Please stop, I thought, even as I simultaneously thought about what I’d need to do if they snapped. When they snapped.

I had zero faith they’d back down. By body language alone, it seemed Rain felt the same way.

I watched as the first one stepped away from cover, hands raised. Others followed. They glared, looked tense, even said coarse things.

What was the catch? The trap?

Not because they were outnumbered. They’d always been outnumbered. That left me considering other traps, along a broader line. Access to certain people? Would Valefor reveal his eyesight power when people like Narwhal were close? Did Mama Mathers hope to catch someone important with her power?

Or was it more mundane? Surrendering and going to the overtaxed courts could be a way for them to get a voice, with a wealth of attention. If the lawyers and administration on our side wasn’t up to things, and if the Fallen matched it by playing things particularly well, then they could walk away more or less free, with many more followers.

I heard Rain and Capricorn exchange words. Rain turned toward Sveta and I and subtly indicated what he and Capricorn were talking about. Snag was staring us down from the far end of the battlefield, with hilly, rocky ground between us, the trees and Wardens to the left, and the assembled Fallen and their allies to the right.

“March reached out to him before she reached out to me. He knows who she is, which… isn’t great.”

“You think he knows who you are?” Sveta asked.

“We’ll see, I guess,” Rain said.

Prancer had emerged from Cedar Point’s group, and was approaching heroes, hands raised.

If I accepted that things were going reasonably well here, this was a good outcome. Civilians had been hurt, people had died, but Prancer hadn’t achieved his win, and Snag’s group wasn’t going to get their opportunity.

If I accepted it. I couldn’t bring myself to.

There were powerful capes here. Mama Mathers hadn’t had enough people defending her. Had it been that she’d been caught off guard by Rain being prepared? Or was my initial impression of this being a trap correct?

What did she want and what did she get?

I heard a commotion. Noises of surprise and alarm.

The Fallen who had been turning themselves in were now turning on heroes. People were picking up guns.

The number of heroes there had diminished. Heroes had disappeared.

What followed was like dominoes falling, as the trap fell into place. Narwhal created her crystalline forcefields, only for the forcefields to change tint. The horse-head cape sent a duplicate her way, and she wasn’t able to get her forcefields up or into place in time.

From that, I knew the culprits of this turnaround.