Ashtoreth stared at the system text, for a moment uncomprehending.

Then, comprehending, she swore.

"Heaven above!" she wailed. "The cores!"

She brought up a list of her current cores to see that her suspicion was correct: while the bastion had only seconds left before its spatial fabric would implode, that was an eternity when outside normal time. A few seconds had made the difference of more than a hundred levels.

It seemed to Ashtoreth that she was the last person who the System should be cheating. She was always so polite to it. Obviously just saying please and thank you didn't entitle her to special treatment, but it could have held the clock just a little.

She took a few deep breaths, then took in her surroundings. She stood under the arched ceiling of the main lobby of a hotel that looked like it had been built, decorated, and furnished in the 1920s. Sitting on the check in desk nearby, an old-fashioned radio played a jaunty, jazzy tune.

Ashtoreth beamed as she looked around at the hotel. "Retro!" she said, putting a hand on one hip. "Okay, this does a little to make up for the worst timing of all time," She glamoured herself a flapper dress and a beaded headband, then grew more conscious of the fact that nobody was around to look at her new outfit. "Where is everybody?"

A further system message had appeared.

{The election will take place as a series of one on one fights to the death until only one competitor remains.}

{You may opt out of the election. If you do, you will be able to spectate the election along with anyone else who was selected.}

{You have 29:31 to make your decision.}

She read this all and sighed, closing her eyes momentarily. If the nations of the world had used their cores to raise up human soldiers to take the Monarchy, she was almost certainly going to have to kill them.

That would complicate things with the other governments, and with Frost.

On the upside, she wondered if perhaps War and Famine would be unlucky enough to have to fight each other, making it so that Ashtoreth only had to take her chances against one of them.

But somehow, she knew it wouldn't be the case. The timing of the election's start was too obviously suspicious, and Ashtoreth had no problem believing that Heaven had somehow manipulated the System into cutting her off from what would have been a distinct advantage.

Suddenly a familiar black shape drifted down from a nearby balcony.

"Hey, Dazel."

"Hey, boss," he said. "Dunno why the System split us up. I think the room I spawned in was for telephones. Bunch of wires."

She smiled. "Old telephones? I kind of want to see."

"Why?" he asked. "Telephones are clever, but they're completely obsolete now."

"But it's like a museum," Ashtoreth said. "I mean, I don't know—I've never been to a museum, not really." She stretched her arms out to the grand room around them. "But isn't this great!"

"Why?" he asked.

"It evokes a simpler, more elegant time," Ashtoreth said. She hesitated, trying to recall everything she knew about the 1920s. "One where Al Capone was killing people and stuff."

"And stuff, eh?" Dazel said. "What kind of stuff?"

She shrugged. "Lots of stuff. Alcohol had the added pleasure of being an illicit sin."

"Well, you at least remembered the Prohibition," said Dazel. "Anything else?"

"When did this become a test?" Ashtoreth asked. "It's old-timey stuff, Dazel—I don't need to get specific. Women dressed just like me, people danced the Charleston, and everyone had the same cigarette holder as Cruella DeVille. Now do you think a martini glass will complete my look, or is it too much?"

She wove a hand through the air to create the glamour, then waggled the glass at him.

"It's too much."

"I think I'm keeping it," she said, admiring the glass in the light of one of the hotel's electric lamps.

"Of course you are," said Dazel.

"Anyway," she said. "Since you know so much: what do you like about humanity's good old days?"

"Like?" he asked. "I don't know, there's not much to like. A lot of labor disputes in the 20s, a lot of disparity growing between the haves and the have-nots."

"That's what you remember about the 20s?" Ashtoreth asked incredulously. "She shook her head, then crossed her arms. "Invalid."

"What?"

"Invalid. Pick something else."

"I'm not picking something else," he said.

"Dazel, you can't pick 'class divide,' because that's just everywhere, all the time. You want to tell me that the weak bear the brunt of the burdens and are discontent about it? Wow. I mean, that truly describes a society of all time."

"Okay, that's actually fair," said Dazel. "But I'm telling you, it was special in the 20s. Labor ended up taking a real hit by the time the decade was done. But it was more than just that—class consciousness was entering the culture. You don't get a book like The Great Gatsby every decade, you know."

