(Author's note: Might change and update this chapter later)
Chapter 29: Before the Sirens Broke Through
Beryl did not speak for several seconds after Kairo told her he had met Death.
That silence alone should have been impressive, because Beryl Hutchinson was not often at a loss for words. She had words for weather, bad tea, worse traffic, rich people, villains, politicians, magical nonsense, and the special kind of foolishness that only appeared when grown adults were allowed to make decisions without proper supervision. She always had something ready, usually sharp, sometimes kind, and almost always British enough to make Kairo feel like he had somehow disappointed an entire island.
Now, though, she only stared at him.
Her hand remained against his back, warm and steady, while her other rested on one bent knee. Dirt clung to her costume from the slide down into the crater. A loose strand of hair had fallen across her face. The anger she had carried toward Jervis was still there, burning under her skin, but Kairo had just dropped something heavier on top of it, and Beryl's mind was trying to decide where to put all of it without breaking.
"You met Death," she finally repeated, slowly, as if the words might become less ridiculous if she handled them carefully. "The actual Death. Not someone named Death. Not a woman with a stage name, a dramatic coat, and an unhealthy love of skull jewelry. You mean Death, Death."
Kairo nodded.
Beryl studied his face. "And she gave you tacos."
Kairo nodded again, this time a little more firmly. "They were good tacos."
"That part is somehow making this harder to process."
"I don't know why. She looked like somebody who would know good tacos."
Beryl closed her eyes and breathed in through her nose. It was the sort of breath people took right before they either found patience or lost it forever. "All right. Start over, duck. Slowly. Properly. From the beginning. Leave nothing out, and I mean nothing. If she sneezed strangely, I want to know. If the umbrella insulted you, I want to know. If a chair tried to eat you, that goes in the report too."
Kairo shifted where he sat, careful not to disturb Rebecca. Her head remained against him, her body loose with exhaustion, her breathing so deep and peaceful that she seemed far away from the ruined garden around them. Kairo looked down at her for a moment, then at Ace, who lay nearby with Jervis hovering over her like a frightened bird guarding the last egg in the world.
Neither he nor Beryl cared that Jervis could hear them.
Jervis clearly cared.
He sat only a short distance away, one hand resting near Ace's shoulder, his expression twitching through curiosity, guilt, suspicion, and something like wounded pride that Death had apparently shown up to speak with a five-year-old and had not bothered to include him.
Kairo started from the moment the world went grey. He told Beryl how sound had disappeared and how Ace's clock had appeared inside her, colored gold and violet while everything else went black and white. He explained the red thread he had pulled from himself, how it fed into the broken clock, and how the crack had slowly closed.
Beryl's face changed as he spoke.
At first, she had the attentive look of someone collecting facts. Then came concern. Then horror. Then a deeper concern that had gone past ordinary worry and moved into the territory of future headaches, angry meetings, magical consultations, medical examinations, and at least one very long argument with Dr. Wakati.
"You pulled a piece of your own life out of your chest," she said.
"I think it came from my chest."
"And fed it to her clock."
"It kind of ate it on its own."
"That does not help."
"I know."
Beryl looked toward Ace. Her eyes swept over the girl's pale face, the blood beneath her nose, the black-and-white suit, and the small rise and fall of her chest. "And Death said you gave her more time."
"Yes."
"How much?"
"She would not tell me."
"Of course she wouldn't." Beryl rubbed at her forehead with two fingers. "Ancient cosmic beings never give numbers. They give warnings, riddles, and enough information to ruin your sleep for a month."
Kairo looked down at his wrist, where Death's mark hid beneath his skin. "She gave me rules."
Beryl's eyes dropped immediately. "What rules?"
He repeated them as carefully as he could. Never use his power while angry. Ask whether he was helping or acting because he was scared. Treat life and death gently. Call Death before trying to give his own time away again.
Beryl listened without interrupting. That was how Kairo knew she was truly worried. Her fingers tapped against her leg once, then stopped. Her eyes moved around the crater as if she were already trying to picture how this conversation would sound when repeated to Dr. Wakati, Madame Xanadu, and perhaps anyone else responsible enough to understand what had happened.
By the time Kairo finished describing the mark, Beryl looked tired enough to age ten years on the spot.
