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One by one, the heroes of Brockton Bay packed their bags, said their goodbyes, and made for their new assignments. Over the course of several days, the city gradually emptied.

Amy and Shaper were the first to leave, having quickly established work for themselves in rotation both among several of Boston's hospitals and with its Protectorate division.

Armsmaster left next, just as soon as the transfer of command of the Detroit Protectorate team came through.

The former Undersiders and Travelers left for the West Coast together. A report of certain shenanigans involving an ape-like projection driving a baggage cart and a sudden onset of synchronized dancing in SFO airport crossed my metaphorical desk only two days later. No one was hurt or even especially inconvenienced, so I merely sent Alec and Jess the mental equivalent of a disapproving look over the mental link we now shared through the Rings and allowed the affair to proceed to the proper authorities. They would probably be caught, but their punishments would be mild.

Carlos left shortly after that. With everything that had happened, his entire family had been willing to uproot and follow him to Florida, where he had been inducted directly into the Miami Protectorate, the first of my Wards to officially graduate. He sent me occasional status updates over the first few days, describing the way the Miami PRT worked much more closely with local police than the Brockton Bay division had, and how the chain of command was much more rigid than he was used to. But he seemed to be settling in well and was already being scouted for leadership roles.

Sam left after that, with Chris following only a few hours later. Chicago was not all Sam had hoped—he still stood out as exceptional, being one of the team that had faced down Leviathan, one of the Wards who had cleaned up Brockton Bay. Nonetheless, Myrddin seemed to understand his desire for normalcy and Sam got the impression he was actively trying to pull focus away from Browbeat as he settled into his new role. Chris, on the other hand, was fitting into the San Diego Wards perfectly. He reported that he was starting to get back in touch with his power only a day later, and that he had some idea what his original specialty might have been before his Ring expanded it. Something like… assembly lines? his voice had said thoughtfully in my head. Not the actual assembly line, but… replaceable parts, or something. Still working on it.

Dean and Missy had some trouble convincing their families to let them leave. Missy's parents had apparently grown rather clingy as her role in the city grew, much to her annoyance, while Dean's family had always been difficult to escape, especially when his father seemed to feel Dean owed him some sort of loyalty for the power he had purchased. In the end, I had gone to visit both families in person.

To Dean's father and stepmother, I explained that their son was being sought after by some of the most influential people in Cape society. I framed his move as an opportunity for him to spread his wings, to grow his network, to extend his reach. Once it was so presented, they caved immediately. Dean didn't look entirely happy about it, but he and I both agreed that if having an empath under their roof for years hadn't given them a proper dose of self-awareness, then it wasn't a conflict we wanted to push our way through now.

To Missy's parents, I was less kind. I never raised my voice. I never said anything accusatory. I didn't need to. I only asked three questions. The next day, they had signed the paperwork. The day after, they had filed for divorce.

The last to leave was Emma. I had kept as far from the discussions as possible, partly at the request of officials who didn't want there to be any potential conflicts of interest, but mostly because I couldn't trust myself to be objective where the rest of the Barnes family was concerned. I could trust Emma again, perhaps, but it would take a lot more work before I could look Alan Barnes in the eye again.

Emma had quietly requested to be separated from her parents, and to have technical custody given to her sister in New York. It hadn't been trivial, because Anne Barnes was a superhero as Brigandine—but not a member of the Protectorate. In the end, Emma had moved in with her sister, who had been willing to unmask to the local Wards and Protectorate in New York in order to host her. Alan Barnes had originally fought the ruling, but his divorce-attorney training had quickly been monopolized by his own impending divorce from his wife, and he'd been forced to accept what Emma wanted.

Emma still came back to the Bay with some regularity. Every couple of weeks she would visit for a weekend, during which time she threw herself into cleanup efforts and community service. She also made the time, with each visit, to visit Rune in juvie. I didn't probe the details of their conversations, but so far it didn't seem like Rune was willing to take any real steps towards change.

Eventually Dennis, Sophia and I were the only Ring-Bearers left in the Bay. Dennis wasn't spending as much time at PRT HQ anymore—he didn't need to be physically present for me to reach him, after all, and there was little enough real hero work that he had more free time to spend with Laserdream and her family. I gathered from the vague thoughts that floated carelessly from his mind into the network that he was thinking about leaving the Protectorate entirely and joining New Wave at some point in the future. I wondered if he and Crystal would see that as more or less of a commitment than actual marriage.

Piggot refused to truly relax, though she gave her troops more slack than she had before. She kept working as hard as ever to ensure that the city was regularly patrolled and that all of the infrastructure meant to minimize damage in case of cape action kept running as smoothly as ever. "You're not going to be here forever," she told me. "And even if you were—us normal people have to do this for ourselves when we can."

"You don't have to justify yourself to me," I replied. "I agree entirely."

The city was at last settling into a new equilibrium—and so, I found, was I.

The boat graveyard had been gradually cleaning itself up under the influence of my power, but I took a few days to finish that process with the help of Dad and his dockworkers. Soon, a few brave investors began reopening the shipping lanes. It was a slow process, but I could see in Dad's face every evening when he came home that things were looking up.

Sophia quietly stopped coming home to her family. They noticed, of course. First Steven and then her mother tried to reach out to the Wards, and to her. She stonewalled them for a while, and then at last had a single conversation with her mother. I held her as she gave a perfectly level explanation of the situation. I pulled her close as she had to hold the phone a few inches away from her ear when the shouting started.

