Our charter plane ascends, headed toward Manaus. I’m not in any way amiable.

I haven’t forgotten Molly and Seán were part of the mission costing me my mother and Brody. Just because I blame myself doesn’t mean there isn’t more blame to hand around. The two biggest responsibility bearers are within choking distance. Molly is right next to me, and Seán is directly behind her. Not a wise move on their part to be sitting so annoyingly close. Bold but not wise.

I feel her mirrored guilt, loss, heartache, and acceptance of responsibility. Molly is feeling everything I am. The solidarity gives my conscience a hard slap.

“Can you do the thing for me you did for Brody?” she asks quietly.

“What thing?”

“Breaking him free from the Sentry,” she clarifies.

“Is that what you truly want?”

She nods.

“But Connor…”

“Connor made a choice he’ll have to live with for the rest of his life,” she declares solemnly. “I can’t live for his choices anymore. I’m too tired.”

“What happened, Molly?”

Maybe if she explains, I can come to terms with their orders. Obviously, neither Connor nor Molly is capable of mass murder. They stepped aside, but they watched Phelan slaughter a crowd of unarmed innocents all the same.

“We run a risk every time we have to recharge,” she states coolly.

Tally described recharging as a painful, persistent cycle. Russian roulette with berserk bullets. “Phelan went berserk,” I claim.

Nodding, her eyes shutter.

“Why were you there at all?”

“Shane wanted you returned. The only way to guarantee you’d come peacefully was to take your mother.”

“So, Fire Supreme didn’t want my mom?”

“She was a security blanket.”

“Then why did Connor take her? You changed your mind. You stayed. No offense, but you’re the last person I expected to stick with me. Why did he do that? Why did you?”

Her jaw clenches. I help relieve her tension by projecting calm.

“Our orders were contradictory. The primary one was ensuring your protection. That’s how I skirted the mission to extract you. It’s the same loophole Brody uses…used.” She frowns. “It doesn’t make sense, Sheyla. Connor was your biggest cheerleader after what you did for him. Guess the binds were too tight for him. They’re tight for us all. They’re still there. That’s why you need to cut the ties. I want you to trust me, and I want to trust myself. The only way I’m achieving that is you cutting the ties.”

“Are you prepared to leave Connor behind?”

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“The people in our lives are our gravity. They connect us to this earth, taut with resistance at times, lax at others, and entangled in everything we are or could ever hope to be. We want to keep them all together, but we can’t do that. We aren’t meant to. We can’t force connections not meant to exist. The strain is too much. They snap from the pressure. Sometimes, the people we love, cherish, and want to hold onto forever are the ones we need to let go of.”

“What about your friend?”

She side-eyes Seán. “Please do him first. If I have to listen to him whining for another minute, I’m taking the leash and choking him with it.”

“I heard that,” he chimes in from behind us.

“Good,” she mutters.

Seán was intended to be Brody’s replacement. Unfortunately, his first mission featured a berserker commander, mass slaughter, familial dispute and separation, then finally the death of the Sentry Sumair he replaced in the same cloud of electrical discharge consuming said berserker commander. Connor took off, not giving a second thought to waiting, and like it or lump it, Seán was stuck with the opposing side based on a split-second decision made in the heat of the moment. Seán doesn’t know what Seán wants. He’s confused by it all, authenticated by the hovering electrical fire.

“Seán.” I spin to face him. “Is this what you want?”

“Uh, yeah!” He nods enthusiastically. “To be honest, I’d much rather just go back to doing what I was doing before all this happened.”

“I can do a full reversion if you’d rather that. What were you doing before all this?”

With the beard, shaved head, and tattoos covering nearly every inch of exposed skin, I imagine him in a biker club or heavy metal band, definitely something hardcore.

“I was an accountant.”

Huh. Cool, so he was an accountant. Maybe he was working for a crime syndicate. “An accountant for who?”

“For an animal shelter. I love kitties.”

I turn back around, hiding the expression on my face. Laughing will hurt his feelings.

Molly shakes her head. “He’s serious.”

“Don’t you do any screening?”

Her brow furrows. “Evidently, we need to start.”

I hang my hand over the seat. “Give it up.”

Seán crinkles his nose. “What?”

“Your hand. It firms the connection.”

He smiles. “I like firm things.”

Molly rolls her eyes.

I work through Seán’s Sumair thread until I reach the dividing line splitting his humanity from his Sumair status. “Are you positive you want this? A full reversion?”

“No, I’m not positive.”

“No, he doesn’t want that,” she asserts.

“You can’t decide for him.”

“Trust me on this. He needs me to decide for him.”

“I do,” he agrees. “Better just give the binding a trim for now, and we can revisit reversion when I have my feet on solid ground.”

I confirm with Molly. “This is what you want?”

“Even if it means I’ll have to spend every night holding his hand for the rest of my life so he doesn’t cry himself to sleep.” That sounds perfectly reasonable and, quite frankly, perfectly sweet.

The golden bind tying him to the Sentry is a separate DNA strand wound around his Sumair energy. I snip it, shaking my hand free once it’s done. “All set.”

He wipes at his eyes. “That’s it?”

“What did you expect?”

“Burning. Pain. General fiery things, being that you’re a fire elemental and all,” he rambles.

“Seems we both learned something about stereotypes today.”

“Knucks.”

I tilt my head to the side.

“He wants to fist bump,” Molly enlightens me.

Responding to my fist bump, he makes an explosion sound and opens his fist.

“He’s a work in progress,” she apologizes.

I rather like him. We could certainly use a soft-hearted soul to even out the hardness. Balance is important.

“My turn?” She cracks her knuckles.

My thoughts immediately go to my pocket rocket. I swallow hard. “If you’re ready.”

Seán is pleased as peas to have his ties removed. It’s different for Molly. It’s something she wants but means more than just disassociating herself from the Sentry. It means cutting ties to her brother. Without her there to keep a watchful eye, it’s hard to say what’ll happen to him.

“I need this,” she whispers. “I need this more than he needs me.”

Taking her hand in mine, I search for the golden thread binding her to the Sentry. The plane jumps. It’s only minor turbulence, but it’s symbolic of her journey. I’m offering her a boundless glide far above the Tribunal’s grappling hooks.

She wants to soar.

She needs to soar.

She can’t control what was taken from her, but it doesn’t have to own her. I want Molly to spread her wings and fly free. And, while our futures are on unsteady ground, her heart should stay in the sky, where it’ll be safe and ever watchful. I hope she finds that.