—Mark Antony, Julius Caesar

"Tell me again—how did this happen?" the Psymantic Hime asked, looking with steely eyes at the hospital bed where her grandson lay, still unconscious, his atrocious wounds bandaged. If Ander had been a human he would be dead by now. If he had been a Muteran Lethya’s power would have crushed him like glass under a boot heel. For once, being a Levitator had helped him. "One girl, and you couldn’t stop her?"

"Would you like to see the recordings?" Maientra asked bitterly. "The news channels got plenty. Supposedly, the viewers just ate up Lethya thrashing the Psymantic King."

"Curse it, she was just one girl! How much does it take to stop her?"

"Being drained to the point of risking death, more wounds than anyone cares to think about, two helitransports, the Psymantic King, and a Levitator, apparently," answered Principal Emni.

"What would do that to her? And did anyone get a reading on her energy levels? What are we dealing with here?"

"They tried to get readings." The principal shook her head. "After the third Energy Register blew a fuse, they gave up."

"She remembered, in case you’re wondering." Since that day, Maia hadn’t been the same, always staring into the distance and thinking. When she spoke, she wasn’t as matter-of-fact, trading in her dry humor for contemplative anger. "That book that Tyra was carrying—Jerik told me it brings back memories."

The older women exchanged glances, beginning to understand Maia’s change in attitude. "Did you—" Hime Iaren began.

"Read it? No." Maia’s eyes closed. "Lethya—she’s my sister after all, by the way—forced the memories back to me. And…I saw a little of what had happened to her—she put some of her own memories in by mistake. Let me tell you something—everyone’s saying she’s a freak now, that she should be put down like some diseased animal, right? She went into shock—I can’t blame her. She saw her best friend die in front of her, saving her, and the last thing she saw was Jaegar less than two feet away. She thought she saw Laise and me die. You’re allowed to relax every once in a while, not think about what you have to hold in, but she can’t. She lets her control slip a little and it takes a lot more than elbow grease to get it back. Imagine remembering that your entire family is dead, that everyone you know is dead, and having it forced into you. That’s what Lethya went through. We’re lucky we got off with only three buildings down."

There was a lapse in the conversation as the others thought about what she’d said. Finally, Hime Iaren spoke up. "Not everyone will understand. No, almost no one will understand. All they will see is someone powerful enough to trigger a Second Apocalypse on her own, and they will want her gone."

"What does the Emperor have to say about this?" inquired the principal.

The Psymantic Hime shook her head. "He called an emergency meeting of the Grand Council a few hours ago, and they’re still in session. It can’t help that she threw Toju Hokusai around like a rag doll."

"You think they’ll be prejudiced against her?"

A beep sounded before the Hime could answer. She pulled a CelScreen out of her pocket and flipped the top up. It unfolded to reveal a miniature VidScreen, and Emperor Loraeth’s face on it. "Hello, Your Highness," she said, voice polite, if a bit worn. "Reached a decision?"

"We have," he confirmed. "Anyone who’s talked to her should know that wasn’t Lethya in control, but unfortunately, our solar system is full of people who have relatives here and who’ve only seen her through the news. Execution will never be an option, but there are people there who want her locked away for the rest of her life. Plus there’re the parents whose children are in V.E.O. and who are convinced she’ll blow up little Susie and Bobby on a whim. We had to compromise."

"What does that mean?" Maia asked, voice growing in anger. "What the hell does that mean, Loraeth?"

"She’s restricted to V.E.O. indefinitely—until there is a general consensus that she’s not a hazard to herself and others. And…" He paused. "…The others insisted, and I agree… We’re putting her in Psirons."

There was dead silence in the room except for the quiet, rhythmic noises of hospital mechanica. All three women stared at the CelScreen, stunned. Psirons…was that overkill? They knew Lethya was dangerous, but that dangerous?

"You can’t do that!" Maia said furiously. "Curse it, she was being controlled!"

"Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do, Commander Rensaris." The Emperor’s voice took on a colder tone. "I am still your Emperor, and I agree with the council. Psirons are the one way to ensure this doesn’t happen again. Someone is on their way—we want to do it before she wakes up."

"Loraeth!" Maia seized the CelScreen from the Psymantic Hime. "Think about what you’re doing! Jaegar’s going to want to knock Lethya out of play twice as much now that he’s seen what she can do!"

"She should have thought about that before she went on a rampage," he said coolly.

Maia froze, paling, then yelled, "To hell with you! Screw you, you crap-sucking, immoral, idiotic, weak-willed pansy of a scumbag! How can you and the rest of your stupid council sleep at night?! I hope you have to eat all of your stupid, overrated, useless paperwork and choke on it!"

The screen had gone blank somewhere around ‘council’, which was probably a good thing. This was the worst kind of disaster: one with no one and nothing to blame—with the exception, of course, someone who didn’t deserve to be blamed. Lethya had lost control for reasons out of her control, reasons that would shatter anyone else. And they were punishing her for something that could have been much worse with anyone else, to an extent nobody—not Lethya, not Ander, not Maientra, not a single living soul—knew.

It was so bewildering, how the fates chose people to make their whipping boys, to toy with, to twist and abuse until they broke. Lethya had never spoken of a white power; everyone knew hers was more of a blue-silver, with the occasional fleck of white when she got tired. Still, that force had come from within her, and it now rang sparse chords in Maia’s memory. Somehow, she knew it from somewhere, but for the life of her she couldn’t think of what. While her memories had returned, they did not come easily to her yet, and she couldn’t recall what it was inside of Lethya—or anything being put in her sister, for that matter.

And they were putting her in Psirons. Now they would never find out.

The hand holding the CelScreen dropped, her head falling, and after a moment she handed the phone back to Hime Iaren and walked out.

Lethya was having a nightmare.

In the nightmare, she’d been standing in the hall. She’d opened a book and it had returned all of her memories. The shock had awoken something inside her that took over, feeding off of her loss and hatred, and used her to destroy so much…

Worse, the tiny part of her that was conscious hadn’t cared, too wrapped up in herself to feel anything else. She hadn’t cared when the buildings fell, hadn’t cared that she was dragging herself down to hell and taking everyone she could with her. She’d just wanted to kill, to maim and break and snap, to make everyone know what she was going through.

