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.

I tipped over the brink, past the point where the use of my power was willful and wanted and at the point where it was something I had to hold back.

In surrender rather than intent, I lashed out with fear and self-admiration, and I let the Wretch loose, with Valefor in arm’s reach, in that order.

Had it been the other way around, the Wretch might have gotten its hands on the man. But intimidation took hold, and Valefor was assisted by his manservant, who hauled him back and away. He sprawled in the grass.

The manservant was slower to get back, his attention on helping Valefor. Compulsion, possibly. An invisible hand struck him in the arm, and the arm folded backward, wrist slapping against elbow, skin tearing from the blunt impact and the bones cutting him from within.

What was the rule I’d set for myself? Seventy-five percent? Seventy-five percent of the harm done was fair.