When they ran, they didn’t escape like heroes.

  And all the while, Aurora tasted the consequences of her past. She shot an accusing look at her daughter.

  The streets behind them were still screaming. Doors were slammed while glass broke. Someone shouted a name until their voice cracked, then shouted it again like volume could pull a person back from the dead.

  But it can’t.

  Aurora knew it couldn’t.

  Sunji felt the shift in tide as soldiers ran and scrambled.

  Aurora kept running too, not daring to look back. Damn it, all was lost. She shut down her thoughts for fear that she would be reminded of that moment. Of pressing the button — their only way to survival before the interruption. Amy’s interruption. Her daughter’s determined face. Her hand that lowered. Samantha’s surprised reaction.

  Everything was irreversibly late.

  Her throat tasted like metal.

  And all the while, her daughter moved beside her without stumbling.

  Aurora stared incredulously as she didn’t look fazed.

  The girl simply kept on moving.

  There was no breath hitch, no tremor of regret. No acknowledgment that the girl understood the consequences of sparing Samantha, of robbing Aurora of the one moment of victory.

  …Nothing.

  They cut through an alley where the stones were slick with spilled oil and something darker. A lantern lay on its side, burning against the ground. The flame licked at trash, at cloth, at the edge of a doorway someone had tried to barricade with a table.

  Aurora stepped over it and Amy did too.

  Her daughter still didn’t pause or flinch.

  And behind them, from the horrid sounds of screams, they could tell: Samantha had found her rhythm.

  Now there was no place to stay. No place to run.

  They reached the edge of the district where the stone gave way to older brick, where the alleys narrowed and the buildings leaned inward like they were trying to hide their own doorways. Smoke crawled here, thick and low, and Aurora slowed only when the ground beneath her feet shifted into packed dirt, the entrance to a forest.

  This was their only way out, if they could call it that.

  Maybe they should just give up — Samantha would just find them anyways.

  But Aurora only moved because Amy did. Even if only momentarily.

  Her daughter slipped down first, and Aurora followed. The world above them became muffled as she wondered: what now?

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  Her chest tightened until it hurt to inhale. She turned, finally, fully, toward Amy. Amy had stopped too, a few steps away, as if expecting her mother to speak.

  The girl wasn’t staring at the ground. She wasn’t even hunched or trembling from the consequences. Her posture wasn’t a child fearing reprimand. No, she stood straight, hands relaxed now at her sides, shoulders slightly lifted like she was merely bracing against the forest chill. She looked at Sunji like she was watching weather.

  Aurora waited for her to say something.

  To justify it.

  Or at least to offer a reason that made it make sense. A reason Aurora could hold in her hands and decide whether to rationalize or forgive.

  But when Amy didn’t, Aurora’s voice came out rough. “You knew I would find a way to kill her. So you came back? To stop me?”

  Amy blinked once. “Yes.”

  Aurora took a step closer, anger rising as she suddenly felt cornered by reality. “Then why—”

  Her throat closed around the next words.

  Why did you stop me?

  Amy’s gaze slid to Aurora briefly, calm and unreadable, then returned to the burning city.

  She hated the space between them more than she had hated Samantha’s laughter. Her twirling. Her unimaginable strength that could subjugate a continent.

  “You don’t feel it?” Aurora demanded, quieter now. “You don’t hear their screams? You feel…nothing?”

  Amy spoke again, still not looking at her. “We can’t go east because the river crossings will be watched by morning.”

  Aurora blinked. The change in topic was so sharp it almost made her dizzy. “What?”

  Amy turned her head slightly, scanning the dark line of the foothills.

  Aurora stared at her as if she’d become a different person entirely.

  Was this behavior a page her daughter had taken from her own book?

  She was…planning when unexpected? Though, unlike her, Amy was too moral.

  But planning already?

  Planning and moving forward as if Sunji burning behind them wasn’t a catastrophe, but a variable.

  Aurora’s voice dropped. “You’re… thinking about roads. Now??”

  Amy finally looked at her then. Her eyes were exhausted, yes. There were shadows under them. Her face was too thin. But the exhaustion didn’t read as collapse…

  But as a cost already paid.

  And Aurora recognized that face as one she had once worn.

  But…Amy…Amy wasn’t supposed to…She wasn’t supposed to be like…

  “I have to,” Amy said.

  Aurora’s mouth went dry. “Do you even—”

  She didn’t finish.

  Because if she finished, the sentence would become an accusation she couldn’t take back.

  Do you even care?

  And the truth was, Aurora didn’t know what answer she wanted.

  Because if Amy said yes, Aurora would feel relieved… but furious. If Amy said no, Aurora would feel hollow… and terrified.

  Either way, Amy didn’t offer her either, which was worse.

  She simply looked back at the city, with no tears…

  Aurora’s throat tightened until she could barely breathe.

  “Why did you do it?” she whispered.

  Amy didn’t turn.

  “Because if we kill her like that, we teach everyone watching that power wins by burying what it fears.”

  Aurora opened her mouth to argue — and found no clean defense that didn’t sound like Milo.

  Amy’s eyes met Aurora’s as if she already knew Aurora’s past. How Aurora and Milo had forced everyone, subjugated everyone, with rhetoric of ‘peace.’ How they had destroyed the world to ‘save it.’

  Aurora swallowed, taken slightly aback.

  “Come on,” Amy said, cutting through Aurora’s thoughts. “We can’t be seen here.”

  Her mother followed, even as the orange glow painted the sky behind them like an open wound.

  Amy hesitated before adding, “You said she can’t be stopped. And…maybe she can’t. But if the only way to stop her is to become her, then I refuse. Because then the cycle never stops. Then people like Kristo and Thomas, people who want this cycle of violence to end…can never succeed.”

  So Sunji burned.

  And that’s when Aurora realized that all her life, she had believed that the end justifies the means. But Amy…Amy believed that means define the world that survive the ends.

  She watched as her daughter simply turned, walking forward.

  “Amy…where are we going?”

  Amy turned back. “To see Karl. To help guide someone who’s long lost their way.”

  Aurora turned as the leaves rustled. I’m not wrong, she reminded herself. Amy is still a delusioned teenager… She had to be.

  “Julius! How did you…” Amy’s eyes lit up as she breathed.

  His brows furrowed. “I heard everything. If you’re looking for Karl, I’ll lead you.”