All of them. Every single face we’d fled from inside the stone. They are all surrounding us, in this now pointless alcove. And they have all returned to themselves, as far as I can tell. Ailur, Volu, and Human. They are clearly confused and rattled. Far from comfortable. But they are back, as they were. Who they were. My eyes scan the group, even as I offer Riley my hand to climb back to her feet. It doesn’t make sense. I thought I’d finally figured out exactly what divine magic was and how it worked. But everything Mirage showed me . . . none of it explains this. Based on my understanding, straight from the source, they should be stuck as they were until another sage helped fix them. But every single one is back to their real bodies.

  I look over them again, focusing specifically on the faces I got the best look at before. They still don't feel right. I did see them when they were existing in a fate worse than death, so it makes sense they wouldn’t have the same emotional energy. Confusion and discomfort are pretty easy to tell apart from hopeless horror and agony. At least on most faces. I have certainly met some people who treat them as one and the same. Yet I can’t dismiss the differences as a change in demeanor. I can’t even write them off because their bodies have taken their original shapes back. Something is just . . . off.

  As Riley dusts herself off, I focus on a particular man. A quiet one, sitting and clutching his knees. Whatever it is, it is especially prominent on his face. I recognize him, I am certain of it. It’s his eyes. Green like seawater, and crystal clear. Haunted. The shape of his face. I have seen him, and recently too. But he looks completely wrong. In a way that extends to the entire crowd. Like the wrongness on his face is part of a filter applied to all of them. It’s less obvious on the nonhuman faces, but even they seem wrong. There is something about every single person in here that looks like reality but out of its groove. Like they live in the wrong key. I take a step toward him, a question floating to the front of my mind.

  Riley catches me by my organic arm before I make it too far. “What are you doing?” She hisses. I look back at her with a raised eyebrow.

  “I thought I might have a little chat. I know you’re not exactly a social butterfly, but I’m still allowed to make friends, right?” I retort.

  “Idiot,” she scoffs. “You should be hiding yourself in light mana right now, not introducing yourself! Before these people were caught up in this, they were running. From you. Lillith, the supposed demon queen they just watched murder a sage. How do you think an introduction is likely to go?” I look at her with blank eyes for a moment, then cross my arms.

  “Ah fuck, you’re right. Tunnel vision again, I do that. Well, what should we do? Gonna be hard to help them get out of here without any of them seeing me,” I respond, even as I drop my chain mail and shroud my body with distorting light mana. “There we go. Thank God no one will think this is weird or notable.”

  Riley rolls her eyes, but smirks slightly afterward, which is a new reaction. Calling her dad a skidmark has gone a long way to making us friends, I think. “I’ll talk to them first, I suppose.”

  “They saw you kill a sage too, sport,” I counter.

  “They were already evacuating by then. But all of them saw the fangs and poison. Me? I’m just a famous gladiator. Not the harbinger of the end of all things,” she says. I shrug.

  “Well, alright then,” I agree. “Ask that guy how old he is.” She looks at me, ready to ask why, but just sighs and walks past me, toward the indicated victim of my inquisition. Twenty. Maybe twenty-five tops. That’s how old he looks. But . . .

  She leans down in front of the man. Despite her concern about me, he is clearly startled enough by her. I can’t make out their conversation, at least not without sound mana, which would be a bit obvious and probably unsettle him more. At least if he can see it. I can never tell if someone is a mage in the Republic. She seems to calm him down after a brief exchange. He tilts his head and responds to her question. She starts at the answer, which all but confirms my suspicion. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, however, so I wait for her to return, clearly more baffled than anyone else here.

  She pauses when she reaches me and takes a deep breath. “He’s sixty-five, or so he claims,” And there it is. I scan the room again. Everyone. Every single person. They are all young, and in perfect health, as far as I can tell. Having reality warping magic removed shouldn’t do that. It should just . . . return things to reality. Looking like that guy at sixty-five isn’t even reality for rich people.

  “An overcorrection,” I say out loud. Riley looks at me with a furrowed brow.

  “What?” she asks.

  “Look at them. These people, forced into a hell of someone else's design. It must have been done quickly, too. So . . . “ I start laughing, and several people look in my direction. More than those who’d noticed the light fuckery I am doing to hide my face. Most people are only concerned with the situation at hand, but I suppose a blurry woman laughing in the middle of all this would draw the eye. I look at Riley. “Has anyone ever grabbed you? Tried to pull you somewhere you didn’t want to go?” Her lips draw to an unamused line. She was a slave, literally; this has been her life for years. “Right. And what happens if you fight back? When their grip breaks?”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “We both fall on our ass and they beat me for fighting back,” she replies easily. I wince, but I continue.

