There were hundreds of people in the Temple of Light’s mossy courtyard. She couldn’t see even a glimmer of the small, star-like lights this moss emitted. There were only feet, attached to legs, attached to frightened people who would not sit still. They were constantly moving, asking questions, tending burns—she winced at her own criticism here, because the burn center they’d set up with the help of two Earth-men, Captain Spectre and one other, held the wreckage of people. Blackened flesh, cracked and oozing. Blisters the size of apples, or bigger. And these were just the survivors, the people who made it. There were whole villages out there, razed to the ground, and she’d been sitting here focusing on her own sorrow.

Idiot.

She pulled herself together and headed for the medical tent first. That’s where Captain Spectre was, with two other soldiers, one female. He greeted her with a grunt and a warm body in his arms—a child with a severe burn on her forearm. “Nice amount of work to send us.”

“Jesus. I didn’t think—”

“You did think, and you did right. I wish the air quality were better, though. I sent word through Earthside to get us more medics and some fire response, but…well, that’s going to take time.”

“How long has it been up top, you think?”

“Kaiser booked it and the old man’s gone, but I can see…the body’s still there. In the bag. Of your friend.” A pause. “I’m sorry for your loss. I didn’t know him long, but Henry seemed like a good person.”

“He was. A very good person,” Hawk said. Sighed. Wiped at her face, though she didn’t know if the damp were sweat or tears. Both, she figured. It was a “both” kind of day. “How about here?”

A deep breath, heavy sigh. “I’d love to say we’re hauling the worst of the wounded to the hole, but the worst we got…I can’t justify moving them, Hawk. One of them is a woman burned on her back—from shoulders to lower thighs. Another one is a kid who dropped, probably cracked a vertibre, and then got bad fire on his legs. I can’t move them. I’m not a medic, our medic doesn’t have the training…”

“We’ll get a doctor down here. And soon. They’re going to see the wounded—”

“Hawk. Their priority is going to be getting Kaiser. Then helping us. Normally it’d be a one, two punch, a matter of minutes—”

“But down here, that could be all day.”

“And most of the next day. So we’re moving the people who can be moved, and hopefully they’ll be able to warn the others.”

“Where’s the General?” Hawk asked.

“Mulligan went topside with the Archon and Henry,” he said, naming the title Mattias no longer claimed. “Figured he’d be heard over Kaiser’s bullshit. But with all the people we’re hurling his way…”

“I never had much hope the arrest was going to stick. Even with him stabbing Henry, and all of us to watch…he’ll buy his way out. I’m not too worried about catching a leach that’s slicker than snot.”

“Right. So right now,” Spectre said, “We’re focusing on keeping as many people alive as we can.” A pause. “I can use you. All hands on deck.”

She nodded, then pointed at the bemused looking Shadow standing in the middle of it all. “I’m handling him.”

“And he is important…how?” Spectre said.

“He might be the Archetype for down here. Right now, he is not pissed off at us. Let’s try real hard to keep it that way” She paused. “I’m going to see what he can do for the wounded.”

***

He said, “I’ve never done much healing. You said there’s something wrong with Mattias. That’s why I’m here. Not to play nursemaid.”

Hawk considered a dozen things she could say, including screaming until she was hoarse—not over this, mind. But once she started screaming she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to stop. And then she remembered one of Alex’s tricks, Just say okay, so that’s what she did. “Alright. The way up is that way, as I’m sure you know. Go ahead.” And she started walking back to the medic’s center, which was getting its own makeshift tent out of Mattias’s precious store of white silk. Six steps, she thought. One. Two. Three.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

She made it to five before a disgusted sound brought the Shadow up behind her. “You are infuriating,” he said.

“You’re the one choosing to follow me. If you’re going to help…how can you help?”

A flicker of helplessness in alien eyes. “Very little. Those abilities have not returned after…” the Shadow trailed off. After the Gods ate him, Hawk filled in the blank.

“Can you tear up bandages? And maybe find some water we can use to soothe the worst of them, the ones who can’t be moved.”

