"How did I end up agreeing to this?" Cinder asked herself about 15 minutes later on the tram.

Esmeralda was staring out the side of it at the streets that looked so different by daylight, according to her.

"This city is beautiful," she said.

Argus? Cinder glanced at the stone streets, which had ice on them, and the cramped buildings. Maybe they had a kind of classic appeal if you liked cities, which she didn't particularly like, but beautiful? Not really.

"I like it." Polly didn't seem to have any issues talking to Esmeralda, despite her being a total stranger.

Ben was a bit shyer, which could just have been because he was a boy, or maybe Esmeralda's scars and odd manner bothered him more than his friend.

Jodie also seemed at ease though. "Do you think Franz and Davi will be upset we left them at home?"

"I'm not worried about them," Polly said with the air of someone shedding her burdens for the day. "They slow us down too much. And they'll be happy to have Pyrrha to themselves. And Jaune."

"Are they your parents?" Esmeralda asked. "They don't look at all like you."

"People don't always look like their parents," Polly said. "But we're adopted. They took us in after we lost our families."

"Oh...did you?" Esmeralda said strangely. "Was that hard for you?"

Cinder winced at the question that was not very tactful. Not that she normally cared, but if these kids got upset, she'd hear it from Jaune later.

Thankfully, Polly took it in stride. "It was," she said. "I miss them...but I like my new family. Sometimes you just...have to accept that things change."

"It was kind of them to take you in," Esmeralda noted.

"They're really kind people," Ben spoke up. "And they're cool. They taught us how to fight and fight Grimm too. I'm going to be a huntsman now."

"I want to be one too, maybe," Polly said. "Or maybe I'd like to be a nurse and help people like Jaune. Or maybe I'd like to be a scholar like Mr. Pine. I like doing all that. I'm just not sure."

"I'd be a huntress," Jodie said. "And I'd marry a huntsman just like Jaune."

"I think he's taken," Polly laughed. "But yeah, maybe someone like that. What do you do, miss... What's your last name?"

"Paris...I guess," Esmeralda said. [Would you believe I didn't even notice that Paris fit her as a last name because of the location of Notre Dame till after I'd picked it for Helena's last name?]

"Miss Paris?" they amended.

"I...I don't have any kind of job," Esmeralda said blankly. "I don't know what I'll do now... This world has more problems than I thought."

"The Arcs would let you stay with us if you need to," Polly said. "They'll help anyone who needs it."

"I'm grateful for that...but I think I can't do that forever," Esmeralda mused. "But I guess for now it'll do if nothing else will. I'm just glad to be here. Where are we going exactly?"

"We're going to the mall," Jodie said. "You can come with us...or you can explore with Miss Fall. I mean, you guys are adults, so you can do what you want. But we know a great place to get hot chocolate if you want to join us."

They were certainly Pyrrha and Jaune's kids, even if it was only by adoption. Cinder was getting a little overwhelmed by how friendly they were.

But Esmeralda was drinking it up, and she didn't have the heart to say anything to push the kids away.

"Kids" being subjective, as Ben was over 15 now and Polly was only a little younger than him. Ruby had been beating up monsters and Oscar had been dealing with curses at that age.

Still, she thought, as she still tried to tune out their chatter, it was impressive in a way how Pyrrha and Jaune had opened them up. Emerald had told her that when they first arrived in Argus, they'd all been quiet or nervous children, who'd been afraid of what would happen to them, like all the children in the shelter. But over time they'd grown and become open and sweet and pretty good in a fight for amateurs, from what she'd heard about the Menagerie incident.

She wasn't one to find inspirational stories...well, inspiring, but that kind of change was remarkable. Emerald's little project really did seem to do some good.

Maybe it wasn't for enough people...but it was at least helping some of them. Stopping them from turning out like her...or like Roman, Neo, or any of the others.

That made her wonder...was it really going to be satisfying to go back to Eurus and continue on as she'd been, ignoring the world and the people in it except for what was around her?