"So," she said, her voice very calm in the way that usually meant her thoughts were not calm at all, "let me make certain I understand. You were trapped beneath a psychic dome during a supervillain kidnapping. Your friend transformed into a giant bat. You stopped time on instinct, moved two children out of danger, helped break several adults out of mind control, reached into a dying girl's soul, or mind, or whatever we are calling it, transferred part of your own lifespan into her, and then Death arrived, fed you lunch, gave you a set of cosmic safety rules, marked your wrist, and left."
"Yes."
Beryl stared at him.
Kairo added, "There was also a conversation about Father Time and tacos."
Beryl's eyes closed.
"That part might not need to be in the report," Kairo said.
"Oh, no, duck. That part is absolutely going in the report. If I'm going to suffer, everyone else is suffering with me."
Jervis leaned closer, unable to help himself. "What sort of tacos?"
Beryl turned her head toward him so slowly that the movement alone became a threat.
Jervis leaned back. "A detail for later."
Ace heard every word.
She was too weak to open her eyes fully, but the voices reached her through the soft dark of exhaustion. Kairo's voice was closest, small but steady. Beryl's came after, sharp with fear disguised as practical questions. Jervis's voice drifted at the edge, familiar and strange, no longer performing for a crowd.
Death.
The little boy had spoken with Death.
That should have frightened Ace. Perhaps it would later. Right now, she only felt confused. She could not understand why a five-year-old had touched the place inside her where life was running out. She could not understand why he had given her anything after what she had helped do. She had watched him hide beneath the table. She had felt Rebecca's fear wrapping around him, had helped Jervis trap the adults, had held the dome over everyone until her mind began tearing itself apart.
He had still saved her.
The question rolled through Ace's fading thoughts.
Why?
She knew kindness existed. She was not foolish. She had seen it in rare and inconvenient places. A worker at Cadmus who loosened her restraints when nobody was watching. Jervis reading to her when the hallways went quiet. A stranger giving her food without asking questions. Small things.
This had not been small.
The pain that had lived inside her for more than ten years was gone.
Ace had forgotten what her body felt like without it. The ache had always been there, hidden under everything else. Behind her eyes. In her bones. Along the back of her skull. Her powers had burned through her every day, slowly taking pieces that never came back.
Now there was quiet.
Real quiet.
Not the empty, cold silence of a laboratory after the machines shut off. This was peaceful. Warm. Her mind did not feel as if it were splitting open. Her chest did not hurt when she breathed.
She wanted to ask Kairo what he had done.
She wanted to tell him he should not have done it.
She wanted to thank him.
Instead, sleep found her.
It came gently, without nightmares, without white rooms, without the memory of needles or voices behind glass. Her connection to the psychic dome loosened as she slipped deeper, the power thinning like fog under sunlight.
Above them, the dome began to melt.
At first, the change was almost invisible. The shimmering barrier trembled, then sagged along its highest point. Colors ran through it in slow waves, oily blues and soft violets sliding downward. Small gaps opened near the edges, letting the real sounds of the zoo push through.
Sirens.
Shouting.
The heavy chop of distant helicopter blades.
Beryl looked up.
"Right," she murmured. "That buys us less time."
Kairo followed her gaze. "Is that bad?"
"It depends entirely on who arrives first and how stupid they decide to be."
"That sounds bad."
"It usually is."
Beryl looked back down at him, and the practical hardness in her expression softened. She lifted one hand and brushed a bit of dirt from his hair. "Anything else Death told you?"
Kairo hesitated.
Beryl noticed at once. "Kairo."
He looked toward Ace, then Rebecca. His mouth opened, but the words stuck.
Beryl's posture changed. She leaned closer, lowering her voice even though nobody nearby had earned privacy. "What is it?"
"They can't take them."
Her eyes narrowed. "Who?"
"Ace and Rebecca."
"Kairo…"
"No." His voice cracked, and he hated that. He tried again, louder. "You can't let them take them away. Please."
The first tear slipped down his cheek before he realized he was crying.
Beryl went still.
Kairo did not cry often. He complained, sulked, snapped, overthought, and sometimes became silent in a way that worried the whole household, but actual tears were rare. Beryl could remember almost every time she had seen them. A nightmare he refused to explain. A fall from Marzipan that had hurt his pride worse than his body. The day he learned something about his parents and hid in the library for hours afterward.
This was different.
Once the first tear came, more followed. Kairo wiped at his face, frustrated, only smearing dirt across his cheek.