"She's not going to listen," I observed sadly.

"No," Sophia agreed, too quiet to be picked up by the phone over her mother's voice. Then she cleared her throat and brought the mouthpiece back to her lips. "Mom?" she said, loudly, interrupting the tirade. "I'm testing for my GED in a few days. I'm going to be staying at PRT HQ or the Rig, or at Taylor's house, from now on. If you force me to, I'll apply for emancipation. If I do, and you try to fight me, you'll lose. End of story."

"Sophia—!"

"Goodbye, Mom. We'll talk again another time." She hung up, leaned into me, took a deep breath, and began to cry.

We spent most of our time together, not that we hadn't before. But the timbre of our relationship was markedly different now. Where before I had noted idly how deep her eyes could be, now I allowed myself to swim in them for minutes on end. Occasionally clasped hands became tugs into embraces and sudden kisses. At this point, after everything that had happened, both of our identities were fairly open secrets, so we didn't bother limiting our relationship to either inside or outside of the masks. One day, Sophia and Taylor would go to dinner together. The next, Shadow Stalker and Mairë strolled down the boardwalk.

I was happy. Even more incredibly, I was at peace. It couldn't last, of course. But it didn't have to.

For more than a month I lived a simple life of simple pleasures, and I had never once been happier.

"I've been thinking," Sophia said one day over fish and chips.

"Hm?" I mumbled around a mouthful.

We were seated at one of the recently renovated restaurants on the boardwalk. The clear waters of the Bay sparkled, reflecting off the polished wood and spotless windows. Small leisure boats dotted the water, and in the distance I could just make out the movement of a crane unloading a cargo ship at the docks.

"I want to rebrand," she said, turning a fry around in her fingers thoughtfully. "There was never really time before, and I just figured I'd wait until I graduated to the Protectorate. But there's really no time like the present."

I swallowed. "I understand," I said. "You don't have to, you know?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I understand," she said. "I could try to reclaim the name—make Shadow Stalker mean who I am now, instead of who I was. I just don't really think it's worth it. Besides—it's not what I do anymore. Ambushes aren't really my style these days." She smiled at me, the gentle expression softening the hard lines of her face. "It's not just the connotation the name has—it's also the literal definitions of the words themselves. They just don't fit anymore."

"You're preaching to the choir," I said with a rueful grin. "I told you what Sauron literally means, right?"

"Yeah, that. Exactly."

There was silence for a moment as we ate. I looked out over the bay for a moment, then let my eyes drift back to her. The sea-breeze in her hair set it rippling, even done up as it was in a ponytail. "Do you have any ideas for your new name?" I asked eventually. "And for a new costume?"

"I don't think the costume needs to change much," she replied. "I'm not trying to hide that I was Shadow Stalker—just trying to show that's not who I am now. Might change the color a bit. Less black, more green."

"You do look good in green."

She smirked at me, wiggling the fingers of her left hand in my direction. Cenya glimmered. "Flatterer," she said. "But, yeah, that. As for the name… I was originally thinking 'Vigilant.'" She hesitated. "But… I thought I'd ask if you would help me come up with a name in Quenya."

I blinked. "Really?"

She flushed. "Yeah. I mean. If you don't think—"

I reached across the table and took her hand. "I think we're a matched set by now," I said, smiling at her.

Her flush deepend. "I mean. I didn't want to assume."

"You're adorable," I told her, my smile practically splitting my cheeks. "I love it. How about Tirissëo? That's how you'd translate Vigilant into Quenya."

She slowly mouthed the name. "Tirissëo. Yeah. I could get used to that." She smiled at me, her face still flushed dark. "I like it. I'll bring it up with PR."

Sophia's change of identity went incredibly smoothly, especially considering I didn't get involved with a single step of the process. Her cloak and bodysuit were reissued in a dark, forest green—still capable of blending into the night, but evocative now of the same verdure that I always seemed to think of when I gazed into her eyes. Her mask was also changed—a subtle shift in the expression of the woman's face suggested a change from righteous anger to stalwart determination, and the black paint was replaced with a silver polish.

Less than a week after Sophia had brought up the topic over lunch, Shadow Stalker was formally retired, and Tirissëo was reintroduced at a press conference. "I'm not the same hero I was," she had said to the cameras as I watched from the green room. "But then, I haven't been for a while. This is just the branding catching up to me."

PR had originally wanted to leave the link between Shadow Stalker and Tirissëo unconfirmed. Sophia had flatly refused. "The journey is the point," she'd said frustratedly to a bemused agent. "Stop focusing so much about the public's interests now—in two years, three, five? People will remember how the edgy, antihero Shadow Stalker became Tirissëo, and how she owned it, a lot more than they'll remember playing the speculation game on PHO and dodging mod bans. It's about showing my growth—and taking pride in it."

After the conference, was a brief Q&A. The first question was, predictably, "Is it true you and Mairë are dating?"

My heart fluttered a little when Sophia dryly replied, "Is the sky blue? Yes. I thought you might have actual questions."

Sophia returned to the green room about an hour after she left it. I took her hand and opened the door, intending to lead her out to a nearby restaurant for brunch.

Just outside the door stood a woman in an impeccably tailored suit. A fedora was perched on her rich brown hair. Dark circles bloomed around her blue eyes. One hand was raised to knock, but limply, as though she had been thinking of knocking for several seconds at least.

Contessa's eyes met mine. For a moment, there was silence.

"Well," I said. "Care to join us for brunch?"