Maybe there was nothing wrong with that life...but maybe she was here at a certain place and time? She had...opportunities, didn't she? Or was that just a fantasy? Who would want her help?

Who would she even be able to help if she wanted to? She wasn't the type to take in orphans, and she didn't have the skills to do the other things the team did either.

She was more comfortable in business where it was less personal, so she'd managed to blend into that niche...but it didn't seem nearly as impactful when you compared it to this.

The tram stopped at the town square before she knew it, and the teens scrambled off, with Esmeralda right behind them.

Esmeralda was buzzed just from being able to walk normally.

She'd already had the chance to wash herself off and put on some new clothes, borrowed from the girls, so she looked normal, save for the scars on her face.

But they were pretty light mostly, for scars, and if you weren't close to her, you hardly saw them.

From a distance, Cinder noted, she was actually quite pretty, some might even have said beautiful.

She must have taken after her mother, though there was resemblance to Mala in the shape of her eyes and brow. Her lower half of her face was different. Her complexion was different, a lot better than Mala's, though Mala's might just have faded with the side effects of what she did.

Cinder realized what she should have before, that Mala had likely marred Esmeralda's face on purpose out of jealousy that she was likely the prettier of the two. Or at least Mala had thought so. 

It was almost the petty, cruel actions that were harder to believe than her terribly evil ones. They had a purpose that at least was to gain something, but hurting her sister had only been out of spite and envy. Such stupid reasons to hurt anyone.

Cinder wondered when she'd started to think so. She thought even in her evil days, mostly she only hurt people who threatened her. Esmeralda was too harmless for that to be it.

Why this woman's case weighed on her so much, she wasn't sure. Did she see herself in the way she'd been treated? Maybe...

"Should we go with the little kids?" Esmeralda asked Cinder.

"We're not that little." Ben turned to her indignantly. "You're what, 19, 20?"

"I think I'm closer to 25," Esmeralda said. "I'm not sure."

"So you're maybe 10 years older--that's not that big a deal," Ben said. 

"Yeah, we're farther apart from Lux than that," Jodie agreed.

"Lux is a baby," Cinder said dryly.

"Still," they huffed.

"You look more 18," Cinder told Esmeralda, "if it wasn't for your voice and looking underfed."

"I suppose that's just to be expected," Esmeralda said. "So what do you want to do?"

"I don't care," Cinder said.

"Then you should come with us," Polly said.

Didn't they know who she was?

Cinder got the answer to that not that long after, when the kids had gotten their hot chocolate and started asking each other which place to go to--the arcade or the clothes stores...

"Is it true you're the one who killed Pyrrha back in Beacon?" Jodie, who seemed to have no filter, asked Cinder point blank.

Cinder was not ready to answer this to someone this young.

"Uh..." she sputtered.

"They said that last night too," Esmeralda said. "I thought it was odd. But maybe it's an expression?"

She was catching on to how strangely people talked...but not this time.

"No, she really did it," Ben said before Cinder could speak. "Mom talks about it a lot to her friends. We've heard. They told us the story a while ago, how Jaune wanted her to live so much that God granted his wish and gave her her life back from dust. It's better when they tell it."

"That's amazing," Esmeralda said, eyes wide. "Your friends just get more and more astonishing." This to Cinder.

"Doesn't it bother you that I did that to her?" Cinder said.

"Oh...uh...I just thought you had some kind of fight over something," Esmeralda said. "It happens... It was nice for you that she didn't stay dead, though, since it seems like it bothers you."

Cinder almost choked on air.

"Well, Dad says that she wasn't too happy about it at first," Ben said, "but later she was glad."

Esmeralda accepted this like it was totally normal.

"Was that weird for you?" Jodie asked Cinder.

"Extremely." Cinder was getting tired of her impertinence. "Do you have any other personal questions that sound weird to even say out loud?"

Jodie sized her up. "Not right now," she said with a flounce, and she turned toward the center of the mall.

Unlike malls in Atlas, the mall in Argus did not have an internal central room. It had all the buildings in a ring, more like a shopping plaza or marketplace, but with fancier shops.