Deep under the morals, under the cheer and resilience and stubbornness, under the lines and boundaries she held herself to, under everything that made her who she was; that was where it smoldered. Like a fire not dead and not alive, it merely waited, something that could be brought to life once more, something that she would have to fight. She didn’t know how long that apathetic rage would be the darkest stain on her heart, the force in her darker side that frightened all of her.

In her nightmare, she broke buildings, broke transports, broke people. She didn’t care. In her nightmare, she even wanted to kill Ander for getting in her way. It didn’t matter to her. And then, in her nightmare, when Jaegar came, she tried to kill him, and he just laughed, looking at her with those same eyes she’d seen before she blacked out in the Preservex, eyes that wanted to tear her down, laugh at her foolishness, that threatened to obliterate everything she held dear—

She bolted upright, breathing in heaving gasps, fists clenched in the bed sheets. For a moment, with her eyes clenched shut, all seemed normal. The destruction was just a nightmare, that pain just a dream, and things were just the way they had been before she’d opened that book.

The sounds of a news program reached her ears. "It’s been two days since Alethyis Fanyathe, the only living survivor of the First Apocalypse and possibly strongest psymancer on record, lost control of her powers for reasons that are still unknown. Recovery is slow, and the cost in life and in dollars has yet to be calculated. Survivors are still being freed from the wrecks of Aretton and Kricht Corporation’s Neo Tokyo Tower, the Fulschres Building, and the Wirman Brothers Offices, but as time ticks on, the hope to find any trapped survivors is fading. Thanks to the evacuation system, casualties were lower than they could have been, but the current estimates are at least nine hundred dead from the skyscrapers, seventeen confirmed deaths in the helitransport crashes, and anywhere from four hundred to five hundred related deaths. Ms. Fanyathe herself was not killed, but suffered multiple serious injuries, as did Ander Tientas, a fellow student at V.E.O. Academy, who was the one to slow and then halt Ms. Fanyathe. Both have yet to regain consciousness. Experts say that the damage done to Neo Tokyo exceeds anything Jaegar has done in so short a time, and is only rivaled by the magnitude 9.2 earthquake ten years ago."

It was real. She’d done it.

"You’re asking me what I think we should do? Woman, this girl just about tore down all of Neo Tokyo! I think that Emni’s just saying she was controlled to get the whelp off! If she’s so almighty and powerful, what really could have controlled her? Answer that, and maybe I’ll rethink my opinion!"

"This is what another woman had to say:

"My son is in V.E.O. right now with a girl that, as we all saw two days ago, is a cold-blooded mass murderer. How do you think I and the other parents feel about that? Someone who can bring down buildings and kill over a thousand people without a flinch doesn’t deserve to live. She’s a menace to society and I think we should get rid of her as soon as possible."

Lethya couldn’t think of anything to defend herself with. She stared at the sheets, dead-eyed.

The noise cut out as the VidScreen was turned off. A sarcastic voice asked, "Sweet dreams?"

She looked up to find Professor Sakfas standing near the VidScreen but looking at her. "Is it true?" she asked. "Did I do that?"

"That and a lot more," he snorted. "What was wrong with you, Fanyathe? Your staying here—your existence, just about—depended on you playing nice with the other kids and keeping quiet, and then what, all of a sudden you decide that it’s a nice day to break the city?!"

"I didn’t mean to," she whispered.

"Oh, you didn’t mean to. That makes everything okay."

Lethya’s head moved up until her eyes locked on his. "Do you think I did it on purpose?"

"Of course not," Sakfas said flatly. "If you were in control it would have been worse. But what I think doesn’t change what everyone else thinks, and it doesn’t change what you did, regardless of whether you were in control or not. You’ve got more self-discipline than that—I saw that white power come out of you when you were bringing in the refugees, and you pulled it in within seconds! Why didn’t you snap out of it? Did you even care? Over a thousand people are dead because you couldn’t pull yourself together! Were you even trying, or were you too caught up in playing Judgment Day?" He was deliberately baiting her, knowing that if he didn’t make her defend herself, she would begin building up mounds of self-pity and anger, walls between the truth and what she wanted to think. While he knew some of what he was saying was true, he also knew not all of it was—the test would be to see if she could tell.

Come on, Fanyathe, he willed. I didn’t make those charts for you or spend all this time making sure you could keep up with everyone else so you could ruin it all. Get angry at me, we both know what that book did, we know it’s not entirely your fault. Come on, make yourself understand!

She wouldn’t.

Lethya’s eyes stayed glued to a safe location: her hands, limp in her lap. "I’m sorry," she said lowly.

He tried again. "You should be! What were you thinking? I mean, you’ve done a lot of stupid things in the month and a half you’ve been here, but this really takes the cake! Decided you didn’t like the skyline? Thought they could use a little remodeling downtown? Come on, speak up!"

She wouldn’t play his game, refused to see it. "I don’t know," she mumbled behind her hair. "I’m sorry." Instead of fighting back, she was retreating further into her shell. The confidence she’d gradually built up was now reduced to rubble, much as the buildings she’d unintentionally destroyed.

Sakfas looked at her, then sighed inwardly and walked out. It was almost as if she refused to let things happen the easy way…

Ander squinted against the bright light above him, his entire body aching from what had to be a royal thrashing. What had happened again?

Oh…that was right…Lethya had gone ballistic…

He didn’t want to move right now, he hurt enough without adding motion into the mix. He’d have to be content with blinking at the ceiling until the doctor noticed his patient was awake and gave him a nice injection of painkillers. Where was he, anyway? What kind of doctor left his patient to suffer?

Then again, maybe he was taking care of Lethya. The memory of her bleeding light was still fresh in his mind, and he sure as heck didn’t know how many days he’d been out. Even though he was a Levitator, any psymantically-inflicted wounds healed at almost the rate that they would for a human, and given Lethya had been all but oozing the acidic psymantic power…

He wanted to see all the wounds he’d picked up, but that would mean moving, so instead his mind roamed onto that disastrous day. He’d wanted Lethya to kill Jaegar, avenge his parents, but he’d known that that would mean letting her destroy herself at the same time, and that would weigh on his conscience for the rest of his life. Having to keep the one person who could possibly actually destroy Jaegar from doing it… What could have been the one chance he had to kill him, and he’d let it go—no, he’d rejected it. He’d known Lethya for only a month and a half, yet he’d been hating Jaegar for more than ten years—what had made him do it?

