Ever since the villa, she'd driven on relentlessly trying to make things right for these people, blundering ever onward trying to help them somehow find their way to the promises she'd made and the hopes they held. She felt constantly overwhelmed but kept pushing on anyway because she had to for them. And to prove to herself she wasn't still the irresponsible screw up who'd wrecked and wasted her life on Earth. Now, it was as though their anger snuffed that fire that had fueled her for so long to leave her empty, exhausted, numb.

"And worst of all," the agitator shouted over the crowd. "Worst of all, she brings those who first bore the Plague, whose uncleanliness and unholiness she allowed to fester and spread among us. Who here hasn't lost someone to their second Kiss? Or two. Or everyone?" He wheeled on the Wretches and thrust the hand that had been tucked into his shirt at them. A hand scarred, mangled, and split almost to the wrist between the pointer and middle fingers.

Ryk's warnings flooded into her: Cleft Hand. The one he'd told her to kill. A memory flashed further back, to the battle in the villa when Ryk faced off against a dozen ruffians. Cleft Hand had been there too with a silver knife. The one who started the ruckus, but crawled away after Ryk's spear took a chunk out of his hand. He'd followed her here after that and this was his revenge for his hand?

"One dead Wretch is not enough. Never enough," he spat. The crowd grabbed rocks, broke branches, and beat their fists into their palms, their burning gazes slid from Aida towards the Wretches.

"Dynast!" Alerestro said, shaking her. She knew she should do something, but she felt vacant. Disconnected. Like she was barely here. Watching from a kilometer away.

"Pah!" He stepped away in disgust. Somewhere, he found a broad, confident smile. His arms raised high and wide as we walked between the advancing mob and their new targets. "Good people, I-"

His voice cut off as a thrown rock caromed off his forehead. Staggering back, he clutched at his head. A bloody hand came away from his forehead and he swayed towards Aida, holding his a red hand towards her as he looked for her with unfocused eyes. "Aida, I..."

When he collapsed, the crowd rushed. Rather than running and abandoning their dead leader, the Wretches turned and prostrated themselves before the furious crowd roaring towards them. Throwing themselves completely at their mercy.

Between Alerestro going down and a vivid picture the Wretches' imminent gruesome demise flashing through her mind, something snapped inside her. With half-a-thought, the sound in her strings rapidly grew stronger.

"No!" she shouted, her voice a whip-crack shearing through the air with the force of the resonance she'd never let die away. The force of the word plowed a furrow fifty meters long between the mob and the Wretches, then off into the Tangle a ways besides.

"No," she said again softly, walking to Alerestro's side. He waved her on disjointedly as Ghillie knelt to examining the wound. Ghillie signed a quick he's okay and so Aida continued past him. She walked before the Wretches, standing on one side of the trench she'd just blasted to face down Cleft Hand and her angry, but stunned people.

For the first time in as long as she could remember, she felt completely calm and certain. Something had shifted and, for the first time, she knew exactly what to say and do.

"Cleft Hand, here, is right," she said, her admission seeming to shock those facing her as much as her shout had. "The only reason I'm in charge here is because someone in the Black Court - and I still don't even know who - decided I should be. I didn't even choose it, just had to pick between certain death as a dying old lady and uncertain life as a Dynast. I don't have any qualifications to rule. No special skills or training or anything. Heck, most of my life I never even had a career, just bounced around the USA and then the world doing odd jobs, slumming it in Third World countries with my last husband, and then scraping together a minimal living from what I could get from Social Security and his pension until I went into the nursing home."

She realized as she spoke that these people didn't understand half of what she was saying, but the words were for her as much as for them so she didn't really care. Looking into Cleft Hand's hostile eyes as she spoke, she continued. "I don't know what all I did to you, but it doesn't matter. If someone drops truth, it's true no matter who they are. He's right: I'm not fit to rule."

This brought a mix of angry shouts of agreement and anguished cries of those who still believed in her for some reason and had just been caught up in the emotions of the mob. Cleft Hand stared at her silently and smoldered.

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She looked him in the eyes and accepted his hatred calmly as she continued. "I said it before to Ryk without realizing how true it was: I'm a better destroyer than a creator. My whole life I lived bucking trends and defying whatever was popular, ducking out on the roles family, friends, and society tried to slot me into. Whatever was expected me, I did the opposite. I knocked things down just for having the gall to stand, tore things apart just to see if they were strong enough to hold up. I tested everyone and everything around me, mocked, criticized, challenged. Everyone I didn't drive away I abandoned before they could."