Cinder realized they weren't that far from the Lesspay shoe shop she'd gone to with Emerald a few times.

She wondered if it was still open or if it had finally succumbed to the poor business.

"I'm going to check on something," she said. "I'll be back."

Esmeralda just followed her though, and the teens had no reason to follow them and went off to do their own thing.

It started to snow lightly while they were walking around the corner, and Cinder shivered.

Esmeralda held out her hand in amazement and caught the flakes. "What is this?" she said. "The sky is dropping ice dust shards on us."

"It's snow." Cinder was going to ask how she didn't know that and then stopped. Of course she didn't.

"Snow...I've heard the others complain about snow," Esmeralda said. "But this is lovely. Why would you dislike it?"

"When it clogs up the road you'll dislike it," Cinder said.

"I can't imagine disliking it even if it did." Esmeralda caught more. "Oh...there's little shapes in the snow."

"Snowflakes," Cinder said. "Every one is different. No two are identical."

"How do they form in these little shapes?" Esmeralda asked. "It's like they were modeled."

"I don't know. Shine would probably say God carves them that way on purpose," Cinder replied.

[The "scientific" explanation is not much more detailed. They are formed by water crystallizing at different temperatures. Why that makes these particular 6-sided shapes, however, is not explained.]

"I see..." Esmeralda was staring at the snow so much that she rammed into one of the light posts.

Instead of being angry about this, she just shook herself and walked around it.

Nothing seemed able to shake her good mood, but then, this was her first day of freedom and health again after all her life of captivity.

Cinder watched her with amazement. 

When she'd finally run for her freedom, all she'd felt was fear of being caught, shame at what she'd done, and a driving urge to make herself a better life and to get her revenge on Atlas.

Anger, fear, desperation, that was all she'd known at the time and for many years.

She'd never had an appreciation like this of just being able to walk around freely. 

And Esmeralda didn't even seem afraid of anyone following her. Granted, there was not much reason to fear it, but that hadn't stopped Cinder even when she'd long been forgotten about by the world.

She'd never enjoyed her freedom like this, not as much in 5 years as Esmeralda was in one day. It made the contrast between them so stark. It was kind of humiliating.

But she felt more cross with herself than with Esmeralda, who certainly was not aware of the difference.

"Do you like snow?" she asked, interrupting Cinder's thoughts.

"No," Cinder said stiffly. "It made things cold and wet. More work for me."

"Work?" Esmeralda said blankly.

"I...used to work at a hotel," Cinder said slowly, "in Atlas, before it was destroyed. Snow just made my job harder, so I learned to hate it...and it snows all the time in Atlas."

"I see..." Esmeralda said. "Well...I suppose I would hate it too then."

"You can like it if you want." Cinder shrugged moodily. "It's not like you have any reason not to. I just don't. I guess it's all right in small amounts, but it doesn't affect me that much."

"I see," Esmeralda said, but she didn't. "What weather do you like? I've heard of rain."

"Didn't you say you left home a few times?" Cinder said.

"When I was a little girl, Mother was allowed to go out sometimes to help gather wood and stuff," Esmeralda said. "She'd take me with her, but there were always guards to make sure we didn't run away. That's how I knew what trees and grass and birds looked like.  But it was only once in a while. Mother was afraid I'd be eaten by Grimm, so sometimes she made me stay in the cave. She did say I'd be darker if I ever stayed out too long. My father was a lot darker than I am." She fingered her skin. "She told me the sun makes our bodies stronger. I don't know if it was true or just a fairy-tale."

"That's just science," Cinder said.

"Science...?" Esmeralda said blankly.

"Esmeralda, do you know how to read?" Cinder suddenly said.

Esmeralda looked down. "Not very well..." she said shamefacedly. "Mother did teach me the letters and sounds, but she hardly had any books. Bandits don't steal books, usually. Not valuable enough. Sometimes one of the nicer bandits stole her one or two, but they were too hard for me to read, and she died before I got better at it. I didn't have a lot to practice with either."