"They'll call Ace dangerous," he said. "They'll say she helped him, and she did, but she was dying. She was used. I saw her clock. I felt it. She's been hurting for years, Beryl. They can't put her back in some place where people use her again."
Beryl's throat tightened.
Kairo kept talking because if he stopped, he thought he might not start again. "And Rebecca changed, but she warned me first. She was scared. She told me to stay away. She didn't want to hurt anyone. They're going to see what she became and not care why."
His shoulders shook. Rebecca slept against him, unaware of the way his arm curled more tightly around her.
"Please," he whispered. "Please don't let them take my friends."
Beryl wiped at her own face quickly with the heel of her hand.
One swipe.
Then another.
She refused to cry. Not because crying was wrong, but because someone had to think. Someone had to stand between these children and the people already preparing cages.
She knew Cadmus.
Not personally, thank God. Her time as Squire had carried her close to enough government operations, Justice League problems, hidden labs, black-budget programs, and sealed reports to understand what the name meant. Project Cadmus had once been a secret division of the United States government dedicated to controlling metahumans, especially those considered too powerful, too unstable, or too connected to the Justice League.
Cadmus had lost influence over the years.
That did not mean it was dead.
Organizations like Cadmus rarely died. They changed names. They moved money. They buried old buildings and opened new ones under different offices. People who believed children could be turned into weapons did not suddenly grow consciences because a budget committee cut their funding.
Beryl looked at Ace again.
How old was she?
At first glance, fourteen. Maybe fifteen. Her height made it difficult. The sharpness in her face made her look older, but there was softness around her cheeks that had not fully disappeared. The black-and-white suit fit like something designed for a performer or a prisoner, perhaps both. Her hands were small. Too small.
Thirteen, Beryl thought.
Possibly fourteen.
Then she looked at the exhaustion carved into the girl's face, the old pain that no child should carry, and felt sick for ever trying to measure her age by appearance at all.
"Cadmus won't have her," Beryl said quietly.
Kairo sniffed and looked up.
Beryl met his eyes. "Do you hear me? They will not have her. Not while I'm standing. Not while your grandfather has breath in his body, and certainly not while Madame Xanadu has enough magic left to turn every official involved into something embarrassing."
Kairo's mouth trembled. "Promise?"
Beryl almost said yes immediately.
Then she remembered what Death had told him about honest promises.
"I promise I will do everything in my power to keep her free and safe," she said. "I cannot promise the world will behave. The world is deeply committed to being difficult. But she will have us fighting for her."
Kairo nodded.
Beryl looked at Rebecca next.
The stories had been true, then. A few years ago, there had been scattered reports of another Man-Bat sighting, smaller and faster than Kirk or Francine, usually dismissed as bad footage or panic. Beryl had never seen enough evidence to believe them.
Now the evidence was asleep against Kairo's shoulder.
Rebecca's parents had chosen their transformations. Whatever reasons they had, whatever science or desperation pushed them toward it, the choice had been theirs.
Rebecca had never been offered that choice.
The girl's auburn hair stuck damply to her forehead. Even asleep, her fingers twitched against the grass as if some part of her remained ready to defend herself. Beryl remembered the wings. The claws. The sound that had shaken the zoo.
She also remembered Kairo saying Rebecca had reached into his mind and apologized before changing.
A monster did not apologize before losing control.
A frightened child did.
The psychic ability made less sense. Man-Bat genetics explained heightened hearing, transformation, perhaps unusual strength. Telepathy was another matter entirely. But powers, magic, and genetics had never cared much for tidy categories. Beryl had seen stranger things emerge from less.
Rebecca was fortunate in one way. The Langstrom family still had money. Her grandfather had resources, knowledge, and likely answers to several questions Beryl had not yet figured out how to ask.
That did not guarantee safety.
Money could buy lawyers, private treatment, secure homes, and silence.
It could also attract people.
Beryl looked up at the dome again. Barely more than half remained. The outer world was becoming clearer through the thinning field. Shapes moved beyond it. Police. Zoo security. Emergency teams waiting for the barrier to fail.
"We have minutes," she said.
"Before what?"
"Before every badge, camera, and government agency in Gotham starts arguing over who gets to make things worse."
Jervis cleared his throat. "An unfortunate but historically accurate assessment."
Beryl turned toward him, anger flaring so fast she felt heat rush into her face.
Then it faded.
