Remy watches as Crow pulls on her gloves with a snap. She’s dressed in a thick leather jacket, cargo pants with a million pockets for her little devices, and combat boots. Remy is dressed in faded old fatigues with all identifying patches ripped off and replaced with handmade ones, proclaiming their— Remy, Crow and Pyhra’s— superiority over the king.

Neither of them have been dressed like this since before they formed the village. Something in Remy is howling.

Crow has a bag thrown over her shoulder. It looks unassuming, old white canvas and leather, except for the cord sticking out one side. Remy reaches over and tucks it back inside, smoothing the canvas over.

Her eyes trace the movement, all the way until their arm is back at their side. “He wouldn’t approve.”

“He loved how you look in that jacket, though.”

She smacks him lightly on the arm, smiling. Then, she sobers. “Really, though.”

Remy frowns. “Has that been bothering you?”

“A little.”

Remy chews this over. “Well, he’s not here to approve or disapprove.” She flinches. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’re right.”

They lick their lips nervously. “If he were alive, he wouldn’t like it. But we wouldn’t be doing this if he were alive.”

Crow’s shoulders untense a little. “You’re right.”

“And if it were one of us?” Remy adds, catching her gaze. “He’d have already be driving down there.”

Her lips quirk. “True. The city would already be nothing but ash.”

“Ash and mounds of melted glass, heh.”

“And shards of shattered rock.”

“And the crystal all stained red.”

“And the pavement all torn up.”

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“Then let’s stop wasting time,” Remy jerks his head towards the truck. She rolls her eyes, flicking him affectionately on the ear as she passes.

She tosses the bag in the back, and then swings the door shut. She leans on the truck, arms crossed. “You tell the others?”

“‘Course not, girl.” Remy grins, swinging into the driver’s seat. Crow settles into the passenger side a second later. “Don’t want them following us.”

“Don’t want them talking us out of it, you mean.”

Remy turns the car on, throwing it into gear. “That too.” They really don’t doubt that Lune would insist on coming with, though. Which is why they’re leaving in the dead of night, in Remy’s hummer with fake plates and a cacophony of illegal electrical equipment in the back. Crow has a point, though; Stella’s startling ability to live life normally was starting to get through to Remy, and while they usually enjoy it, right now?

They need this. It’s not really about Pyhra, and they aren’t pretending it is. It’s about this feeling, this grief clawing at Remy’s insides. It’s revenge, plain and simple, and they tighten their grip on the steering wheel in anticipation. Revenge for the three of them, young and scared and alone on the streets, marked for death for crimes they didn’t commit. Marked for death by a king who’d rather kill kids than risk his own skin.

It’s revenge for Pyhra, and the hollowed out way his cheeks looked that day, begging them to leave the hard life behind. It’d been Pyhra’s idea, the village; not just his idea, but his dream. A life of peace, laying down their weapons and resting for the first time in their lives. Remy can’t go back, now. Can’t spend their days living in Pyhra’s dream while Pyhra rots in the ground somewhere.

Remy may be energy, but Pyhra was movement. Change and movement, like dancing, streams of words that can sing in the air. Pyhra always looked beyond, past the horizon, while they and Crow were stuck in the dismal drudgery of the present. Which is maybe why this makes such perfect sense, now that he’s gone: Pyhra looked beyond making the world burn, but now… What else is there to do but burn it in recompense?

It’s revenge for themself, too, if they’re honest with themself. For those sterile hallways they see when they close their eyes. Revenge for the smell of antiseptic mixing with blood. It’s a revenge they’ve been chasing after all their life, fingers reaching for that catharsis and always missing it anyway. They know they won’t find it this time, just like they never found it before. But they’ll still chase it like they might just be able to capture it in the red shadows burned into the back of their eyelids.

It’s revenge for Crow too, and the way she crushes everything she doesn’t understand before it can get too close. The way she covers the cracks in her life with mortar and pretends they aren’t there, because she so desperately believes in Pyhra’s dream.

Remy lets their eyes fall on her, black hair pulled into a long, severe braid. It makes her stony eyes seem bright, in the moonlight. Believed in. Past tense.

She meets their eyes. “Let’s mosey,” she says, as they pull onto the highway. Remy laughs, tipping their face towards the sky. They only get an eyeful of the carpeted car ceiling.