Cinder had never realized how fortunate she'd been that she'd been taught how to read at the orphanage before that horrible woman had taken her in. It was just to make them better workers, and you go hit if you didn't learn it well enough, so she'd never thought to really enjoy reading either...but it just made things easier.

"I think I can read that." Esmeralda looked up, as if she wanted to prove herself not totally ignorant. She pointed at one shop. "It says...sa-lon? I don't know what that is."

"Just some place people go to get prettier," Cinder brushed it off.

"You can go to a place to do that!?" Esmeralda raced up to the window to look in. "I just see a lot of mirrors and...paint?"

"It's makeup and nail polish," Cinder said, walking up. "Frivolous things, mostly. I hardly ever use makeup."

Esmeralda peered in and then looked at her own reflection in the glass and touched her face. "Well...what good would it do anyway?" She turned away. "It's silly to mind it. It's more important to be able to walk and see normally."

"Those bother you?" Cinder surmised.

"They shouldn't," Esmeralda said. "I'm thankful I'm much better than before. I guess a selfish part of me wished that my face was healed also. But it's not right to complain about that--Pine did much more for me than I had any reason to expect."

"It might be able to heal," Cinder said.

She looked at her. "But with enough makeup, and if you tan a little more now, those scars will mostly hardly be noticeable...most of them."

The one down her face that Gene had put there would still be, but they weren't really that ugly, considering. If you looked past them.

"Maybe I could try it some time then," Esmeralda said. "But being pretty is not really my concern. Some of the bandits were obsessed with that, but the prisoners always told me they wished they weren't pretty so they wouldn't have been there. It can be dangerous to be pretty. Mother told me that too. Beauty is dangerous."

She lowered her head.

Cinder was not a philosopher, but that sounded wrong to her. She'd never heard that from Shine. It didn't sound biblical...but it wasn't as if it mattered that much. 

Not that she was above vanity, but why should it bother Esmeralda?

Still, hearing about this was kind of depressing, though Esmeralda seemed fine.

They got to the shoe shop a few minutes later.

Cinder was looking to see if Elle was still working there, and she was.

"Business has been worse," she said. "Where have you been? It's been a while since you popped by."

"I haven't needed shoes." Cinder shrugged. 

"Well...this isn't going to be open much longer," Elle sighed. "Things have just gotten worse. The scare with that horrible bandit tribe didn't help anything. People hardly have left their houses after that, and we were barely breaking even before that. Even if it picks up, it might be too late. And supplies got backed up too. I saw on the news this morning, though, that they think the bandit tribe was finally stopped. "

"It...was..." Cinder had no wish to mention her part in it.

Esmeralda was picking up the stilettos like she couldn't figure out what they were, but she looked over.

"Who is this?" Elle asked, nicely. "A new friend of yours?"

"I suppose you could say that." Cinder didn't have a word for "person I helped escape slavery yesterday".

"Where's your green-haired friend?" Elle asked.

"Recovering, no doubt," Cinder said. "Or with her boyfriend."

"I didn't know she had one."

"She got back together with her ex recently," Cinder said.

"I hope he's worth it," Elle said. "I was always told not to bounce back to someone who's just going to do the same thing again."

"I think he's learned his lesson," Cinder said dryly. "But she has plenty of people who will beat him up for her if he didn't."

"Good for her," Elle laughed. "I wish I had a fellow..."

A car screeched on the street outside, which didn't bother either of them but made Esmeralda jump 4 inches and cover her head.

"A little jittery, isn't she?" Elle smiled, not meaning anything by it.

Esmeralda looked embarrassed as she put her hands down. "What was that?"

"Just a car," Cinder said. She was starting to think that keeping Esmeralda company all day might prove to be exhausting.

Just then some other people walked into the shop, to her surprise.

It was further surprised that it was Coco and Velvet, who she barely remembered.

"I told you it was her." Coco lowered her ever-present shades, though it was nothing like bright enough outside to need them.

"Hello," Velvet said cheerfully, waving her hand. "What brings you here?"

