He couldn’t see. His voice was his control over the situation and he’d momentarily lost it.

There had been a time he’d needed eye contact. Now he used his voice. The trouble with a voice was that it wasn’t focused. I could remember the cane, and the way both Nailbiter and Sidepiece had obeyed at the same time, earlier.

It worked on someone if they thought they were being referred to.

There were mental tricks I imagined someone could do. It seemed like a noose that could be slipped, especially when he referred to people in the general. I just wasn’t sure I could do it.

“Pagan, stand at ease,” Valefor said. He tilted his head slightly and said the words like they were a joke. “Report.”

The one the Wretch had hit shifted his weight until he could roll over enough that his knees were under him. He knelt on the ground, clearly unsteady as he worked his way to his feet as best as he could without his hands. His good arm cradled the damaged one. “Two dead. Ten injured, my best guess. I’m one of them. I need help soon.”

Two dead.

Were those dead on my hands? I’d created a momentary opening, others had taken advantage of it.

What would have happened if we hadn’t been here? Would there be less lives lost? Or would some of the dangerous individuals be Valefor’s captive audience?

Could I afford to even think about that? We were—we were caught again. So long as we could talk and we could hear him, there wasn’t a good way to avoid his effect.

“Fallen, you can move,” Valefor said. “Look for anyone that’s covering their ears.”

Fallen that had been paralyzed started moving.

Fear was making it hard to breathe. Could I use that again? Another disruption?

“Girl with the spikes that I was just talking to. Calm down. Don’t try to be clever.”

Just like that, my thoughts were dulled, and I found myself going back to the little meditative phrases and mental loops. Old PRT case numbers, a mantra I’d started to go over once when I’d needed to break a loop of thinking, which had inadvertently become something that calmed me down.

We’d been prepared for Valefor as he was, with outdated records and a printout of a wiki page that had been salvaged from someone’s laptop after the slow process began of rebuilding the internet.