Not because she had forgiven him.
Because there was a shadow behind him.
Jervis noticed the direction of her stare. His smile faltered. Slowly, very slowly, he turned around.
Batman stood at the edge of the crater.
He had arrived without sound.
Of course he had.
His cape hung around him like a second piece of night, though the afternoon sun still pressed against the failing dome. The white lenses of his cowl moved from Jervis to Ace, then to Rebecca, Kairo, Beryl, the ruined garden, and the unconscious adults beyond.
His eyes missed nothing.
Jervis made a small sound.
It began as a sharp breath, then rose into something embarrassingly close to a cry.
"Oh."
Batman stepped down into the crater.
Jervis scrambled backward, one hand going to his hat as if it might offer legal protection. "Now, before this becomes unnecessarily physical, I feel the need to explain that the current arrangement has departed considerably from the original plan."
Batman said nothing.
"That is not comforting," Jervis added.
By then, several adults had noticed him.
Priscilla Penderghast was the first to react. Her face went pale, then tightened with relief and outrage at the same time. Mrs. Cobblepot clutched the edges of her torn coat and stared as though deciding whether Batman's presence improved the situation or merely made it more embarrassing. The guardians and staff who had recovered from the mind control began whispering, pointing, and trying to gather children closer.
"Batman!"
"Oh, thank God."
"Where did he come from?"
"Was he here the entire time?"
"Is that the Mad Hatter?"
Batman ignored the noise.
He took in Ace's condition, the slow collapse of the dome, Rebecca asleep beside Kairo, and Beryl's protective position between the children and everyone else. His gaze rested on Kairo for one second longer than the others.
Kairo felt it.
Batman knew something had happened.
Not everything, perhaps, but enough to understand that the five-year-old in the torn duck costume was sitting at the center of it.
Batman gave Beryl a small nod.
She returned it.
No words passed between them, but Beryl understood. He had recognized her. Perhaps not the costume, which had long since lost any hope of looking respectable, but her stance, her training, her past, and the old patterns heroes learned to spot in one another.
Then Batman reached down, grabbed Jervis by the back of his coat, and pulled him upright.
Jervis flailed. "Mind the tailoring!"
"You're coming with me."
"I would prefer a formal invitation."
Batman dragged him toward the slope of the crater.
Jervis twisted around, reaching one hand toward Ace. "Wait. She needs treatment. She is ill. You cannot let them take her back."
Batman paused.
The concern in Jervis's voice was real. That did not erase what he had done, but Batman heard it.
"She'll receive medical care," Batman said.
"Not Cadmus."
Beryl's eyes narrowed.
Batman's did not visibly change, but something in his stillness did.
"No Cadmus," he said.
Kairo breathed out.
Batman continued hauling Jervis upward, the Mad Hatter's shoes scraping through dirt as he tried to maintain some dignity and failed.
Once he reached the adults, Batman's mind was already moving through the scene. Controlled guests. Psychic influence. Missing magician. Costume assistants. Possible technology hidden in the flowers. A psychic dome created by Ace. A juvenile Man-Bat transformation. Children exposed to extreme danger.
Too many moving pieces.
He began issuing instructions in the clipped voice that made people obey before they fully understood why.
"Move everyone away from the remaining barrier. Do not touch the flowers or any equipment from the stage. Keep the children together. Medical teams enter only when I clear the perimeter."
Priscilla Penderghast stepped forward. "My daughter is still in the air."
Batman looked up.
Penelope circled overhead on Nimbus, waving as if this were the greatest day of her life.
"I'm fine!" she shouted. "Nimbus likes me!"
Priscilla's expression suggested that Penelope's opinion on the matter had not been requested.
Batman looked toward Beryl.
Beryl looked toward Penelope.
Then Beryl sighed.
"Of course," she muttered. "Why would anything be simple?"
She carefully lifted Rebecca first. The girl weighed almost nothing, though the limp heaviness of sleep made her awkward to carry. Beryl tucked her against one shoulder, supporting her neck. Then she bent and gathered Ace with her other arm.
Kairo started to stand.
Beryl looked at him. "Can you walk?"
"Yes."
"Any dizziness?"
"A little."
"Stay beside me."
"I can help carry someone."
"You have helped enough for one afternoon."
"That sounds rude."
"It is an order."