"I can't browse?" Cinder was on edge.

Velvet backed off. "No, of course that's not what I meant..." She put her ears more down.

"Don't mind her." Coco adjusted her purse/gatling gun. "I hear she can be quite a tool. Hmm, these are decent." She eyed some boots. "But not the best."

Elle frowned at her. "I assure you, we have the finest quality for the most reasonably prices."

"See, that price thing is what I'm convinced about," Coco said.

"We...were just looking for some new shoes," Velvet explained nervously. "For the Deliverance Day Festival. Oh, uh, Happy Deliverance Day by the way."

"What is that?" Esmeralda turned to them.

"My gosh." Coco stared at her. "Who dressed you in that?"

Esmeralda blinked. "Uh, Mrs. Arc lent me some clothes--"

"That is all wrong for your complexion," Coco said. "It's ghastly."

Esmeralda's face fell.

"Why don't you back off?" Cinder got mad and came to stand in front of Coco with a cross look.

"I didn't mean anything bad," Coco said. "I think with some modification she could have real potential." She walked around Esmeralda in a circle and lifted her hair, which made Esmeralda flinch. Usually people pulled her hair if they touched it.

"Yes, I think a nice green...maybe some purple. I hate white, so don't wear that, for the love of fashion... Maybe some black and brown would suit. Velvet, would you say she's more of a bold or an understated type?"

"Just by the look on her face, I'd say she's more the shy type." Velvet was probably trying to give Coco a hint to tone it down. But it went over Coco's head.

"So, understated? Maybe a good call. I can't see her sporting bold boots or jackets."

"I'm not sure what you mean," Esmeralda said meekly. "Are my clothes offending you?"

"Absolutely," Coco said. "And I don't think those shoes even fit you. No need to give me that look, Cinder. I'm trying to help."

"Clearly," Cinder said.

"Cinder?" Elle spoke up. "I thought your name was Scarlet."

Cinder had completely forgotten that Elle only knew her alias.

"Who's Scarlet?" Velvet blurted before she realized it was likely a cover. "I mean, uh, is that your preferred name?"

Cinder put a hand to her head.

"Wait...not the Cinder?" Elle peered at her. "Cinder Fall? Was Scarlet a fake name? Oh, now that you mention it, you look like those posters...I mean...more symmetrical, but still."

Cinder was starting to get tired of hiding her identity since it always came out anyway.

"Yes, the Cinder," she said sharply. "Now you know, happy?"

Elle frowned. "Why did you hide it?"

"Let me think about that for a second." Cinder tapped her chin. "Could it be because everyone thinks I'm a crazy terrorist?"

"It could be that," Coco agreed. "But after yesterday, I only think you're a crazy bandit-fighter, if that helps."

"Were you all the huntsmen who went after the Baba Tribe?" Elle said. "They've been over that on the news, but no names have been released. I did hear that they've apprehended all of the tribe that was left."

"That we know of." Cinder wasn't convinced that all of them had been at the hideout.

"Fall was helping us do that." Velvet seemed anxious not to start a panic if Elle freaked out. "I'm sure you've heard of her association with the World Heroes."

"I've heard that she's technically one of them. Wasn't she at the big celebration they had 5 years ago?" Elle said. "I was still living at home, then, but my family watched the whole thing. Big day for Remnant. Isn't it odd that the tribe was caught the same day, also?"

"It is," Velvet agreed, relieved. "So you're not scared, then?"

"Not really," Elle said. "Just a little annoyed I didn't know the truth."

"Hmm, usually you Atlesians are a little more jumpy around her," Coco noted. "Though not as much as Valeans like us, but I never cared much."

"First, I'm not Atlesian," Elle said. "Most of us here are Mistralian, you know. Second, some people think that the reason those criminals who were part of the world saving team were working for the witch woman was actually to spy. There's all sorts of conspiracies about that, and I'm dying to know if they're true."

She looked at Cinder.

"They're not," Cinder said. "We did actually work for her, but we left."

