"You?" Saturday surveys him once more: Mr. Tough Guy, with his hard tattoos and his soft hands. Not much there to protect the world from. Maybe something worth protecting himself from. Hadn't her pops done the same damn thing? Keep his secrets until the last possible minute, until it was too late for her to make the smart choices.

Not his fault. He was an old man, tired and afraid of losing more children.

She wonders, now, how much worse it might have been if he'd just been - fucking with her, or determined to drive Sol off and keep his dream of a normal life. The dream that had protected her, and left her a little too soft. Or maybe just soft enough. Time would tell.

It means you are waking from a long dream, he'd told her, when she asked what her sword's new power meant. A dream from which I had hoped you would never wake. A foolish hope.

Her head tilts, her mouth drawing down in a focused, analytical sort of frown. And makes another educated guess.

"Okay. So. What's the big secret power or whatever you've got, and how did it hurt your mother?"