"Who will lead us if you leave?" someone shouted with others echoing the cry.

Simultaneously relieved beyond measure and guilty as hell that she was abandoning these people too, just like she'd done everyone else in her life, she shrugged. "Choose your own leaders, as Cleft Hand here said. Invite the Mune people who just showed up to take over. They seem to know what they're doing. Hell, put Eth in charge. She's an Imminent and who better to lead you than someone who already knows what challenges we'll face. You'll face."

Everything broke down for a while. Some people crossed her ditch to plead her to stay while others argued about who might lead while yet others ran off to tell everyone in the Shanties what had just transpired. The Wretches quietly set to retrieving a precious bronze axe and began chopping down the tree-stake impaling the Professor so they could remove his body.

It all washed over her like she was a solid rock swirled by a roiling ocean. Her mind felt clearer than it had in months. Maybe since she'd left the nuring home. Maybe ever.

After trying futilely a few times to silence the clamor, she hummed her strings to life, thrumming the sound in gradually-crescendoing waves of white noise that eventually silenced everyone. When they all quieted and looked at her again, she smiled.

"I am a breaker, not a maker. I tear things down not build them up. That's my nature, the one I've been fighting it all my time here. There's plenty of others to fight out there in The Book, I'm done fighting myself."

"Where will you go?" someone shouted.

"What will you do?" cried another.

"Take us with you," another pleaded.

Aida raised her hands again. "Any who wish to come may come. Any who wish to stay, may stay. I'm not in charge of anyone but me now. You all do whatever you think is best for you. I won't force you to do anything."

She looked to Cleft Hand again and extended a hand. "I offer my apologies for whatever I might have done. Or what people close to me did. If you can't find it in your heart to forgive me and want a place for your anger, come with me. We'll find plenty of places to vent it on people who really deserve it. Maybe help some people who don't deserve the punishment they're taking in the process."

After staring at her hand for a moment, he slapped it away and stormed off. A few thuggish-looking individuals scattered amid the crowd jostled their way out and peeled off to follow him.

A young woman walked up to her, fear written across her face as she swayed a toddler swathed in dirty rags. "You're abandoning us? After all we went through to come here?"

"No, no, dear," she said, wrapping the surprised mother in a hug. "This is still my home. I'll be back if Eth is right and I don't manage to get myself killed. You're still welcome here. You, your kiddo, anyone and everyone. It still can be a refuge and fresh start for those needing such, just not with stumbling around trying to make things work. I promise to do everything in my power to protect it from those who would break it and support those who would build it. I'm just not your woman. Never was."

"There'll be chaos if you leave now," an older man called, pointing his walking stick towards the Thorn. "I was in Swirl when they rose up and burned the Dynast alive on his pleasure barge. Thought we'd have peace after, but we got looting, burning, rape, and murder instead. No one in charge is even worse than a Dynast in charge."

He caught some grumbles, outcries, and dark looks for the last statement, but he stuck his chin out. "It's true. Saw it with my own eyes. Barely lived to tell of it."

Despite really not wanting to agree with him, Aida saw his point. She'd seen marches turn to riots back on Earth, saw the mobs go on rampages in Jadeye, heard of law breaking down after hurricanes and earthquakes back on Earth. Lost in thought, she skimmed the mob, spotting Aliasara arriving at the back of it. A solution to her dilemma sprung from thought to lips in an instant, before she had time to think how her friend would take it.

"Aliasara there, she's the one."

Aliasara froze, eyes wide as everyone looked her way. "She's wise, kind, smart, and a better human than I'll ever be. Until you all decide who you want in charge long-term, she's your woman. As my last act as Dynast of the One-Eighth, I appoint her Verser Queen and ruler until she and you convince someone else to take the job."

While her friend stood in shocked stillness like a deer in headlights, Aida moved through the crowd to stand before her. Aida hugged her tightly and whispered, "you've got this, girl."

Before Alisara could argue or Aida could feel any more doubt or remorse about her decision, she strode off, Alerestro and Ghillie flanking her.

"Where will you go and what will you do now?" Alerestro said, his tone and demeanor as nonchalant as if she'd just declared soccer the new versal sport.

"I've got a few places in mind, but wherever I pick I'm off to do the same thing." She grinned and slapped him on the back. "If I'm a personified wrecking ball, fine, let's go wreck some things that need wrecking. I'm not a Dynast anymore, you still coming?"

He grinned and slapped her on the back. "Wouldn't miss it for anything."