Exhausted, Pel and the kids had taken a brief nap in the car. I couldn't blame them. They'd already been through so much.

They'd woken up while I was finishing my conversation with Ileene and her mother.

"Genneth…" Pel said, speaking up from the L85's driver's seat.

"What is it?"

"Who were you talking to, just now?" she asked. "Was it &alon again?"

I shook my head. "No. It was one of my spirits, Ileene, and her mother."

"Are you gonna talk about what happened with &alon now, Dad?" Jules asked.

I lowered my head a tad.

"She responded exactly how I told you she would. She refused to stop." I turned to my wife. "Pel, believe me when I say that I don't take pleasure in saying this, but… I told you so."

Pel ran a hand through her hair. "But why? Why can't she see what she's doing is wrong?"

Some strands of Pel's hair came off her in her hands. She stared at them for a moment before tossing them outside. I could tell she was fighting to keep herself calm. Her arms trembled where she held them atop her thighs.

I shook my head. "Pel… I honestly don't know. &alon is like a homunculus, born from a melting pot. She's got some odds and ends like identity and will, but whoever or whatever made her, they forgot to add a conscience, and maybe even a soul. I'm still not sure if she understands what she's doing. She insists the darkness is out to destroy her when she, herself, is that darkness. It's like shooting someone in the head point-blank and then getting angry at them for dying. It's totally crazy, and I have no interest in figuring it out. I already tried that, and look where it got me. Trust me, I want to tell her to go fudge off for all eternity as much as the next guy, maybe even more than that."

Jules made one of those quiet, desultory moans that kids her age so often did. "What? Why wouldn't you?"

I shook my head and moaned. "There are a couple reasons why, and all of them are upsetting. First, she needs to be stopped. I'm not even sure I can walk away from this, but, even if I could, I couldn't do it in good conscience. And where would I go? No, I owe it to the other victims. I owe it to my own dignity! But that's just part of it."

"What are the other reasons?" Rayph asked.

"I know it's foolish and stupid, but, when I look at her, Rayph, when I look at her, I can't not see a little girl who's in terrible pain. She's miserable, lonely, and afraid. From her perspective, she's only ever tried to help people, and all she gets in return for that is cruelty and hate. Can you imagine how awful that must feel?"

"Dad, you better not be sympathizing with her," Jules said. "She's the fungus. She's the fucking fungus!"

"I do and I don't," I said. Angel, I felt like throwing up. "It doesn't justify what she's done—nothing never could—but that doesn't suddenly mean that her pain is invalid. I've lost family, too, and I'd give anything to have them back. Your brother, my sister, my mother! Though she has to be stopped, if given the choice, I'd rather it happen with her coming to understand the gravity of what she did, and to understand that the reason her own pain means anything is because everyone else's does, too. She doesn't understand what she is, Jules, or where she comes from. She desperately wants to find her family, and she believes that harvesting souls the way she does—by uploading them into wyrms—is the only way she can both protect us from the imaginary 'darkness' that hounds her and hopefully learn about her origins. I wouldn't be surprised if her fears about the 'darkness' come from the tiny, tiny part of her that somehow recognizes the awful truth of what she's done. And with the kind of sins she's committed, who wouldn't want to run from the truth of their own evil, if you could?" I shook my head. "That's part of the reason why I have to stop her. I want to, no… I have to believe that there's some way to stop her and move past all this. I want her out of my life. I don't want to have to think about her while I sift through the wreckage of what's left of my life."

"Gen," Pel said, "why do I get the feeling there's a part you're not telling me?"

My wife knew me so well.

I tried my best to smile. "I was just getting to that."

I looked up at the sky. Aerial battle swarmed in the distance. From far away, they looked almost like murmurations of birds.

Though I wasn't an augur, and—to my knowledge—had yet to absorb the soul of one, I wondered what kinds of divinations an augur might have read from their movements.

Repent for your sins?

Invest in DAISHU?

I looked back down at my family. The greater length of my neck left me constantly feeling like I was peering down from the Hall of Echoes' mezzanine.

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"She told me they have a weapon. A superweapon, one that will destroy her and the wyrms, and what's left of our world."

There was a pregnant silence.

"Well," Jules said, "that would solve a lot of problems, wouldn't it?" casually voicing a rebarbative thought.

Pel coughed. Chastising anger flared in her eyes. "Julette!" Pel glared at our daughter, but her dismay faded as quickly as it came.

Rayph started to cry. "Dad, what would… what would happen to you if—"

"—I doubt I'd survive."

"And… your spirits?" Pel asked.

I shook my head.

"No!" Rayph stood up, arms shaking. "No! We—we just got you back, Daddo!" He shook his head, as if to say "No" to the whole world. "You can't do this!I won't let you! I—"

"Oh, Rayph…" My voice was gossamer and dulcet, gentle, despite its otherness. "I don't want to lose you, either. I don't want to lose any of you."

I reached to embrace them, but instead settled for a psychokinetic hug.

"But…" I added, "…there might be a way."

And then Pel interrupted me with a truly wonderful thought.

"Maybe you can try talking to the aliens," she said. "Maybe—

—Gosh, it made me want to hug her all over again.

"—Mrs. Plotsky suggested the same thing," I said.

"Who?" Pel asked.