Kairo stood anyway, brushing dirt from his damaged costume, and followed Beryl up the crater's slope. She carried both girls with surprising ease, though her arms were already beginning to ache by the time they reached level ground.
She laid them carefully on the grass, placing Rebecca and Ace close enough that one blanket could cover both if needed. Rebecca shifted in her sleep, turning toward Ace as if pulled by some quiet understanding neither of them could explain.
The dome was now barely more than half intact.
It dripped light around the edges.
Beryl looked up toward Penelope. "Right. Birthday princess next."
Priscilla stood below the Pegasus with both hands clenched at her sides. "Penelope, come down immediately."
"But Nimbus doesn't want to."
"I do not care what Nimbus wants."
Nimbus let out an offended whinny.
Penelope gasped. "He heard you."
"Good. Then he knows I am serious."
Beryl approached carefully, lifting both hands. "Penelope, love, can you guide him lower?"
Penelope looked down. Her crown sat crooked. Her pale-blue dress was streaked with dirt. She looked happier than anyone had a right to look after surviving a psychic kidnapping.
"I can try."
"Please do more than try."
Penelope leaned forward and whispered into Nimbus's ear. The Pegasus circled once, then descended in a slow spiral, hooves touching the grass with surprising gentleness.
The moment Penelope's feet hit the ground, Priscilla grabbed her.
She checked her daughter's face, arms, hair, and costume while demanding to know if she was injured. Penelope kept trying to explain that Nimbus had saved her and was now part of the family.
Priscilla did not appear ready for that conversation.
Nimbus followed Penelope anyway.
Across the garden, Addison and Alaric finally reached their mother.
Mrs. Cobblepot dropped to her knees and pulled both children into her arms with such force that Addison squeaked. Alaric's face disappeared into one shoulder. Their mother held them as though she intended to fuse them back into her body and never let Gotham touch them again.
"Mother," Addison gasped, "I can't breathe."
"You are breathing enough to complain."
Alaric did not speak. He only wrapped both arms around her and held on.
Kairo watched everything happen.
The noise.
The adults calling names.
Batman controlling the scene.
Beryl arguing with Priscilla about whether Nimbus counted as a dangerous animal or a magical dependent.
The remaining dome thinning overhead.
For one small second, Kairo felt outside all of it.
Then the golden watch against his chest warmed.
Aurielis woke violently.
Her awareness tore through his mind like someone kicking open every door in a house while shouting that they had smelled smoke. Kairo felt her searching through his memories before she even spoke, racing backward across the last several minutes, then farther, touching the terror beneath the table, Rebecca's transformation, Ace's dome, the stopped time, and the strange empty space where her own consciousness should have been.
"What," Aurielis said inside his head, her voice low and dangerous, "the absolute, everlasting hell happened?"
Kairo winced.
She kept digging.
"No. Wait. Hold still. Stop thinking so loud. I'm trying to sort this out." Her Italian New York voice sharpened with each memory she found. "There was a magician. Of course there was a magician. There's always a magician when things go bad. A psychic kid. A giant bat. You jumped through stopped time. You touched somebody's life clock."
She paused and thought about what she just said, then her voice rose.
"You did what?"
Kairo rubbed one ear, though that did nothing to help.
Aurielis barreled onward. "And where was I? Sleeping. I was asleep. Me. An Angel of Time. Bound to a watch. Put to sleep like some old auntie after Sunday dinner. Who did that? Who the hell had the nerve, the power, or the deeply questionable judgment to tuck me into the spiritual equivalent of a coma?"
Kairo waited.
Aurielis searched harder, anger giving way to confusion.
"I can't find it," she said. "That's not possible. There should be a trace. Magic leaves residue. Psychic force leaves pressure. Divine influence leaves a signature. Even cheap sleeping powder leaves some type of clue, but I find nothing but my own embarrassment."
Kairo looked around the garden.
"You tell me," he thought back at her. "I could have used your help."
Aurielis went quiet.
Then, very softly, "Kid…"
He felt the guilt come through the bond before she spoke again. It was rare for Aurielis to lose her confidence. Rarer still for her to sound afraid.
"I know. I know you could have used me. I should've been there. I should've felt the second something touched the watch."
Kairo's anger softened, though it did not disappear. "You didn't choose to sleep."
"No, but something chose for me."
That was worse, a lot worse.
Aurielis searched the memories again. Kairo felt her moving through them, not stealing or invading, only trying to understand. She paused at the moment Death appeared.