What felt like a long gash in his back began to hurt even more, and he sighed, then flinched, as even breathing hurt. If he lifted his head and scooted back, maybe he could hit his head against the wall and knock himself out…

"Doctor?" he croaked. "Hey, Doc Banson?"

There was the sound of the door opening, and feet against the floor. A face swam into view, though it wasn’t the one he was hoping for.

"Good morning, sunshine," Jerik said. There was a hint of weariness behind his normal cheer.

"Get the doctor or hit me over the head with something," ordered Ander. "Kinda going for the first option."

"The doctor? Why do you need the doctor?"

"Damn it, Jerik—"

"What’s that? You want me to slam it? Slam what?"

"Doc Banson!" Ander yelled at the top of his lungs, gritting his teeth and hoping the doctor could hear him. "Old man! I need a painkiller and a rifle!"

More footsteps entered the room. "I can understand the painkiller, Ander, but the rifle—ah. Jerik, perhaps you should leave your friend alone for a little while."

Jerik shook his head at Doctor Banson, grinning. "Oh no, he loves me. Death threats are his way of showing affection."

"The minute I don’t feel like I’ve been run through a cheese grater, you’re mine," he threatened.

"Why, Ander, I had no idea you felt that way."

"I’m going to kill you!" Ander struggled to sit up. "I’m going to rip out your teeth and beat you to death with them!"

"I’m sure you mean that in a nice way," Jerik said sweetly.

Doctor Banson could tell that things were about get very ugly. "Ander is in a very delicate state, so maybe it’s best if you didn’t aggravate him," he suggested tentatively.

"You hear that, Sugar Muffin?" Jerik snorted. "You’re delicate."

Just then, Binkery stepped into the room. Ander could pick up his stupid aura, but there was also the overwhelming smell of…flowers? "Excuse me, Doctor Banson, sir, could you tell me where Fanyathe’s room is?"

"Don’t do it, Doc!" Jerik protested. "If you tell him where Leth’s room is, he—they—uh—the terrorists win! Jaegar wins!"

Ander realized that, other than dying after a life of crime and all sorts of no-no things, this was probably the closest to hell that he was going to get.

"So these—" Lethya held up her wrists, and the two metal cuffs locked around each glinted in the hospital light. "—are going to keep me from using my psymantic power?"

"Correct," the Emperor confirmed from the VidScreen in front of her.

Lethya wasn’t sure if she was hearing things right. Did they still think she was homicidal? Did they think she would lose control again? They’d just taken away her permanent weapon…Really, her one defense against Jaegar, because without her powers she couldn’t fly, and her martial arts abilities weren’t enough…

She looked at the cuffs, then at him, and asked, voice strained, "When do they come off?"

Telling Maia that he was right and that was the end of it was somewhat easy. Telling this girl, who was looking at him like he’d just burned her baby blanket, exactly what the council had in store for her was not. But he was the Emperor; ‘easy’ was not in the job description. Clearing his throat, he said, "When we decide to take them off."

That was as good as condemnation. She swallowed, eyes shutting temporarily, and then said in a somewhat choked voice, "All right."

He blinked, expecting her to verbally bite his head off—as Maia seemed proficient enough at that—or at least for her to get angry and ask for an approximate date. Instead, she’d just agreed to essentially be at their mercy.

Not the most assertive little thing anymore, is she? he thought a bit guiltily. Still, ‘assertive’ was not the word when she was playing atomic bomb two days ago. "The council hasn’t discussed an estimate yet. Once all the numbers are in and the total damage is estimated, we’ll consider the issue."

"I understand."

The Emperor nodded, and the VidScreen shut off. Numbers and estimates—the value of her life was reduced to that. Of course, she wasn’t one to complain about people underestimating the value of a life when she’d terminated over thirteen hundred of them.

Why me? Why did it have to be me? Why does it always have to be me? It’s not fair…I don’t want the power, I didn’t want to kill everyone… Oh God—Ander!

She tensed, ignoring the ache of her battered muscles, and tried to get up the strength to rise from the hospital bed, but her abused body wouldn’t cooperate. She’d pushed it as far as it would go, burned every reserve of energy she had in that final attempt to kill Jaegar, and now her strength was gone.

He had to be alive—he had to be—but she’d shoved him aside, and then tried to push him away even as he held onto her—those wounds were horrible, fatal maybe—

The door opened, and in walked Jerik. "Well, look who’s up," he said amiably. "How you doin’, Leth-o-rama?"

She looked at him, surprised. "How can you be so cheerful?"

"Well, it usually takes a few shots of vodka—"

"Seriously—I killed over a thousand people, Jerik. Why are you so happy?"

He frowned. "You’re looking at it the wrong way. That wasn’t you, Lethster, that was something controlling you. It’s not your fault."

"It was something inside me, and it came out because I slipped up. That sounds a whole lot like my fault." She hated herself for taking her frustrations out on him, but couldn’t stop.

"Let’s watch some TV," he suggested, and the VidScreen flickered to life in the corner of her room. "TV makes everyone happy."

"—Live coverage of the recovery since the disaster two days—"

Jerik switched the channel. "No, that’s not a happy subject." Lethya snorted.

He changed the channel again. It was a normal news broadcast, talking about the rebuilding of Aures on Venus. Lethya inwardly heaved a sigh of relief—at least she wasn’t still meriting 24/7 coverage.

Lethya paled. K-bomb? They were calling her the K-bomb?

"Thanks for having me here, Phyllis."

"What is your opinion on the ‘K-Bomb’?"

The middle-aged man crossed his legs and leaned forward, his balding head shedding light like the sun through a greased windowpane. "Ms. Fanyathe’s situation is a unique one. Many of those affiliated to her maintain that she was being controlled, but is there a way of proving it? No. Moreover, I think it is a possibility that perhaps the First Apocalypse may not have been brought down by Jaegar, as we have thought for centuries."

