“Your raid happened when the giant appeared. Did you know it would appear?”

She remained silent.

He looked over his shoulder at the giant, and then without looking back to her, he said, “Director Armstrong has information about the Clockwork Dogs. It’s why he wanted to talk to you. Give us any info you have, agree to play reasonably nice, and…”

He drew in a breath and sighed.

“…we’re not especially invested in stopping you. This situation in Boston is going to wind down in the next month, we’re hoping, as the major players lock down their territories or get their business underway. If you’re one of them, then it’s not our first choice for outcomes, but at least you seem reasonably healthy and you’re not as bad as some.”

“I’m pretty darn bad, Licit. You got scared enough to put spikes in my way.”

She touched a spike. It fizzled out of existence—because of him, not her.

“You’re not shipping in prisoners from overseas and turning them into half-cow people to sell to fans of some asinine children’s show. You cause property damage and you legitimately scare me because I can’t ever know for sure how far you’re willing to go, but I’ve been keeping an eye on your activities in Stafford—”

“Stalking me.”

“Keeping an eye on you, Damsel of Distress,” he said. “I’ve been doing it long enough to get some sense of who you could be. I’d rather have you around than nine out of ten of these assholes. Edict would too, for the record. Given a chance she’d cook you a warm meal, probably. At least once a week, every week for the two years we’ve been keeping an eye on you, she’s said she would drop a box of eclairs off on your doorstep if she—if she knew where you were. Or things like that.”

Damsel didn’t respond.

“I’ve joked it’s a Stockholm syndrome thing,” he said. “We’d take you in and have you be a hero. We’d pay you well, give you clothes, see what we could do to get your power under control, give you foster guardians…”

“You’ve told me this before. Deceptions. You’ll get me into custody and then drag me off to jail.”

“I don’t think we could keep you in jail,” he said. “We do this song and dance instead. I’m glad I got to spell it all out like this, instead of frantically shouting bits and pieces of it while you’re up to something. I’ll rest easier knowing I got to make the full pitch once.”

“This shark isn’t going to bite that baited hook,” she said. “It’s still not ruling out taking your head off.”

“Yeah,” Licit said. “You’re doing this instead. I really hope it works out, weird as it sounds.”