  “Right. You fall. You fall in the other direction. That’s the trick, isn’t it? The nature of control. The more effort you put into getting your way, the harder you strongarm, the more force you use . . . the greater the recoil. It’s basic physics, isn’t it? Force doesn’t cease to exist when tension snaps. It just changes direction. Those assholes rushed horrible changes on these people, and all that force, all those demands, they went in the other direction! Look at them, Riley! Not a person in here looks a day older than twenty-five!”

  I laugh louder, drawing more eyes. “Everything. Everything they think they own is going to be a tool for their downfall,” I continue. “Because tension doesn’t only maintain force on one side. Recoil goes both ways. The harder they fight us, the more the world will take the shape they fear most. It’s artwork.”

  “I guess. Won’t help much if they decide to just kill us first,” she says. I don’t care. This is a moment of kindness from the world. Not only did we win this fight, but we also saved everyone, and they are in better health than when they left. Some part of me latches onto that. A better world is always possible. Always worth fighting for. I’ve always believed that. I’ve never been willing to accept better things as unachievable. But I am willing to accept that, fight as I might, that better world will be too slow in coming for me to see it. But this visceral, clear act of defiance by reality itself, refusing to be owned . . . it makes it just a little easier to see that world.

  I observe the crowd. Starting to get their bearings. Comforting those too shocked to move. Some are looking toward the window, trying to come up with a plan to get everyone out. Moving forward. A cold stone inside me starts to ignite. Like coal when its embers are fanned. With each hopeful face I see, my own hope grows with it. My determination sharpens as it’s augmented by a world that will work with me instead of against me. No longer driven by spite, but by a clear path forward. And then I see him.

  It’s only a flash. Blonde hair and a sympathetic grimace as he tries to comfort a younger man. He looks nothing like Henry, really. But my mind . . . it still paints my brother’s face over his. For a breath. Just long enough for me to hope for the impossible. An instant of adrenaline where I could believe it was all a mistake. He’d survived. He’d made it here. But that fades in the blink of an eye as the man’s true face comes into focus. And just like that, the embers are quenched. That radiant hope dies with the reminder that I will only see my brother in illusions. In moments of delusion. He’s gone. And suddenly, the revelation about the sages’ power doesn’t feel so hopeful. Just like that, it’s no more than another tool I can use to fight them. To fight them in spite of it all.

  “You all look like you could use some help,” a woman calls into the crowd. I, and many others, look up toward the window. There we see three people. A woman who looks . . . strangely like me, standing between Autumn and August. I balk a bit. She has the same haircut, almost, if a little longer. She lacks tattoos, but her armor is a one-to-one replica of mine.

  “Huh,” I tilt my head..

  “She looks . . . cool,” Riley adds.

  “Lillith of Endings. Is that you in the, uh . . . blur?” she asks. A dozen shocked faces turn to me, then I sigh and release the light mana.

  “So much for not scaring them. It was a pretty short-term solution anyway, I guess. Wasn’t gonna last after people got themselves put together,” I lament. Gasps ring out around us as I reveal myself in full. This woman is with the twins, I suppose I’ll have to trust their judgment. “Present and accounted for, but I don’t do autographs, I’m afraid.”

  She smirks as a group of men approach from behind her and roll rope ladders down into the uncomfortable pit. “Well. We’ll see about that later. For now, I’d just love it if you and I could have a little conversation.

  “So,” I say, “You are all the leader of the famed ‘cult’ the sages are so afraid of?” I ask. We are sitting at a table in some sort of safe house, having successfully gotten all the bystanders out of the arena. The sages, fortunately, could apparently not afford to stick around for the full week I’m told we spent inside the stone.

  “Well, no. We don’t really have a leader. And we aren’t a cult, of course. But I have been organizing our efforts here,” she responds.

  “And what’s with the get-up?” I ask, raising an eyebrow at her. “I know they say imitation is the highest form of flattery and all that. But this kinda leans creepy, if I’m being honest.” Archer, the woman sitting across from me, laughs.

  “Well, we weren’t sure you were coming out of that stone. And, like it or not, you are a fairly significant symbol to our attempts at revolution. Especially now. Killing a sage and dying, we can use. Killing a sage and living? That we can direct,” she explains.

  I raise an eyebrow. “So you are supposed to be . . . me?” I ask. She shrugs.

  “For a while, anyway,” she confirms.

  “Thanks, I hate it,” I dismiss. “Whatever. So, you’ve introduced yourself and explained the changeling act. What did you really want to talk about?”

  “Well, there is no easy way to say this,” she starts. “But you sort of started a war. We need to figure out how our side wins.”