sit up.

“You’ve been in a kind of stasis for more than twelve hours,” the woman said. “Your heart rate was slowed, your breathing adjusted—”