"Are you suggesting—"

"That Ms. Fanyathe was the real force behind the First Apocalypse? Who knows? We do know is that there are fields of high psymantic energy of a type almost identical to the kind let off during her assault on Neo Tokyo, and she is the only living survivor from the era before. All I’m saying is that it’s possible she was put in that device because her own civilization witnessed the power she had and didn’t want to risk killing her in fear of releasing it, and so just tried to put her into eternal sleep."

Lethya felt as if all of her was slowly draining away. This man knew nothing about her, and here he was, making up a fairy tale where she was the evil one.

"This is a load of crap," Jerik said angrily, and he moved to change the channel once more.

"No—don’t—I want to hear this." Lethya’s eyes were locked on the screen. Jerik looked at her, bit his lip, and let his arm drop.

She was a weapon. An ‘it.’ A killer. A murderer. A monster. She came, she saw, she destroyed. She was—she was like Godzilla. Lethzilla.

"Lethya—"

"It’s okay, Jerik," she said dully, staring down at the bed sheets again. "Just…leave me alone."

He paused, then said, "Fine." Footsteps faded from the room, and she bit the inside of her cheek, then her lip. Tears stung bitterly in her eyes. It wasn’t fair. They didn’t even know her…

She wanted to fade away, vanish into the clouds and ease into nothingness; she wanted to be free of the guilt, the shame, the pain, the smothered rage

She was a weapon. A soulless, violent, deadly weapon. And knowing it hurt more than anything.

Her sleep was plagued with the ghosts of the dead. Her waking was plagued with fear and depression. Part of her knew she was drenched in self-pity, but she pushed that away and stewed in her morose thoughts. It felt strange, not being able to use her psymantic powers, and aggravating. She wanted to talk to Asa, find her, tell her she was sorry, but she might not be able to speak to her because of the Psirons.

A day of rest did little to rebuild her strength, and she moved as infrequently as possible. There were scrapes and gashes all over her, and she’d heard she’d had internal bleeding, but all wounds healed slowly. No one came to talk to her but for the doctor on occasion, leaving her to stare at the ceiling or watch whatever was being broadcast.

Over the hours of lying in bed and watching the news, her mind began to set in formed notions. The only thing she brought was pain and destruction. Jaegar had searched her out in the First Apocalypse, so maybe she was to blame…She was no more than a harbinger of death and destruction. She hated herself for being weak, for bringing so much pain and horror to a world that had taken her in. She was more of a monster than Jaegar—at least he was clear about what he was. She was just a tool. A weapon. A killing machine.

The next day, Tyra came with a dragonet perched on her shoulder and Asa following. Asa had grown another six inches, but she hid behind the Sorogeni girl, looking at her mother with frightened eyes.

"How did you hatch it?" Lethya asked listlessly.

"Her name’s Mori—Jerik says that the spell on them broke, that it’s like when the eggs pulled the Psymantic energy from your class, she just picked it up during…yeah."

"When I was going crazy. Did the other two hatch?"

"We found a male in your room, and it bonded to some guy called Lawrence." She shrugged.

So the other one must not have hatched. Silence built as Lethya stared off into the distance, propped up on her pillows only halfway, lost in her thoughts. Someone had left a bouquet of flowers while she was sleeping a while ago, but she hardly noticed.

"What are those things on your wrists?" Tyra asked after a moment.

Lethya glanced down at them. "Psirons. I can’t use my powers until they come off, and they won’t come off until the council decides I can be trusted with them."

"Oh," was all Tyra could think of as far as a reply went. It was so strange—the Lethya who had taken her to her room had been cheerful, hardy, bouncy, resilient; this Lethya was so… lifeless. Why didn’t people understand she’d been controlled? The guilt was crushing the already broken girl; couldn’t they see that?

"How are you, Asa?" Lethya asked, turning pale eyes on the dragon.

Asa shuffled a little further behind Tyra and didn’t reply.

Lethya breathed in and out, then looked down and muttered, "Thanks for visiting me. I’m going to take a nap now."

Tyra took the hint and left, the two dragons with her. Lethya didn’t fall asleep, though: she stared at the white sheets, eyes burning, until finally one hot tear plummeted and sank into the fabric.

The whiteness had left her hollowed out, it seemed, leaving only a shell.

Ander was sick of waiting around to heal in the hospital bed. Jerik had told him about the Psirons, and as much as he wanted to storm up to the Imperial Palace and demand to know what on earth the Emperor was smoking, being stuck in the hospital wing wasn’t helping to actualize that goal.

He rolled over, wondering how Lethya was taking it. Knowing her, she’d either be mad as a hornet’s nest at being put in Psirons or just pretend not to care and be beating herself up for it, but both were equally stupid. If he were in her position, he wouldn’t have just gone along with it—sure, he would have been angry at himself for losing control to that degree, but he wouldn’t take all the blame for it either. If she were to blame, then by that logic it was part Tyra’s fault for bringing the Locked Book.

Why did she have to look so much like Laise? It made it that much harder to tell himself he didn’t particularly like her. How was this going to change her? Was she going to hide away and pull everything into herself until she lost her temper one day? Was she going to revert to the mouse she’d temporarily been? Was she going to hate the world for turning on her? Would she become more or less like Laise in any way?

"Fascinating," Doctor Banson said, walking through the door with the Locked Book in hand.

Ander rolled his eyes. "I thought I told you that thing was dangerous, old man."

"Oh, I’m quite sure it is, but if you simply remove the key from the lock once it’s open, it becomes nothing more than an entirely mundane history book." The white-bearded doctor grinned happily. "A very extraordinary history book with detailed explanations of everything from the beginning of civilization and mankind to the First Apocalypse and how it ended up in the hands of the Sorogeni. Apparently, the same group of Psymancers whose deaths triggered what the Sorogeni call the ‘White Beyond’ were also in charge of keeping the Locked Book—really, the History Database, because it’s not even a book, it’s got more information that can be downloaded into a computer—safe. They passed it to the Sorogeni and put up a shield to keep them safe, but ended up dying themselves and only their shield kept the Sorogeni from dying in the ‘White Beyond’."

Ander, who’d been watching the screensaver on the VidScreen, blinked and looked at the doctor. "Did you say something?"