His eyes brightened a bit. “Water. Water, I can do. Bandages…use the goddamn silk. There’s never going to be a white pavilion in this hell we call home, so use the silk. Lay claim to the white.”

Those words stood out starkly. Lay claim to the white. Oh, she liked that idea. She liked it just fine. But that would come later, when they weren’t frantic against a fire. “Water. What do you need?”

“A bowl,” he said, after a long hesitation, “and a clear space. They should be getting some water from the springs here?” He looked hopefully at Hawk, who had no idea.

Captain Spectre, watching, had come close enough to eavesdrop. He interrupted. “We’re pulling from the sources we can find, sir, but we’re not getting nearly enough for everyone.”

The Shadow turned pensive. “I…may be able to fix that.” And he bounced a moment on the balls of his feet. The moss lawn was mostly damp, held together by fibrous structures and an absence of roots. Hawk heard the squish as his weight came down, hard, on the ground below. “Maybe. There’s not as much moisture here as I thought. I’ll need containers. As many of them as you can get. And a clear space. No humans or anything else you don’t want harmed in the circle.”

Hawk realized what he was doing. “You’re going for the free moisture in the air?”

“And in the ground, and in the plants, and anything else in the circle.” He sighed. “If you allow me to pull life, I can make all the water we require.”

Hawk, hesitant, said, “Pull…life?”

“All things must come from somewhere. Energy can make matter, but it takes so much energy to make so much matter.”

“Yeah. E equals MC squared,” Spectre said.

“I can get specifically water, gather widely spread…” He trailed off. “I don’t know the words in the old tongue for it. I can remember only magic, which is not it at all.” A sigh.

“Let’s just agree there’s bits of water in the air, and you can get to them,” Hawk said, neatly avoiding all questions of atomic structure.

“But it won’t be enough. Even if I pull every drop of water from the moss and the trees and the rest of the plant-life, it won’t be enough. But the other alternative is to draw on life, on its energies, the way one would draw on water. It doesn’t take much energy to make much water, but I think it will take all of the energy of a good chunk of this lawn. And I cannot differentiate between kinds of life. A blade of grass and a beating heart both feel the same to me. A reservoir of energy. That’s all anyone and anything truly feels like. I’ve tried to learn the difference,” he said, apologetically, to a stunned looking Captain Spectre. “But that’s never gone too well.”

A cry from the medic tent.

“Could you reknit their wounds?” Hawk said.

“Aye, if I wanted to kill ‘em in the process. I can’t tell, you understand? Not even between stored power and not. It all feels the same. It feels like power.” A deep breath from the alien being wearing her husband’s face. “But if you can give me a place, a boundary free of anything you do not want destroyed…I can trust myself to make water.”

Trust myself, Hawk felt nearly…struck by those words. As if there was a tale behind them he didn’t dare tell. “Okay. I’ll tell the white robes to bring all their pitchers and buckets, and to clear a place for you to work.” Hawk said.

“And you think they would?” His head came up, golden eyes flashing with sudden anger. “They haven’t realized I’m here yet. It’s the only reason why you still have peace.”

“Then they can handle the burns with insufficient water, and a solid chunk of them are going to die of infection. Probably from dirty water, to start.” She held his burning golden gaze. “Your choice.”

He hissed, in a way reminiscent of one of his great cats. “No choice,” he said, in a very un-Alex like tone. “You offer no choice but disaster, girl.”

“I’ve had nothing but disaster since—” and she had to stop, because he wouldn’t understand it, how her life was normal until he ate her mother’s cake pearls. Why that moment was it for her, why it meant the fulcrum for the end of all things, she wasn’t sure. But her last normal memory of Alex, untainted by Kaiser’s works and Naomi’s cruelty, was him with the sugary, chalky cake-candy her mother had shipped. She swallowed these memories down, despite their sour taste and poisoned feel. “I’ve had nothing but disaster since I came here,” she said, settling for safer ground. “These people are hurt and dying and if you can stand by and let it happen…” she shook her head. “You aren’t who I thought you were.”

This brought another hiss through his inhumanly sharp teeth. “You dare,” he breathed.