“What did we used to joke about? That people would think I was the only living Florian, because I was the only one that ventured off the planet? That was a joke, such a good one! And Tubal Last sent pirates to my home planet and they did a deed there to make it true. They set off a bio-bomb that rendered me the only living Florian. And he recorded it for me. Recorded the dying of the planet, recorded the corpses in the streets and the messages they scrawled, the curses they left behind. Curses for me, because that was part of it too. He let them know the name of the person they were dying for. They died cursing me, one and all.” Their shoulders drooped.

“Oh, Pet,” Niko breathed. She took three quick steps toward the pool, then stopped again as something stirred in the water.

Petalia straightened. “The water is deeper than it seems,” they said. “And it holds guardians.”

“Do you really think that I would hurt you?”

Petalia equivocated. “Tubal Last does.”

“Last decreed this meeting?”

“Last agreed to it.”

Their eyes met.

Niko said, “So you could tell me how much you hate me.”

“How much I have hated you, all these years.”

“And still do, even when I stand here before you—” She fell to her knees on the gravel. “—when I kneel here before you and tell you how sorry, how abjectly sorry—”

“It is not enough,” Petalia hissed. Rage distorted the slender face. “You have gone free all these years; you have laughed and fought and loved. Loved. Did you not think Last would have shown me images of that as well? Pictures of you and your lover on a beach, watching the birds? Smiling, your hands entwined? Living in the moment. I hope you enjoyed that moment. Because I have helped Tubal Last ensure that you will have no more such moments. He intends to trap you in torment for an eternity, and it is no less than you deserve.”

“I will take it,” Niko said, “but I will deny that I deserve it. I have acted according to my ethics all this while. I have made difficult choices, biding my time, all the while thinking of you, thinking, ‘Does this get me back to Pet or not?’ You can choose whether or not to believe me, but that’s the truth and I’ll swear it under any tech or oath you care to name.”

“It is not enough,” Petalia said again, but more softly.

They turned away. A dragonfly landed on Niko’s shoulder and she stared at it in stupefaction for a moment, saw the jigsaw glitter of its construction.

It stung her. Fire flared underneath her skin for an instant, and three heartbeats later the world went black.

When she awakened, she was back in the room with the rest of them, all except for the void beside Talon.