The doctor shook his head wearily. "Time for your status to be registered. Hold still."

"Whatever." Ander closed his eyes. The whir of mechanica was louder in his ears than in a human’s, the small tools hovering over him and taking an analysis of the damage still in need of repair.

"Hmm… Says here that your concussion’s still healing, your ribs are almost done, and internal bleeding’s come to a complete stop, though it’s not entirely healed. Those nasty gashes you picked up, those will be gone in a few days… Overall, I’d say you should be up and walking by…Tomorrow."

The words running through his head at the moment were mainly four letters long. Coincidentally, they would probably strip the paint off of a house. "Great," Ander sighed. "Just great."

"Sorry, my boy, but that’s the way the dice rolls. You’re still in better shape than young Lethya." The doctor sucked in a breath suddenly as he read something in the book, brow furrowing.

"What is it?"

"According to this book, Lethya was the daughter of the Psymantic Queen—like a combination of the Emperor and the Psymantic King, only the people of that time elected a king or queen, usually one of the strongest psymancers if not the strongest, for at least ten years. And supposedly she didn’t have any power developed, or any outstanding skill, though her twin was rather remarkable. She had two sisters total, the eldest being Maientra—"

"Holy sh—oot."

"—and her twin…Aralaise, commonly known as Laise—identical twins. Both of her sisters supposedly died in front of Lethya during the First Apocalypse."

Ander looked at the doctor, eyes wide in his face. Laise and Lethya, twins? And Laise had been the talented one? And Lethya had seemed to be powerless?

If that doesn’t explain a lot, I don’t know what does, a remote part of his mind said dryly. The rest of him was too surprised. For once, the mask of tough pride and arrogance had come off, leaving a stunned teen boy who didn’t know what to think.

Lethya was staring at the ceiling again. She’d been doing that a lot, and hearing in her head the words of those who had every right to pass judgment on her. She hadn’t seen a mirror in days, but if she looked how she felt, there would hardly be a faint mist in the reflection, a fog of nothing and no one—nothing that deserved to live, anyway. Every second she stayed in V.E.O., she was putting over eleven thousand lives in jeopardy, and she didn’t deserve to stay there.

The door whisked open, and she looked drably over. To her surprise, Ander was there, and he slowly walked in, dropping into a chair. "Hi."

She didn’t reply, looking at him for a long moment before remembering her efforts to kill him and falling back to the pillows.

"Hey, I’m talking to you." He scowled at her.

"Why?"

"What? Why should I talk to you?"

She nodded silently, eyes fixated on the wall. She met no one’s gaze anymore.

"Why shouldn’t I talk to you? What, am I not good enough to talk to you now?"

Lethya didn’t answer, just stared ahead.

"Jeez, Lethya, say something. I didn’t come here to talk with a mute."

For a long while, she didn’t react. Only sorrow and self-hatred poisoned eyes once filled with laughter and cheer; silence clogged a voice once brimming with goodwill and happiness. Finally, she spoke.

"I should leave," she said dully. Everything about her was pale: her eyes, an icy silver; her face; her limp hair; even the hospital sheets and the pastel gown the nurses had put her in. It was as if all life and essence had been bled away, leaving only a blown-glass replica.

"You don’t mean that." It was part statement, part refusal to listen to what she was saying. Both Lethya and Ander knew it for what it was.

"I do." Silence stretched between them, until she slowly rose from the bed. Her bare feet stuck against the floor’s cold tile, as if begging too to return to the hospital bed and let things be. But she couldn’t do that. She had to atone somehow.

Ander got to his feet as well, and she hesitated, then forced her legs to jerk into a sprint. The hospital door barely slid open fast enough to admit her through. Even as weak as she was, and without her psymantic powers, the pent-up self-loathing and anger forced her on, through the hospital wing, out into the hall, past stray students looking at her as if she were crazy or looking at her as if she might kill them. Lethya didn’t stop completely when she launched into the transportation shaft, making her slam into the back wall. The doors closed briefly, then slid open again to reveal the cloudy sky hanging over the roof.

She staggered outside and across the cement panels, finally stumbling into the railing. Work crews still labored below, trying to repair all the damage she’d done, but it would take months, maybe years.

No one understood. She was alone, the last person of her time, and she was restricted from using the only weapon she perpetually had. Yet wherever she went, people got hurt, making her no more than a virus that would slowly kill this world, as she had caused the destruction of the past.

She was so alone.

"It’s not your fault, Lethya."

Why did Ander have to follow her? "I pulled down three skyscrapers, killed over a thousand people, and did more than thirty trillion dollars in damage. I did it. Tell me how that isn’t my fault."

"You weren’t yourself."

"I nearly killed you."

"You didn’t. Something was controlling you." A beat passed, noiseless, tense. "Come on, get back inside." She didn’t turn around. "You can’t leave. You can barely walk."

He didn’t understand her either.

She followed him back inside, knowing that as long as she lived, she could never stay.

The doctor had said she should stay in bed for another day or so. She used it to plan her solution. Everyone would win in this one, that was certain. It was the only way she could rectify her wrongs.

When she had completely healed—physically, at least—she was released. The walk back to her room was slow, aggravating, and harried by resentful, angry glares and the sudden halt in any conversation as she passed. Someone muttered, "Psycho," from behind her, but when she turned around, no one was looking at her.

Asa was staying with Tyra, and that would be for the best. She’d have enough to do anyway…At least she’d found what she’d needed.

Her room was just as she’d left it. It was five o’clock, so she didn’t have much time to work. She dumped out all her school supplies from her bag, opened her closet, and began stuffing food and clothes into the leather sack. She hadn’t eaten anything else from the food raid other than some of the chocolate, so she had enough to last her a few days, including the water she’d need.

Lethya skipped dinner, partly because her appetite hadn’t recovered yet, partly because she didn’t want to see the hate on everyone else’s faces. Hate for her being a girl was unreasonable; she could fight against that. Hate for her destroying their cities and likely killing a relative was more than reasonable, and she wouldn’t be able to handle it.

Jerik came to see her after dinner, wanting to know if she was all right. She told him the truth, that she wasn’t hungry, and reminded him that he had Psymantics class to get to. For him, she tried to laugh and smile, but it didn’t work well.

