Janice reached for Ibby. I hesitated. “Let me have her,” she said quietly. “She’ll be all right for a while now. She’ll sleep. I can do her some good.”

I sensed nothing from the woman but a sad pity, and I finally allowed her to take Ibby from my arms. The absence of her warm weight hurt in ways I couldn’t define, and I had to fight the urge to cry out.

Luis put his hand on my shoulder, feeling what I felt, and looked at Marion. “What the hell happened to her?”

She exchanged another look with Janice as the older woman put Ibby in bed and drew the covers up around her chin. “We’d better talk,” Marion said. “This way.”

She led us back through the rooms and hallways, moving slowly this time, stopping to flash reassuring smiles at anxious children and Wardens. “Everything’s fine,” she said, again and again.

I knew she was lying, but there was no point in challenging her here, in front of those she was protecting.

She dropped the reassurance as soon as the doors were shut and we were locked into the conference room once again. Luis didn’t hesitate. “What the hell just happened?” he demanded again, and, instead of sitting as she indicated, loomed over her to force her to look straight up. “What did you do to her?”

She did, without a trace of discomfort. “You may have noticed,” she said, “that these days, most people are taller than I am. Please sit. I know you’re upset, but that won’t help the situation.”

He was angry, but he wasn’t insensitive (although I was tempted to be); he pulled out a chair from the table and sat down across from her, straddling it backward and crossing his arms over the top. I followed his lead, sitting a little farther away, just in case I needed for any reason to serve as backup.

Not that it would come to a fight, I hoped.

“Now,” Luis said. “What did you do to Ibby?”

Marion sighed. “Nothing, I’m afraid. Your niece, like all the children in this facility, has had the channels that carry power forced open—nerves that weren’t developed and mature enough to carry the kind of signals that Warden powers generate. It’s very rare for a young potential Warden to manifest anything before the age of puberty, because that level of development is all-important. These children—” She paused and shook her head. “I don’t like putting it this way, but it was a kind of clinical, cold rape, and it has consequences. What we will do here is try to repair the damage that’s been done, because the nerves themselves are still immature and raw, and the power they’re channeling is far too great. We have to contain it while the damage is healing. In your niece’s case, we’ll put in limiters to control her power flows. She won’t be of any immediate use to anyone, not until she’s healed enough to handle things on her own.”

Luis was silent—shaken, I could feel that. He’d just been told, very bluntly, what he already knew, but in a way that brought it home to him in visceral terms. He didn’t know what to say, except, “That doesn’t answer my question. What just happened to her now?”

“What you just saw is the first signs that her body’s defenses are fighting against what’s been done to her. Once that cycle of feedback begins, it’s very dangerous, both to Ibby and to everyone around her, because in a very real sense, she is fighting herself.” Marion hesitated, then said, “It will get worse, I’m afraid. Much worse.”

Luis swallowed. “How much worse?”

Marion regarded us both steadily and sadly. “These children are like road flares,” she said. “They burn very hot, and very fast, and with very little control. Once their bodies begin acting against them, they burn themselves out quickly. I’m sorry, but the more your niece used her power, the more she damaged her ability to regulate it. ... Think of it as developing a potentially fatal allergy. At the rate she’s going, even if she avoids the obvious mistakes, she’ll still be dead before she reaches puberty. Her body simply can’t sustain the level of power being channeled through it, and with the body’s instinct to fight the damage, it’ll be further and irrevocably destroyed. It will cannibalize itself to keep going, but at a certain point, it won’t be able to survive.”

I felt—hollow. Numbed inside, but distantly aware that I had been injured, possibly dangerously so. Ibby was dying. Slowly, to be sure, but Pearl, my own sister, had twisted her, warped her, and was even now remotely killing the child in slow, cruel stages.

“No,” I said. “No, that can’t be true.”

“You saw what happened just now,” Marion said, not unkindly. “The fact is, this kind of thing will happen more and more frequently—waves of agony racing through her body, unbearable feedback from a system that isn’t capable of channeling it efficiently, shredding her nervous system. The fits will come more frequently the more often she is allowed, or asked, to use her powers, until she simply stays in that state.” Marion looked weary now, and a little sick. “That’s why I asked you to bring her here. It’s the only hope she has. Unfortunately, it does appear that we might have left it too late to allow for any kind of true recovery.”

Luis took my hand. The warm feeling of his flesh on mine steadied me a little, until I looked at his face and saw the same pallid dread there. “Can you save her?” he asked Marion.

She didn’t blink. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s going to take some time before I can even accurately assess the damage already done. I’m only giving you my preliminary impression. If Ibby fights me, it’ll be worse, and she’ll fail much faster. If she works with me, then I think I can prolong her life. I wish I could offer you more hope, but I have to tell you the truth. That’s why it’s important that she stay here, Luis. Without intervention, we stand a very good chance of losing her within the year. Not only that, but there’s a risk she will take many, many other innocents with her.” She paused, and then delivered the worst of it. “Even in the best-case scenario, it’s unlikely she’ll live to see adulthood. I’m sorry.”

I felt the surge of fury and horror from Luis, and he shoved his chair back and rose to stride away, staring out one of the windows with blind intensity. He was on the trembling verge of violence, or of tears; it could go either way. Neither would be useful, not here.

I didn’t even need to look at Luis to know we were in agreement. I said softly, on behalf of both of us, “What can you do for her?”

“There are treatments,” she said. “Janice and I will administer them, as we do with all the children here who are displaying that kind of reaction. It’ll take time, and I can’t promise you it will be painless for her, but we can buy her time. That’s the best I can offer. Time.” She let that fall into silence, then said, “I could use your help. Trained Earth Wardens are precious here.”

Luis and I answered at the same time.

“Yes, absolutely,” he said.

And I said, just as decisively, “No.”

We looked at each other. There was shock and disbelief in his face and, I was certain, in mine as well. “We can’t just abandon her, Cass! What the hell?”

“We can’t save her by staying here,” I said. “It may be too late to save her at all. But what we can do, what we must do, is stop Pearl before any other children are mutilated and destroyed. Staying here may help your guilt, but it’s not productive.”

That turned Luis’s eyes ice-cold. “Not productive? Look, I know you’re not human, but just pretend for a second—”

“Wait,” Marion said, and leaned across the table as if she intended to physically interpose herself between us. “Maybe Cassiel is right. Maybe there are two greater goods here. I’m selfish; I think keeping you here is the better option. But I can’t deny that she’s got a point. Neither can you, Warden Rocha, if you look at it objectively.”