Aurora stepped backward as Samantha fell to her knees in anguish. She watched the light goddess fold in on herself.

  “Milo!!!” Samantha’s voice tore through the street, not cocky now, definitely not divine, but as raw and splintered as she spilled her heart out, his name echoing as she clawed at her own crystal that was lodged inside her wrist. “Milo—!” The name shattered into whimpers.

  And all that while, Aurora was moving stealthy and quick, looping behind the beautiful woman, taking advantage of this rare opportunity of Samantha’s unfocused, uncontained, mourning.

  Her eyes narrowed, because she knew exactly what would follow once the girl got a hold of her senses.

  Cities would burn not from malice but from obsession. Entire districts would be leveled searching for the crystal that would have already been shattered to pieces. Soldiers would kneel or die. No army would stand against her. No council could reason with her. She would not simply be powerful, but mythic, a goddess who believed love entitled her to rewrite the whole world.

  There would be no second chance. So this murder was nothing in the grand scheme of things. No, it was necessary.

  Aurora continued stepping backward until her heel brushed a wall which hid the contraption she had built secretly for the last few weeks.

  Samantha’s shoulders shook as light fractured wildly around her, beams lashing into the sky.

  Aurora didn’t dare smile as she situated into position.

  If she engaged the contraption now, the ground beneath Samantha would explode theatrically. It would not be elegant, but, Aurora’s eyes stayed glued on the girl, it would be final. Her fingers found the hidden switch beneath the stone, and for a moment she simply rested her thumb there, feeling the quiet, familiar calm that used to settle over her before she ended something permanent.

  Behind her, Samantha screamed Milo’s name again, and the sky answered in blinding white.

  Aurora closed her eyes and whispered: “There is no other way.”

  She opened her eyes.

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  “It’s for the greater good,” she breathed, as if saying it softly might make it less monstrous.

  Her thumb pressed down.

  And the mechanism engaged with a low, guttural grind beneath the street as tension shifted through buried gears.

  Before --

  The system screamed.

  Aurora’s eyes darted as a sharp metallic crack snapped through the wall beside Aurora’s hand as something small and fast embedded itself into the seam, shattering and jamming the delicate release before the final drop could complete. The counterweights misfired while the tilt stalled. The lower chamber flooded without synchronization.

  Aurora froze. And turned.

  Her eyes widened.

  The daughter she had not seen in months stood several paces away, like an uninvited ghost crashing a party, breath uneven but posture steady, dust streaking her face and arms as she held a thin steel spike in her hand.

  Aurora’s thumb hovered uselessly over the fractured switch.

  Amy…had ruined everything! No…no! Why?!

  For one fraction of a second more, she could attempt to force it, to trigger the collapse manually and risk destabilizing the entire block in the process.

  But it was too late.

  Samantha’s head snapped sharply at the sound of the misfire, her eyes tracking instinctively to the wall, to the bleeding water where it should not bleed, to the subtle grid pattern beneath cracked stone that only a goddess who bent light would notice.

  Understanding dawned on her face. And the grief and hysteria melted off instantly.

  “You built this,” Samantha said, voice low and almost awed.

  Aurora straightened, her hand dropping slowly from the broken plate.

  “Well, shit,” she answered rather loudly. Why not, she had nothing more to lose.

  Samantha sprang to her feet. The light around her gathered again and Aurora shuddered.

  “You…could have killed me,” the light goddess hissed quietly.

  Aurora met her glare unflinchingly.

  Samantha’s grin widened, crazed, she glanced at Amy. “She saved me! Ohhhhhh, I likeeeeee her.” She looked at Aurora. “But for you? What a shame.”

  And for a brief, crucial, moment, Aurora stared incredulously into Amy’s eyes, as if screaming to ask if Amy knew what she had just done.

  But Amy just answered sternly, “Mom.”

  Aurora noted how Amy looked older in that moment than she had ever seemed, Cerceras’ magic perfectly still by choice rather than fear, and felt the narrowing break apart inside her.

  “You said she can’t be stopped,” Amy said softly. “Maybe you’re right. But you don’t get to become a monster… again… to prove it.”

  Aurora’s eyes widened in horror as the only perfect opportunity Aurora would ever have against a goddess had shattered. Something twisted in her chest.

  And Samantha watched them both, with an incredulous expression, light flaring once in testing arcs that bent the ruined street but did not strike.

  Aurora closed her eyes briefly…

  Before lunging, tackling Amy out of a killing blow.

  “Run,” she rasped, no hope in her face.

  She didn’t know why Amy had chose this. But she did know that actions had consequences: and Sunji had fallen.

  And if they didn’t do anything, the Empress, her court, and perhaps herself and Amy, would soon be dead.