It didn’t matter. Soon they all would be rid of her.

Lethya crept through the hallways of the ground floor, her only possessions at her side, grim determination steeling her nerve. Neo Tokyo had made it clear that they didn’t want her. She would do what they wanted her to do.

The doors outside were locked, a grate in place beyond that, a metal door the last wall of defense. Lethya would have to get through those. She wasn’t worried.

Where was it—she distinctly remembered this happening quite a bit at the school in her time, and apparently things hadn’t changed that much—there it was. Wrapping a hand around the red lever, she pulled.

Immediately, sprinklers went off, sirens wailing mournfully throughout the school. The fire alarm worked every time. She turned expectant eyes to the doors and watched them each get out of her way—as she’d thought, no matter how tight the security, they couldn’t afford to keep the doors closed and trap all the students in a fire.

Lethya ran outside, pulled the map she’d printed off from the VidScreen’s Visitor Information Channel, and turned to the left. This was it. There was no going back.

Taking a deep breath, she began jogging down the street, trying to ignore the groove running down the middle of it. Once, she had walked this path as things happened that would change her life forever. Now, if her plan worked as she hoped, that would happen again.

Eventually, she passed the point where she’d finally stopped, then went around the Imperial Palace, and behind that was what she was looking for.

The air cruisers were docked in one field of the Neo Tokyo Transport Station, the smaller local shippers in another. She was heading for one called the H.I.H. Black Butterfly, a sleek freighter ship that would take her far enough away, maybe, for everyone to forget. Except for her—she would never forget.

The ships were guarded by a high wall, but she’d come prepared for that. The protections of this time weren’t any good against techniques that were three thousand years old and unremembered by almost everyone.

She’d made the climbing magnetic claws out of a pair of gloves and a pair of tools with spikes in them. They were attached to the palms of the gloves, which she slipped on now, as well as securing two magnetic pads she’d removed from the back of her textlogs to her kneecaps. The wall she’d be climbing was metal, so magnetism would work in her favor. She had also slipped on latex surgical gloves underneath the climbing claws to avoid being electrocuted if it was charged that way.

Lethya set one hand on the wall, then another, and made her way up the sheer metal, then back down on the inside, and then stripped off both sets of gloves and tucked them away in her bag. Now she had to find the Black Butterfly and get inside.

Of all the airships on that field, only one was completely black and resembled the picture she’d seen. No one was watching, fortunately, but there was a guard walking around the Black Butterfly. She’d have to get past him, but without knocking him out, or else it would trigger suspicion.

Lethya waited until he vanished behind the large ship, then ran towards it, hoping no one would see. If she just didn’t have the stupid Psirons, she could’ve cast a simple screening spell, but there was no helping it.

The guard came around the corner just as she ducked into the shadows, pressed up against one giant thruster. Her watch proclaimed the time to be 12:37; the ship would warm up at 1:00 and take off at 1:05. They’d briefly covered the structure of large airships in Advanced Mechanics, and the quickest way inside was also the riskiest one, but it would work.

The watchman passed her by, and once he was out of sight, she eased over to the entryway of the thruster. It was lifeless now, but in twenty-three minutes, it and the other three main thrusters would spew a bright flame and propel the Black Butterfly on its way to Saturn. She had to be far away from them by then.

Her feet felt the chill as she removed her shoes and socks, shoved them into her bag as well, and climbed into the giant metal cylinder, toes sticking to the cold metal as they had done to the hospital floor. There was the fuel charger; a spark from the ignition would set the Luminantine-derived fuel on fire, but only when the pilot said so. For now it was as lifeless as the rest of the airfield, but there was always hidden power…

Lethya paused, thinking. The oxygen tanks would connect to here, somewhere in the back of the thruster, and climbing through the pipes would be one way, though tiring. Of course, if a thruster went dead mid-flight, there had to be a way to get a mechanic in there to at least find out what the problem was, which meant there had to be a hatch of some sort.

She found it near the oxygen pipes: a small square of metal four feet wide and tall. There were wire detectors for security, something she was aware of, and something she knew how to fix. There were two small snicks and the wires fell harmlessly to the ground. A twist of the handle, and the hatch swung open, revealing a dark interior.

She went in, suppressing a shiver from the chill, and dug around in her bag for a flashlight. Once she’d found it, she turned it on and shut the door behind her. She was inside the Black Butterfly.

This was just a small deck for reaching the thruster. The information she’d printed off had included a map of the ship’s interior, and from here she could go into a cargo deck. The advertisements had boasted of controlled-temperature cargo holds, including one for transporting animals, and that was the one she wanted. That way she wouldn’t freeze to death in a non-living cargo hold, and it would be easy to hide in a corner when the feeding mechs came to tend their charges.

The way to the one she wanted was up through the porthole and through the hallway. She couldn’t sense to find if anyone was overhead, so she’d have to get as close to the top of the porthole and listen for footfalls and feel for the floor shaking. The Black Butterfly had been in for a week, but since it was the last night, most of the crewmembers would be out getting a final taste of the town. She would have to hurry nonetheless—there was no Plan B.

Screeching woke Ander from his sleep, and to his surprise and discomfort, he found that both Tai and Asa were floating over his bed, wailing like they were trying to make his ears bleed. "You have two seconds to shut up and go back to sleep, or I’m tying you up and putting muzzles on both of you."

A rush of Tai’s jumbled thoughts whirled into his mind, frantic and urgent. "Mother—fly—ship—leave—"

"What?!" Ander sat bolt upright. "Slow down—what do you mean, leave?!"

"Mother’s leaving," Tai said, ruby eyes wide. "She’s downstairs, and she’s not gonna come back."

"Oh crap—Lethya, what are you doing?" She was powerless, open to attack, and now she was most likely on the top of Jaegar’s hit list—what was she thinking? Did she have a death wish?

Maybe she actually did. She obviously was taking everything harder than he’d expected. "Come on, we’ve got to stop her." He got up and pulled on the first clothes he grabbed off the floor—a red shirt, his sleeveless jacket, and his work pants—then made his way down the hallway and opened the door. Jerik was standing in front of it, hand poised to knock.