"That's interesting also," Elle said. "That's another theory. Some internet boards say that you left because she was too cruel and bloodthirsty and your hearts just couldn't take it anymore."

"That might be why Emerald left." Cinder suddenly realized that Elle didn't care about Emerald's past and had known it all along. Why then would she care that much more about Cinder's? Some people did--and some didn't seem to see much difference.

She always expected people to treat her worse. But to someone like Elle, who only knew both of them as equals, it was probably less likely that Emerald seemed like she'd just been led astray by Cinder.

"I left because I didn't like to be Salem's puppet," she said after a pause. "And I didn't like having a curse control me."

Rather than make them look at her suspiciously, this had no effect whatsoever except to make Elle more wide-eyed. "That's pretty cool. Must have been so exciting in those days. Was the bandit tribe tame compared to that?"

"No, it was worse," Cinder said. "Or the same, I don't know."

Esmeralda tugged her hair nervously.

"Wow, to think some bandits would be that bad," Elle said.

Cinder realized that Elle had no idea what they'd really done. Well, she wasn't going to tell her.

Thankfully, Velvet and Coco didn't rush to explain either. They knew far less about it than the others, but they knew enough to know they didn't want to go into it.

At least Esmeralda was forgotten about by them.

She and Cinder made their escape while the other two girls were still shoe shopping.

"I didn't put much thought into how people feel about the tribe here," Esmeralda said. "I'm glad I did not say I was from it before they spoke."

"If they knew you were a prisoner, they wouldn't blame you," Cinder said.

"Yes, but somehow I'm not sure I want everyone to know that," Esmeralda said. "I still don't know that much about how normal people act, but it is dawning on me that they seem pretty curious. And I don't want to talk about the tribe, or think about it, anymore."

"It's morbid curiosity, but it'll die out once the next big thing distracts most of them," Cinder said, with some bitterness. "The only reason people still care about the gods being defeated is because it changed Remnant forever. By comparison, the tribe was an annoyance to most of them. Not many people even know what it was doing."

"I do not think they want to know," Esmeralda said. "Based on how you and your friends reacted, it must not be nice to hear."

"Don't you have any feelings about it?" Cinder knew better than to ask that, but she did anyway.

Esmeralda paused a little. "It's...well, it's not new to me. I can't exactly feel surprised, like all of you seem to. So what should I feel about it? It was my life, and the prisoners' like Kate, for so much time. I still feel like this is a dream. What should I do or think other than that?"

"Nothing, I guess." Cinder was not the expert on this. "I just remember being angrier about being treated like a slave."

"Were you?" Esmeralda said.

"For a while..."

Try most of her life. Really, Salem hadn't treated them much differently, just less grueling.

"I'm sorry for that," Esmeralda said, nicely. "Pity might be a weakness, but knowing there are other people who are treated like I was makes me feel both strangely relieved and kind of disappointed. It would be nice if it was just me and my strangely cruel surroundings and the rest of the world was completely different."

"But it's not," Cinder said. Then, checking herself, "Not all of it."

"Which scares me." Esmeralda clenched a fist to her chest. "But I have some confidence that at least your team must not be like that, and as long as I'm around all of you, I hope to avoid it."

She talked a lot like Shine, Cinder noticed. Not the tone--she was anything but that confident--but her wording.

"For someone who can't read well, you speak a lot more complexly than most uneducated people I've met," she noted.

Which was not the most sensitive remark, but of course that went over both their heads.

"Oh...well, my mother spoke like that," Esmeralda said. "I talk like her. Mala used to make fun of it, actually. My mom was...well, she said she picked up a poetic way of speaking from her favorite books and from Atlesians. I know it sounds odd." She seemed embarrassed.

"It's fine." Cinder was starting to wonder if there was anything you could say to Esmeralda that wouldn't make her self-conscious. "It's like Shine or Oscar, I guess."

"Oh...well...they seem okay," Esmeralda said. "It's strange--I kind of thought maybe all of you would notice if I was off, but of course, that was stupid. I must scream being a weird, little bandit freak."

