The moment slowed. It felt as if she were closer to the crowd than she really was, close enough to see how ordinary faces had been transformed into ghastly masks of anger and fear, violence and righteousness. One woman had blood running down her cheeks. A child’s body lay still and crushed and forgotten. A man was clutching his arm, roughly bandaged with rags. A girl was crying as she clung to a young man’s shoulder; he was chanting the constant refrain: “Justice! Justice!”

“See how they call for me? As if they know I hold their fate in my hands.”

“For you? Or for real justice?” she croaked, and her eyes were laughing at him. Self-important fool. His grip tightened.

Constance looked back down for a last glimpse of her city as the storm cloud rumbled over, obscuring the view and muffling the chanting and shouts. And so the living fight on, she thought. They might call for justice, but Constance knew the real reason they were fighting. They were fighting to survive. The living fought simply to live. Just like her. Just like everyone.

The Justice’s grip had grown so tight that Constance found she couldn’t breathe.

“Hey!”

It was the mage Lena, standing behind the Justice in the gray robes of Faul, her back to the storm cloud, her hair flying in a flag of darkness. The cloud wheeled around her legs like the skirts of a dancer. The Justice hesitated, turned to look over his shoulder as if startled. Perhaps, like Constance, he had been so lost in the moment that he’d forgotten there was someone else on the battlements.

“Get away from her,” Lena said.

“What?” The Justice’s gauntlet loosened slightly in surprise. Constance managed to gasp a breath, the impression of his fingers burning on her throat. What is she doing?

“I said, get away from her.” The girl’s voice was cool and commanding. Is this an attempt at a distraction? Constance reached for her magic, but the Justice held her down, and although power thrummed beneath her skin, it wasn’t strong enough to break his hold.

He raised his head. “You should be back underground with the rest of your kind, cryptling. You are the worst sort of traitor.”

The girl’s face flushed, her brown skin reddening. “You are the one who executes innocent people for imagined crimes. People like Vigo.” The girl had lost control of her emotions.

The Justice’s expression shifted in realization. “Ah yes, the old mortician,” he said. “But if it weren’t for you, he would never have died. You should blame yourself for his death. If he was innocent, you corrupted him. You killed him, not I.”

“You’re wrong!” Lena shouted, but Constance spied two angry tears running down her cheeks and knew the accusation had hit home.

The Justice had noticed too. “Then why the tears, little girl?” he asked mockingly.