Thomas pinned the Death Architect’s wrist under his knee so she couldn’t trigger a blast. The small girl had been playing dead, but she had surreptitiously begun to aim her blaster glove at his face.

A bold move. And futile.

It was time to end this. Thomas needed to permanently stop the Death Architect, or else she would tap her control sleeve and launch more death missiles and continue to be a menace to the universe. She was dangerous even without being able to sit up.

I can see your future, the Death Architect thought.

That was true. Thomas had captured a prophet.

And he really didn’t like hurting her. His advantages were completely unfair. He was bigger. Stronger. How many times had bullies stopped his wheelchair or hurt him when he was smaller and weaker?

Prophecy required personal contact.

Thomas sighed and took hold of the Death Architect’s clammy little hand. She giggled in a creepy way at the contact.

Ah.

Here was the future. Thomas grimly plunged into the labyrinth of her mental depths, absorbing, exploring, probing. He would not obliterate her godlike knowledge before owning it for himself. He gained knowledge of—

“Behind you!” Garrett roared.

Thomas sensed the disgraced Commander’s attack thanks to Garrett’s warning. He threw himself to one side, falling into a roll the way Daindlor had trained him. But the disgraced Commander had superhuman agility and speed. Her blade followed him, too fast to evade.

A bolt of lightning intervened.

Lightning rippled and caught her blade, forcing it back. The disgraced Commander whirled. Thomas sensed (!) her white eyes widen, and her shock was reasonable. Lightning was a terrible choice of weapon in a room with a limited air supply.

Garrett whipped his silver staff at her head.

The disgraced Commander dodged with catlike agility. Garrett followed her, hurling lightning, jabbing with his staff. The lightning hit a damaged wall and crawled along fissures, petering out.

The two elders circled each other. Each wore a mantle and armor. Each moved with deadly grace. Although the old man was a stormbringer, he dared not unleash a storm inside this delicate habitat. The disgraced Commander had received a power boost from Vy when she’d teleported here, which had apparently been enough for her to teleport with passengers.

The two of them might be evenly matched in this environment.

Garrett ran up a wall, outpacing the disgraced Commander’s scimitar swipes. He somersaulted off the ceiling while hurling a barrage of lightning as rapidfire as a machine gun. The disgraced Commander was forced back, her skeletal jaw gritted with concentration.

The dueling elders danced around each other, ducking behind workstations and using their powers to hurl glass vials and surgical tools.

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Meanwhile, the fallen Death Architect was sliding icons on her control sleeve. She radiated grim triumph.

Thomas really didn’t like that. She had already triggered doomsday, so what else could she do to throw a wrench in Ariock’s heroic defusing effort? Destroy Earth? Or…

Thomas guessed what she planned even before he dived into her thoughts. “Hold the station together!” he shouted to anyone who could heed his warning.

The room quaked. Damaged walls buckled. Shattered glassware dragged across the metal floor, then flew upward toward a rent in the ceiling.

Thomas felt the suction. He grabbed a table, and it was all he could do to hold on. His dragon armor could protect him in the vacuum of space—he had an hour’s worth of breathable air—but he had to seal his visor first.

Suction lifted the Death Architect off the ground. Gravity was barely a factor anymore.

Thomas craved her secrets. He had questions about the future. Where was Vy right now? Would Vy survive? Was Ariock powerful enough to stop the cataclysmic doomsday barrage by himself? Was the prophecy of the Lone Survivor misleading? Surely Thomas wasn’t going to lose his friends?

With a grunt of frustration for his own curiosity, Thomas propelled himself upward after the Death Architect. He sealed his visor on the way. The outflow of air was powerful enough for him to hear its roar even through his helmet.

!?

The Death Architect stared past Thomas, and he soaked up an echo of what she saw.

Vy!

With wings?

The rents in the ceiling gaped wide, forced open by pressure. Thomas flattened himself against metal so he could take in the scene. Evenjos swirled out of Vy’s body and took on her own goddess shape. The two of them stood side by side on tiptoes, wind tugging their long hair, purple and coppery red.

They needed to link and merge again. Otherwise Vy would run out of breathable air!

Garrett seemed incredulous, but there wasn’t enough air for him to shout.

And in his moment of distracted shock, a curved blade whipped through his gorget.

The disgraced Commander resembled a skeleton put together at wrong angles. She had teleported in order to cheat in her battle against Garrett. Now she came to a floating halt, her ionic blade red with blood.

Garrett’s head parted from his neck.

It tipped and floated toward Thomas, its motions dreamlike. His white hair trailed behind. Without gravity, his blood did not spurt. It bubbled. It formed spheres.

Take care, Garrett’s decapitated head thought as it tumbled through Thomas’s range of telepathy. The galaxy is in your hands.

Thomas’s throat ached with inexplicable guilt.

And everything broke. Time. Space. The ground slid away. The walls came undone.

Evenjos had quit holding the asteroid station together. Instead, she seized Garrett’s head and curled in a fetal position around it, weeping soundlessly in the void.

Thomas grabbed for Vy as the evaporating air carried her away, her eyes wide with terror. She was unprotected.

He wasn’t fast enough.

“Save Vy!” Thomas called. But he might as well be mute inside his helmet. Evenjos must sense his desperation, but she wasn’t interested in saving anyone right now. This was not the proud empress. This was the version of the goddess who had visited him in the dungeon pit. This was Sorrow, not Glory.

Everything in the room was just a loosening cloud of matter.

Useless debris floated past Thomas. Wires. Electronics. Bones.

The Death Architect readied her blaster glove and aimed it at Thomas, but frost was forming on her mouth and nose. Her eyes glazed to an unseeing glacial blue color. Her motions slowed and froze.

The disgraced Commander jetted away. She’d had the foresight to seal her visor. It seemed she was more interested in escape than continuing her killing spree—and she might still be powerful enough to teleport. It was unwise to let her go.

But Thomas had more important things to worry about. He searched for Vy, but couldn’t see her anywhere.

All was dark and dead.

Thomas used his wildfire power to create heat and manipulate vapor. He formed a heat jet with which to propel himself. But by the time he got close to the Death Architect, she no longer had any thoughts or visions of the future.

She was as inert as the blood-ice that her body had become.

Thomas shoved her lifeless corpse away. It floated with other detritus.

He was alone. In space.