No powers, he’d said. I couldn’t bring myself to fly. I couldn’t bring the wretch out. I glanced at Love Lost’s group. They’d been bound by words in the same way.

I looked down and tried to focus.

The Fallen closed the distance. I’d charged in, and that put me front and center. I got a good look at Valefor as he approached. There were white feathers in his hair and around his collar. He bent his head at an angle while talking in a whisper with the person leading him.

His companion stopped him a few feet in front of me, thumbs hooked in the slim belt at his waist.

“Mama told you to help us,” Valefor said. “You didn’t.”

“We did,” I said, still looking down. “We got your people to safety and protected them.”

“I’ve been told there are Fallen casualties,” Valefor said.

“Pazuza and Gel are dead. Smashed to a pulp. Jay and Nell,” his companion said. A guy with a face tattoo visible in the gaps of a ragged head-covering that only let his eyes peer through. “Some injured.”

“Family,” Valefor said, sticking his cane in my direction. “Don’t lie to me.”

The fact that he was talking to me meant that I was off limits for the rest. The hooligans with demon masks and the darker, more adult Fallen walked past me, toward Beast of Burden and the others. We were quickly getting surrounded, except surrounded was the wrong word. We were stones in a river, and the Fallen were the water.

“We didn’t kill your people. We did protect and evacuate some,” I said. “That’s the truth.”

“Evacuated? Yeah, that’s not a good thing,” he said. He walked around me, reaching out until he touched my arm. I flinched a little at the contact. His fingers traced over the decoration at my shoulder.

I felt angry at that. I was reminded of being in the hospital, of being manhandled by nurses and carers that only wanted to get on with their days. When you were a certain kind of helpless, people took it as their right or common sense that they got to touch you.

“You’re going to help us. Tell me you understand.”

“I understand,” I said, the words escaping my lips, barely audible.

“You’re going to help us. You’re going to serve us. Tell me you’re going to serve us.”

“I’m going to serve you,” I said.

Amy. The thought sprung to mind. Amy. Amy. For two years it had been Amy this, Amy that. All my thoughts in service to being with her, thinking about her, wanting her.

Another compulsion. Then and now, when I’d hit my limit, frustrated—

He reached up to my cheek, and gave it two sharp pats, audible. “Good.”

Anger became indignation, enough to choke me, together with the irregular breathing and the nausea. My head shook a little, my vision grew dark around the edges, and I teetered slightly.