"I know, I’m too old to go Trick or Treating, but I couldn’t resist," he whispered immediately. Maigo snorted, two puffs of smoke drifting out of his nose.

"Lethya’s running off, idiot! This isn’t the time for jokes!" Ander turned to Tai. "Where’s she going?"

"I knew that," Jerik muttered, but Ander didn’t hear him.

Tai paused, then answered, "Asa says she’s close to the door."

"Then we’d better hurry." Jerik turned and set off before Ander could ask him how he’d heard Tai, but the sound of another door opening made them both freeze.

Tyra came out of a room two doors down from Lethya’s, the infant Mori on her shoulder, looking furtively around. She jumped when she saw them, then relaxed—slightly. "Where’s Lethya?"

Just then, a piercing, shrill siren began to shriek through every hall, and they were drenched by the sprinklers that emerged from the walls and began hosing down everything in sight. Red lights flashed, splashing the formerly dark hallway in bloody light. Jerik, Ander, and Tyra traded dark looks, Jerikthrough mahogany hair dripping in his eyes,Tyra through a soggy black curtain, Ander through sodden brown.

"Well, she gets points for creative use of the school," Jerik said finally. People began emerging from their rooms, wondering what was going on, but unfortunately for Jerik, Ander, and Tyra, they were very close to a fire alarm themselves.

"Hey! They set off the fire alarm!"

"Man, it’s friggin’ early! Those idiots!"

"I hate my life," Ander muttered.

"It’s brilliant, though—gets the doors open, and puts the entire school in enough of a panic that no one will figure out she’s gone until she…well…is," Jerik said thoughtfully. "And pulling the fire alarm is a sign of true rebel-ism. Lethya got game."

Tyra looked at him strangely, but Ander pulled both of them into a run. "She’s out of the school by now, we haven’t got time for chitchat! Tai, see if Asa can figure out where she’s going!"

After a moment, an image came to all three of their minds: an airfield, dark and deserted, several freighter airships docked there. The one that stuck out the most was painted all black, with smoother lines than most, the words Black Butterfly painted on the hull.

"You’ve got to be kidding me," Jerik said incredulously.

Muffled, rhythmic thumps, as well as the slight trembling of the metal above the hatch, told Lethya that someone had passed overhead. She waited for a minute after they had gone and slowly raised the round metal door, looking out cautiously. Nothing but carpet was in sight on either side of the hallway, and she didn’t hear anyone nearby, so she hastily levered herself out, replaced the door, and scuttled down until she found the door marked with a paw print.

She let herself in and closed the door quietly. The Black Butterfly needed a large crew, at least a hundred, and so if she was discovered she could try to knock the person out and take their uniform, but that might or might not work. The flight was an hour long, but forty of that would be in Compacted Space, so the distance crossed would be huge. Once they landed, she would hide until it was safe, then sneak out. It was time that she started learning to do things the hard way.

The hold was warm, warmer than it had been outside, and well lit. A screen on the wall showed a diagram of all the animal pens, the lit up ones indicating that they were registered as occupied so that their caretakers would find each one. The smallest was three feet in width and length, the largest thirty feet by forty.

Lethya walked over to an empty one that was still in sight of the screen, then stepped in. No light turned on in the diagram, even when she shut the door, then opened it again, and walked out. It seemed anything in the cages had to actually have been put there by a crewmember and the screen set to show where it was, which worked in her favor.

The one she chose was ten feet wide and long, the floor padded comfortably. The best part was that it was in a corner far away from any other residents in the Animal Cargo hold. It would keep her warm, dry, and hidden well enough. Now if only her plan extended beyond her arrival on another planet.

She set down her pack, plopped down next to it, pulled out the blanket she’d taken from her bed, wrapped it around herself, leaned back against the wall of the cage, and tried to fall asleep. The noise of the takeoff would wake her up.

"Lethya’s brilliant," Jerik said reverently. Unlike her, they had been able to put a temporary silence spell around them, as well as one for invisibility, so the guard wouldn’t know they were there. "Climbing in through the thruster barrel. It’s ingenious."

"There’s a difference between ingenious and suicidal," Ander muttered.

"Yes, but in this case, ingenious is the only one that applies."

"We need to get to Lethya." For only the third time that night, Tyra had spoken, and now she climbed into the thruster, moving ahead. For speed, she’d taken the UberVespa, and now it was bumping along at her side, collapsed and with a strap looping over her shoulder. In her home, no one would stand around wasting time when there was a task to be accomplished and an hourglass draining away the minutes remaining until all effort became null and void. And why were they just standing there, talking? Didn’t they get that they had to make it into the ship and off it before it took off? How many differences were there between men and women? She’d have to ask Lethya once they found her…

The three-person-and-four-dragon group made their way down the shell of the thruster and through the hatch, then out into the hallway, trailing Lethya through Ander’s Sense and avoiding detection through their collective psymantic senses. Jerik found himself admiring Lethya’s escape plan even more as they entered the cargo hold for animals—everything was perfectly planned out, from hiding during the short trip to staying in a place where she would be relatively comfortable. Plus if she headed to another planet, the chances of her being recognized went down considerably.

Ander’s job became about a hundred times more difficult when they entered the Animal Hold; the auras multiplied, some old, some new, some ones he’d never even sensed before, and over it all were the auras of about sixty different people. Somewhere in that web of auras was Lethya’s thread, one that would lead them too her, but picking it out was the hard part. He scowled, closing his eyes and ignoring the ache beginning to grow in his head, and tried to follow the one strain they’d followed her. Lethya usually sensed of blue fire, stubbornness, and good nature. What he was following had a lingering wisp of the medicines-and-bandages hospital sense, and the bitterness of a whirlpool of negative emotions like self-pity and self-hatred, but it was still Lethya.

There it was, going down that aisle. He took a step forward, then another, and as he went the aura got stronger and more recent, until finally they were in front of an open pen with a figure wrapped in a blanket, huddled up against one wall.

Jerik softly rattled the door, a chinking sound ringing in the air. "Lethya, sweety, wake up. We’re at Grandma’s."

She flinched and mumbled, "I don’t wanna ride the pony." A rumble built under their feet, the floor beginning to shake, and Lethya sat up, the blanket falling around her shoulders. Her wide eyes landed on them. "What—what are you doing here?"