"Where would you get that term freak from?"

"I heard Mercury use it to describe the bandits a few times," Esmeralda said. "We are freaks, aren't we? No one acts like us." She shivered.

"He meant them using the Grimm," Cinder said. "Not what you did. Don't listen to anything Mercury says anyway. He's an idiot."

"Is he? I didn't think he was," Esmeralda said. "He's fascinating, with the Silver Eyes and the way he looks after Emerald." She smiled dreamily. "It's so strangely touching how some people have special feelings like that..."

Cinder couldn't take her sudden switching from happy to embarrassed to too idealistic.

"Maybe we should just look for the Arcs." She was hoping some other people would be a buffer.

"Oh, we should. We left them alone," Esmeralda said at once. "We wouldn't want the Grimm to find them."

"Grimm don't live in the city..." Cinder said, tired.

"Oh...right." With a nervous gesture.

Cinder did not really get away from Esmeralda even when they tracked down the kids.

Truthfully, maybe she didn't really mind it as much as she thought she did. There was something oddly fascinating about watching the woman, like a puppy with a more serious edge from time to time.

The older teens might have noticed it also, being perceptive as they were. Esmeralda was pretty naive about a lot of things, but then, growing up with bandits had given her a harder edge about stuff that came out at odd moments and made you think she really was 25 instead of 12, like she seemed most of the time.

Sometimes she seemed even older than that.

Perhaps it was just that trait that kept her from being completely annoying to Cinder at all times, but she could not keep up with her energy.

Of course part of that was that she herself was still exhausted from the day before.

More than physically, she was emotionally drained. Maybe the team had convinced her not to feel quite as responsible for Mala, but it was still so much to process--to think about.

And being around Esmeralda only reminded her of it more. Especially Rhodes.

Maybe her killing him hadn't really been any worse than if Mala had done it, and certainly Mala would have.

But that in itself was strange. Was it just decided that he'd die at that time? What would he have thought if he'd known about his daughter?

Cinder still didn't believe he'd had much imagination, and maybe it was better he didn't have such a burden to deal with that likely he couldn't have stopped.

But...then...had it fallen to her because she'd chosen to kill then, instead of just run? Maybe she'd tied her fate in with Mala's in that way.

But the tribe had had to be stopped. Was Oscar right in thinking that it had all been planned so that it would be possible?

What role did she really play? Was she just an instrument of judgment? Or did she choose it? Or both. It might be both.

Or...she had a different thought finally. What if stopping the tribe was the debt she owed the world, or the victims of it, for killing Rhodes? Maybe it was what she owed him.

She had the feeling that Rhodes, had he been alive, would have said that perhaps she had repaid it. Maybe all he ever wanted her to do was use her anger in the right way. Would rescuing someone else like her, and stopping the tribe for their crimes, count?

In a way she'd become the person Rhodes intended her to be by acting as a huntress...yet she wasn't sure she really wanted to be a huntress. If she'd realized one thing from the last two days, it was that it was stressful and she hated making those kinds of judgment calls now that she had actual morality to worry about.

It was one thing when she cared about nothing but herself, but if that had changed, she didn't think she could keep taking such risks. Too hard to sleep afterward, too hard to justify even if it had worked out.

After all...she could just as easily have led to the others dying as saving them, depending on their actions and Mala's. It was just...grace, probably, that that hadn't happened.

That noted, she was coming to some kind of a decision, she thought.

But what she'd do after it...?

"Cinder, look." Esmeralda suddenly tugged her sleeve, though timidly. "I think there's some more of your friends."

Cinder looked up.

She saw Blake, Sun, Weiss, Meridian, Neptune, Yang, and that Hamish guy (who was just 7th-wheeling with them, it seemed, for lack of anything better to do) all sitting by one of the outdoor heaters, having some kind of lunch.

Blake, no doubt, was getting caught up on what she'd missed.

Cinder didn't want to talk to them, but they'd already spotted her and Esmeralda and the teens, who of course were waving at them.