Her entire presence froze.
"What is that?"
Kairo looked down at the watch.
"What is what?"
"There's a mark."
Her attention pressed against the face of the golden watch. Death's mark was not physically visible there, but Aurielis could feel it, a tiny black ankh wrapped in red thread, resting across the deeper magic.
Aurielis inhaled sharply.
"Oh."
Kairo's eyes narrowed. "You know what it is?"
"I know who it is."
"Death."
"Yes, thank you, I gathered that from the extremely Death-shaped divine signature sitting on my front porch."
Kairo almost smiled, "You're not funny."
Aurielis examined it with a mixture of awe, suspicion, and professional irritation. "She touched my watch."
"She touched me too."
"I saw."
"She gave me tacos."
"I also saw that."
"They were good."
"I'm sure Death has excellent taste. She's been around long enough to learn seasoning."
Kairo looked toward Ace and Rebecca. "She said she liked me."
Aurielis made a small sound. "Of course she likes you."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you are a strange little cosmic magnet and ancient women keep finding you interesting."
"That sounds bad."
"It is either very good or catastrophically bad. I'll let you know when I decide."
Kairo felt watched again.
The sensation returned without warning, sliding over the back of his neck. Eyes from far away. Not human eyes, perhaps not even eyes in the ordinary sense. The same awareness he had felt after leaving the mansion, only stronger now.
Something had noticed the mark.
Something had noticed Death.
Aurielis felt it through him.
Her tone changed instantly. "Do not look for them."
"I wasn't."
"You were about to."
"I was thinking about it."
"That counts."
"Who are they?"
"I don't know yet, and until I do, you are not reaching out with your powers, your magic, your mind, your emotional curiosity, or whatever other strange sense you discover in the next five minutes to the next few years."
Kairo frowned. "That sounds like a lot."
"It is. You are gifted in too many ways and responsible in too few."
"That was rude."
"That was love."
Kairo rolled his eyes.
At that moment, Penelope finally reached the ground and began walking away from her mother.
Nimbus followed.
Priscilla tried to block the Pegasus.
Nimbus stepped around her.
Penelope looked delighted. "See? He chose me."
Priscilla looked as if she were mentally calculating the cost of building a stable and resenting every number.
Kairo watched them for a few seconds, then felt Aurielis return to Death's mark again.
"She's powerful," Aurielis murmured.
"Death?"
"No, the flying horse. Yes, Death."
Kairo smiled. "She's pretty."
Aurielis did not answer immediately.
Kairo felt her examining his memory of Death beneath the umbrella. The pale skin. The wild black hair. The warm eyes. The black tank top, boots, silver ankh, and the lazy little smile she wore while eating a taco beside a frozen crater.
Aurielis let out a thoughtful hum.
Kairo's smile widened. "You think so too."
"I did not say that."
"You thought it loudly."
"Don't use her lines against me."
"Thirteen out of ten."
Aurielis sighed with great dignity. "Fine. Yes. Thirteen out of ten. Immortal babe."
Kairo nodded solemnly. "Very cute."
"Dangerously cute."
"Nice smile."
"Excellent boots."
"Good tacos."
"Strong umbrella game."
Kairo looked down at the watch. "You're not jealous?"
Aurielis scoffed so loudly inside his head that he nearly heard it with his ears. "Jealous? Please. I am an angelic embodiment of temporal authority with a voice people have crossed dimensions to hear."
"So, yes."
"No."
"You hesitated."
"I will throw you backward into nap time."
"You can't. You were asleep."
Aurielis went silent.
Kairo grinned.
Somewhere behind him, Beryl called his name, telling him to stay close and stop wandering.
Batman continued speaking with the adults. Police shapes gathered beyond the weakening dome. Ace and Rebecca slept side by side beneath the open sky, both alive, both free for at least another few minutes.
Kairo touched the watch with one finger.
Aurielis's voice softened.
"I'm here now, kid."
"I know."
"And I'm not going back to sleep until I figure out what happened."
"Good."
They stood together in the noise, one small boy and one deeply offended Angel of Time, watching the last pieces of the psychic dome melt away.
For the first time since the garden fell apart, Kairo felt almost safe.
Not completely.
Gotham did not seem to believe in completely.
But enough.
And somewhere beneath his skin, Death's mark gave one quiet pulse, like a private little laugh.