"Getting you off the ship and back into the school," Ander informed her dryly.

She froze, then unconsciously pushed herself back into a corner. "I won’t go. You can’t make me."

"You think running away will help anything?" he demanded. Jerik and Tyra began to edge away, sensing this was a talk best left to the two of them.

"It’ll get me away from here, at least! Everyone thinks I’m a murderer—and I am! Anyone near me is about twice as likely to die!"

"How can you think that when you’re wearing those stupid Psirons? You couldn’t kill a fly!"

"If Jaegar’s chasing me, like he will be now, I don’t have to do anything! Plenty of people nearby will be killed—unless I go where no one else will be, which I’m doing!"

"That’s just an excuse to run away from your problems here! You do this and you’ll do what Jaegar wants you to do—isolate yourself so when he does come for you, you’ll be alone and defenseless! Do you want to die?"

"Maybe I should be dead!"

"Lethya, that’s just stupid."

"Leave me alone!" She buried her face in her blanket-covered knees. "Just go away!"

"No," Ander said flatly. "You’re coming with us and we’re getting off and going back to the ship. Quit trying to play the martyr already. You’re a lot more useful when you’re alive and not pulling the pity party."

"I don’t want your pity!" She was sitting up now, eyes furious and beginning to glisten with tears.

"You do and you know it," he said harshly. "You want someone to tell you that what you did wasn’t that bad, that it’s not your fault, that everyone is wrong and they don’t understand you. Don’t you?"

She was torn. "Why can’t you leave me alone?"

" Lethya, knock it off! We aren’t going to go unless you’re with us, so quit using that to skirt an answer! What do you want, pity? Recognition? Death? What are you trying to do by running away?"

"I can never make up for what I did! Don’t you understand that?"

"And leaving will fix it somehow? Not bloody likely!"

"Have you listened to the news? Everyone says I’m a monster that should be shot! They want me gone! Look at what I did—leaving is the only thing I can do for them anymore!"

"Oh, hey, what about learning to fly without using Psymantics and protecting the city against Jaegar? Ever since you’ve started fighting in battles the casualty rate from V.E.O. has halved, doesn’t that mean anything?"

"Um, guys?" Jerik said nervously.

"Not now." Ander’s eyes never left Lethya’s. "Well? Are you done with the self-pity and ready to come back or are we going to keep this up for another half hour?"

"I think the second option’s the only one," Jerik interjected. "Unless I’m mistaken, we lifted off ten seconds ago."

"What?!" Ander, Tyra, and Lethya all yelped at the same time.

"I’m pretty sure we just lifted off," he repeated uneasily. "We should be going into Compacted Space soon—"

There was a jolt, throwing everyone but Lethya off their feet. The pressure increased a little, and the dragons shook their heads uncomfortably. Compacted Space travel worked by special transmitters emitting energy of an exact frequency that managed to momentarily compress the dead matter and space between one point and another, allowing ships to cross the distances faster. Human senses only registered the energy on a psymantic level, but the dragons apparently were even more sensitive to it.

Lethya wanted to die. It was all ruined; why couldn’t they go away and let her deal with this on her own?

…Maybe because they know that you can’t deal with this on your own, that annoying, sensible voice pointed out. Still, it didn’t change the fact that now all of them were on their way to Saturn, with no way off the ship until they got there.

"Where is this ship headed, Lethya?" Tyra asked, sitting up.

She looked down and said quietly, "Saturn."

"Aw, that one’s still mostly forests," Jerik said unhappily. "I mean, there’s Chronosia and Juristoli, but most of it’s trees, trees, and more trees. If we get jettisoned out in the middle of nowhere I’m never forgiving you."

"What if we’re jettisoned out in the middle of a city with lots of single, attractive young women?" she asked tiredly, with a hint of her old humor.

"I’ll name my first child Lethya."

"Saturn is habitable?" Tyra asked bewilderedly as she shrugged off the UberVespa. It had been strapped to her back in its smaller form.

"As are all the other planets, and they’re a hop, skip, and a compacted jump away," he answered cheerfully. "I’m assuming we’ll sneak onto another ship and hightail it back here once we land?"

"Sounds like a plan to me." Ander was leaning against the wall opposite Lethya, eyes closed and arms folded.

"I’m not going with you," Lethya said, sticking out her chin defiantly.

Tyra wanted to rub her forehead. Lethya refused to see the truth for what it was, and was only sticking to this to do something on her own. Ander was taking it personally, that she was abandoning him, and was less likely to let her go than he was to run around the hold hooting like a monkey. Unless she was mistaken, there was a very long argument in store for them…

"I won’t go and that’s that."

"And I say you will."

"And I’m supposed to listen to what you say?" Lethya sniffed, not knowing how alike she and Ander seemed at that moment, both with their arms crossed and their eyes narrowed. Neither of them was going to back down.

"Where are we now?" Tyra asked wearily. They’d slowed down out of Compacted Speed a few minutes ago, meaning there were approximately fifteen minutes left until the flight was over.

Jerik closed his eyes, green shimmer briefly gathering around him, and he said slowly, "Over a forest…um…There’s the Sundial Mountain range in the distance—gotta be the Forest of Hours, then…What the—"

Something slammed into the side of the Black Butterfly, sending a violent shudder through the entire airship. "What was that, Jerik?" Ander demanded.

"It’s a Muteran—one of Jaegar’s—no, three—a Wyrm, a Chamecreon, and a Komodo," he reported rapidly, eyes still shut. "There’s a hole in the hull…it’s big, real big—oh crap, here they come again—!"

Another shock shook the ship, then another, and another. "This isn’t good," Jerik said, sweat beginning to dampen his paling face. "Really isn’t good."

They tilted forward, first slightly, then sharply, and swearing from Ander, Jerik, Tyra, and even Lethya filled the air. Asa squealed as she slid across the floor, but Lethya caught her.

"We’re going to go down!" Jerik said frantically. "Grab onto something!"

Lethya slammed against the wall with a thud, eyes clenched shut. This wasn’t how she wanted to die, not with her friends around her, not like this—this wasn’t how it was supposed to end!

Something seized her, pulling her close just before there was crushing impact. Everything went black.