"Ileene's mother; one of the spirits I'd been talking to."

"But… what if it doesn't work?" Jules said. She stared off into the distance, watching the waves rock through the dead sea. "Does that mean you—"

"—There's always the Sword," I said. "I might be able to use its power to stop the superweapon, or even &alon herself."

"Why do you sound so uncertain?" Pel asked.

"Other than because I am?" I sighed, spreading spores. "I'm still not entirely sure how the Sword works, or what, if any, limits there are to what it can do. From what Dr. Horosha showed me, at the very least, we can use it to make portals to other worlds. Maybe that's the solution," I mused, "running so far away from &alon that she'll have no hope of catching us. But, even if that works, it will do nothing to stop &alon from getting her hands on Kléothag's power. In the land of totally far-fetched possibilities, there's also the chance I could get the aliens to help us fight back against &alon, though I wouldn't count on it."

"Do you really know where the Sword is?" Jules asked.

I nodded. "Suisei's memories are very clear about that. It's near the Fort Marteneiss aeronautics base," I said, "and, from where we are right now, that's more or less a straight trip down the coast."

"Isn't it dangerous?" Pel asked. "To take us, I mean."

"It's dangerous no matter where you go. No place is safe." I rested one of my hands on top of the car, as if to pat it. I made sure to be gentle, as I didn't want to gouge furrows into the roof.

"I meant what I said, Pel. I'm not leaving you; it's not worth the risk—and I still wouldn't, even if it wasn't."

I turned back to face the city. We were far enough out that it couldn't be seen by human eyes—or, by whatever hybrid of human and wyrm my first pair of eyes currently were—but you could tell something was there, just from all the activity in the skies above it.

I thought back to Letty and Jonan. And Ani…

"You know Letty Kathaldri?" I said.

"That actress from those old movies?" Rayph said. "The one in a…" He squinted adorably as he searched his mind for the word. "…a coma?"

"Yeah."

"What about her?" Pel asked.

"Early on in the pandemic… she woke up."

"What?" My family spoke in unison.

"Yeah. It, uh… it turned out she was a transformee, like me."

Jules' eyes glowed with curiosity. "What was she like?"

"Absolutely dreadful," I said. "She was a bitter rind of a woman, nothing but nihilism and resentment." I bit my lip, only for one of my teeth to break free and fall onto the sand.

I tried my best to maintain my composure, in spite of it.

"I'm certain she's making life really, really miserable for the spirits trapped inside her. One of my colleagues, Dr. Jonan Derric, is trapped within her. I hope some of the others wyrms back at the hospital will be able to rescue him from Letty's clutches. You have to understand, Pel: inside our minds, we're like gods in there. As kookie as it might sound, I'm worried about your souls. I can't think of a more perfect Hell than to be trapped inside the mind of a wyrm who doesn't care about your well-being, and who doesn't respect your inherent dignity." I nodded, lifting my head off the car. "I'm going to have my cake and eat it, too: I'm going to get the Sword of the Angel, and I'm going to bring you along. I've got no other choice. Even if I can somehow manage to stop the superweapon, get the aliens to help save the wyrms and put &alon in the biggest, longest time-out this side of Paradise, I can't let the Sword fall into the wrong hands." I nodded again. "But, enough talk. Let's drive. We've got all eternity to quibble over the details."

I closed the doors with a psychokinetic push and wrapped myself around the car. Then Pel started up the engine, and off we went.

We weren't that far off from Fort Marteneiss. With the Expressway, we'd be there in half an hour, provided everything went well. Unfortunately, it didn't.

It was Jules who first noticed the problem.

It took us about ten minutes to drive back to the Expressway's on-ramp. As we approached, Jules pointed out that the digital ads on the Expressway's barreled ceiling weren't playing anymore.

"If the ads aren't working," she said, "wouldn't that mean the Expressway was kaput, too?"

Pel responded with her usual measured optimism: "Maybe the wiring just gave out. It's possible that the mag-lev still works just fine."

It did not.

The magnetic pull that the on-ramp was supposed to exert onto approaching vehicles never materialized. Even if the Expressway itself still worked, there was no way up to it.

"Wait a minute…"

Defiant, I unraveled myself from the car and floated up to the Expressway. I was still a little shaky when it came to flying, so I failed to take into account the last third or so of my body as I rose, causing that last third or so to smack against the trellis several times. It didn't exactly hurt, but it wasn't a pleasant experience for either me or the trellis, let me tell you.

I craned my neck over the guardrail. When powered, the magnets responsible for the Expressway's magnetic levitation made an unmistakable and very satisfying soft white-noise hum. Even when I opened my ear-eyes all the way, I couldn't detect the slightest trace of vibration or hums.

"Fudge," I muttered.

I lowered my head as I descended. "Jules is—oof!"

I'd ended the levitation spell a second too early, which made me hit the ground like a wet noodle.

I shook my head as I recomposed myself, flicking the dirt off my underbelly with my claws. "As I was saying, Jules was right. The Expressway is dead as a doorknob." I turned toward the non-mag-lev highway. "It looks like we'll be going the long way."

Pel looked at the dashboard. "If that's the case, we need to refuel."

I wound myself around the car again. "The sign said there's a refueling station just two miles down the road."

"Then that's where we'll go."

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