My eyes are flooding again. It’s been too painful to remember. Like that life happened to a whole different person.

“My parents are dead,” I finally choke out. “We crashed and they died.”

“Oh, Viola–” Bradley says, his voice soft.

“And I was found by a boy,” I say, getting stronger. “A brave and brilliant boy who saved me over and over again and now he’s down there trying to stop a war that she started!”

“I did no such thing, my girl,” Mistress Coyle says, not looking fake astonished any more.

“Don’t you dare call me that–”

“We are fighting a tyrant down there, a tyrant who killed hundreds if not thousands, who imprisoned and banded women–”

“You shut up,” I say, low and threatening. “You tried to kill me and you don’t get to say anything more about anything.”

“She what?” I hear Bradley say.

“You had Wilf, kind, sweet, peaceful Wilf marching into town blowing up buildings–”

Mistress Coyle starts. “Viola–”

“I said, shut up!”

And she shuts up.

“Do you know what’s happening down there now?” I say. “Do you know what you were sending the Answer into?”

She just breathes at me, her face a storm.

“The Mayor figured out your trick,” I say. “He would have had a full army waiting for you by the time you reached the centre of town. You would have been annihilated.”

But all she says is, “Don’t underestimate the fighting spirit of the Answer.”

“What’s the Answer?” Bradley asks.

“A terrorist organization,” I say, just to see the look on Mistress Coyle’s face.

It’s worth it.

“You are speaking dangerous words, Viola Eade,” Mistress Coyle says, stepping towards me.

“What are you going to do about it?” I say. “Blow me up again?”

“Whoa, whoa,” Simone says, moving between us. “Whatever’s going on,” she says to Mistress Coyle, “you clearly haven’t told us the whole story.”

Mistress Coyle sighs in frustration. “I haven’t lied to you about what that man did,” she says and turns to me. “Have I, Viola?”

I try to outstare her, but no, he really did do terrible things. “We’ve already beat him, though,” I say. “Todd’s down there right now with the Mayor tied up but he needs our help because–”

“We can sort out our differences later,” Mistress Coyle says over me to Bradley and Simone. “It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. There’s an army down there that needs to be stopped–”

“Two armies,” I say.

Mistress Coyle turns to me, frustrated. “The Answer does not need to be stopped–”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” I say. “There’s an army of Spackle marching down the hill by the waterfall.”

“An army of what?” Simone asks.

But I’m still looking at Mistress Coyle.

Because her mouth has dropped open.

And I can see fear move right across her face.

[TODD]

Here they come–

This part of the hill is all rock and steepness so the Spackle can’t come straight down onto us but they’re surging cross the clearing towards the weakness in the line of men and here they come–

Here they come–

Here they come–

I raise my gun–

I’m surrounded by soldiers, some pushing forward, some pushing back, knocking into Angharrad who keeps calling Boy colt, boy colt! in her Noise–

“It’s okay, girl,” I lie–

Cuz here they are–

Gunfire erupts everywhere, like a flock of birds taking off–

Arrows zing thru the air–

The Spackle fire their sticks–

And before I can even have a thought, a soldier in front of me staggers back with a weird fizzing sound–

Grasping at his throat–

Which ain’t there no more–

And I can’t take my eyes off him as he stumbles to his knees–

And there’s blood just everywhere, all over him, real blood, his blood, so much I can smell the iron tang of it–

And he’s looking up at me–

Catching my eyes and holding ’em–

And his Noise–

My God his Noise–

And I’m suddenly in it, inside what he’s thinking, and there’s pictures of his family, pictures of his wife and his baby son and he’s trying to hold onto ’em but his Noise is breaking into bits and his fear is pouring thru like a bright red light and he’s reaching for his wife, he’s reaching for his little bitty son–

And then a Spackle arrow hits him in the ribcage–

And his Noise stops–

And I’m jerked back onto the battlefield–

Back into hell–

KEEP IT TOGETHER, TODD! the Mayor puts in my head.

But I’m still looking at the dead soldier–

His dead eyes looking back up at me–

“Dammit, Todd!” the Mayor yells at me and–

I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME.

Thudding thru my brain like a dropped brick–

I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME.

In his voice and my own–

Twisted together–

Right in the centre of my head–

“Eff off,” I try to shout–

But my voice is weirdly quiet–

And–

And–

And I look up–

And I feel calmer–

Like the world is clearer and slower–

And a Spackle breaks thru where two soldiers have separated–

And he raises his white stick at me–

And I’m gonna have to do it–

(killer–)

(yer a killer–)

I’m gonna have to shoot him before he shoots me–

And I raise my gun–

Davy’s gun that I took from him–

And I think, Oh, please, as I put my finger on the trigger–

Oh, please, oh, please, oh, please–

And–

Snick–

I look down in shock.

My gun ain’t loaded.

{VIOLA}

“You’re lying,” Mistress Coyle says, but she’s already turning, as if she could see over the trees and into town. She can’t, there’s just the shadows of the forest against the distant glow. The steam from the vents is so loud we can barely hear ourselves talk, much less anything from the town, and if she took off after the ship the second she saw it come in for landing, she wouldn’t have heard the horn at all.

“That’s impossible,” she’s saying. “They agreed, they signed a truce!”

Spackle! Acorn says, behind me.

“What did you say?” Simone asks me.

“No,” Mistress Coyle says. “Oh, no.”

“Would someone please explain what the hell’s going on?” Bradley asks.

“The Spackle are the indigenous species,” I say. “Intelligent and smart–”

“Vicious in battle,” Mistress Coyle interrupts.

“The only one I met was gentle and much more frightened of humans than the humans here seem to be of them-”

“You didn’t fight them in a war,” Mistress Coyle says.

“I also didn’t enslave them.”

“I will not stand here and have this conversation with a child–”

“It’s hardly as if they’re coming for no reason.” I turn back to Bradley and Simone. “They’re attacking because the Mayor committed a genocide of all the Spackle slaves, and if we can maybe just talk to them, tell them we’re not like the Mayor–”

“They’ll kill your precious boy,” Mistress Coyle says. “Won’t even think twice about it.”

My breath immediately stops as panic starts to rise from what she says, but then I try to remember that she’d like it if I panicked. If I was afraid, I’d be easier to control.

But I won’t be, because we’ll stop this. We’ll stop all of this.

That’s what me and Todd do.

“We’ve caught the Mayor,” I say, “and if the Spackle see that–”

“With all due respect,” Mistress Coyle says to Simone. “Viola is a girl with an extremely limited knowledge of the history of this world. If the Spackle are attacking, we’ve got to fight back!”

“Fight back?” Bradley says, frowning. “Who do you think we are?”

“Todd needs our help,” I say. “We can fly down there and stop this before it’s too late–”

“It’s already too late,” Mistress Coyle interrupts. “If you could just take me up in your ship, I could show you–”