"That's the one with the eye doctor who's secretly God, right?"

Dazel said nothing for a moments, but his breathing became more audible as he took several deep breaths. "No, Ashtoreth," he said. "No. That is… not how that book goes."

"Say, did you know that Zelda is named after Zelda?"

Again, Dazel waited a moment before speaking. "Do you maybe want to try that again?" he asked at last.

"Zelda Fitzgerald," Ashtoreth said, laughing. "The writer's wife."

"I know who Zelda Fitzgerald is," said Dazel. "To the point where just describing her as his wife feels a little diminishing. But who's the other Zelda?"

"Really? There's only two Zeldas, Dazel."

"Maybe for a whippersnapper like you," said Dazel. "But there was a witch named Zelda on TV at one point."

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Ashtoreth shrugged.

"It was before your time, though," said Dazel. "Shame about that. One of the characters, Salem, was a talking black cat."

"Ooh," said Ashtoreth. "Sounds interesting."

"Yeah," said Dazel. "Not something you see in much fiction. I think he's the only one."

Ashtoreth laughed, then moved into the most open part of the lobby and began slowly dancing to the gentle jazz that came from the radio. "You might be right about the glass," she said, raising it to give it a look. "I'm thinking I should trade it for a cigarette."

"Great," said Dazel. "But you know what? You don't need to consult me on accessories. Anyway, boss—should you really be getting distracted right now? This is sort of the big day, and unless I'm mistaken the cores…."

"—Lost 'em," said Ashtoreth, swaying in place and moving her arms and wings. "I have a few from the attack, but we got nabbed before the bastion exploded."

"Okay. So that's… obviously not good, but you're good at pulling a win out of a losing situation, right?"

"Yep!" Ashtoreth said. "But I don't want to think about that right now. It looks like we've got a half hour alone—come dance!"

"No?"

"Come on!" she said, grinning at him. "Party like it's the 20s with me! You can invent dancing for flying cats—every move you do could be a brand new creation!"

"Look, boss, I don't mean to needle you here. You've got a lot on your plate."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "But?"

Dazel sighed. "How can you care about any of this? You don't… know anything about olden human times."

"Hey!"

"What? There's more history in one of Earth's fingernails than I could have learned in my lifetime. I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just… I don't get it."

"It's a feeling," she said, shrugging as she looked up at the blocky, Art Deco chandelier hanging above them. "Just a feeling. A sort of invented nostalgia that fills the blanks of what the past should be in order to construct just the right kind of longing for it in the here and now."

"But the feeling," he said. "It's… artificial. You said it yourself: it's invented, a construct."

"Look," she said, raising her hand and pointing at a random piece of wall.

"Huh?"

She wove a claw through the air around her back, weaving a new glamour. "See this?" she said.

Dazel turned mid-air, then yowled with fear as a winged shark suddenly roared and lunged through the air before him, beating his wings to pull himself away, then sprint across the floor to hide under the central desk.

"Why'd you flinch?" Ashtoreth said, reaching out to pet her flying, winged shark.

"Not cool, boss."

"The shark was artificial," she said. "But the feeling was genuine. And even if I made it try to eat you up again, you'd still be scared even though you know the shark's not real." She patted the shark again, then whispered, "Get him!"

"Hey!" Dazel said as the shark lunged toward the desk, then burst into a thousand blue-white fragments.

Ashtoreth spun, letting her skirt twirl in the air around her as she raised her hands to the arched ceiling. "Who cares if it's just a feeling, Dazel?" she asked. "Think of all the people who could walk into a party at a back-alley speakeasy and know it by its smell, who could understand all the conversations going on, who would know whether or not to feel good or bad when they get the news in their paper…."

Dazel had come out from under the desk, then landed atop it to eye her with what she took to be a curious expression.

"They're gone!" Ashtoreth said. "Dead, dead, dead!" She gestured to the hotel around them. "What can any of this be here for, anymore, except our fantasy? Every era, every culture, every everything is just going to become something like a picturebook story for the people who are leftover, and only if they care to remember anything about it at all."

She let her martini glass fall to the ground, where it shattered silently before its fragments vanished. Then she snapped both her fingers in unison and began to dance more.

"I think you're supposed to do something with your knees," she said. "Knees go very high, I think. Does this look good?"

"Oh, Ashtoreth…."

"Hey! Don't you shake your head with regret."

"I didn't shake my head."

"It was in your tone." She shrugged. "Anyway, why care about getting it right? It's a vibe. Embrace memory as an act of invention and enjoy it."

"Sure. All right." He rose into the air and drifted closer toward her. "It's just, I…."

"You what?" she asked. "What's up?"

"Maybe I should have tried to teach you some things," Dazel said, his tone still uncomfortably forlorn. "History matters, Ashtoreth. People leave the next generation with a record of the time that was theirs and theirs alone for a reason. They do it so that things can be done better. And a leader, a ruler, should know her history."

"I know some," she said.

"Rewriting the past into a story that serves your need for fantasy in the present… that's not harmless. That can lead people astray."

"More politics?" she asked him. She spun in place and held her arms out. "Dazel, look at us. If everyone who wanted to come up with political theories just danced instead, everything would be much, much nicer. Come here."

Dazel simply stared at her for a moment. "Ashtoreth, I think you're acting strange."

"What else is new?"

"Ashtoreth."

"What?" she said, finally frustrated. "We're not in any danger because I've still got half an hour to choose whether to opt out, and the System wouldn't let us kill each other in a fake hotel before we even have a chance to opt out."

"You're not worried?" he asked.

She felt an edge of panick enter in her voice. "Okay, so things haven't gone well," she said unsteadily. "So can't I just… dance? I don't want to think about the things I can't control." She smiled up at the ceiling. "Let me dream about what this fake hotel was like in its fictional heydey, with people everywhere, talking and dancing and caring about things I don't understand."

Dazel sighed, then floated toward her. "Come here."

She scooped him up and held him to her chest. "You feel so nice," she said, rubbing her cheek against the top of his head.

Then she floated over to the desk to lean against it, looking up at the ceiling. "I think you might have been right, earlier," she said at last. "I only ever loved an invented humanity, the fake kind that I made up… a fantasy that helped me live through… well, my whole life. And I was fine with that before, but now…."

"What's up, boss?"

"I'm probably going to have to kill some of the humans," she said. "What if—" she cut off and swallowed as her voice became very tiny, then tried again. "What if doing what I have to in order to secure the Earth means that the humans will never forgive me?" she asked.

"I know you're not fond of my politics," said Dazel. "But a cursory knowledge of human history really would set your mind at ease, here. Two innocent people? You can firebomb cities full of civilians and still go down in history a hero."

"Yeah, I guess…" Ashtoreth said, beginning to smile.

"And sure, you're an archfiend. But did you know there's a Temple of Satan? Even when all their mythology said that the devil was bad, some humans had to invent a good one to worship just to be contrarians."

She smiled and gave him a gentle squeeze. "You know, Dazel? You've been great at cheering me up lately. I think you might be turning into a really swell guy!"

"Or I'm an extremely selfish person with a vested interest in your success, and you're very easy to cheer up."

"They can all be true," she said. Then she stretched her wings. "My headcanon is that you're a softie."

"Whatever," said Dazel. "As long as you're good to fight."

"Hmm."

"...You're good to fight, right?"

"I can fight," she said.

"Great," Dazel said. "And, uh, I don't want to pry, boss, but…."

"Ask."

"How are you feeling about facing down the Horsemen?"

She frowned, running her tongue over one of her fangs. "I don't know," she said at last. She raised a hand, looking at the back of her palm and trying to detect even the faintest hint of a tremble. "I think I'm terrified, but it's… different."

"Different?"

"Worrying that I'll let people down… it's a completely different kind of fear than just the terror of punishment. In some ways, it's worse. But I'm glad I got to feel this way in any case."

She smiled wistfully at the back of her hand, then shook her head to clear it. "It doesn't matter," she said. "Either I'll win or I won't. Either the humans will love me, or love me not. We'll find out soon enough."

She shrugged, pushing herself away from the desk. "Let's dance."

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