By nightfall, she began to worry. The trauma wasn't serious, but with even a mild concussion, she couldn't guarantee that the angel arm would be stable. She doubted what she was doing, but still she walked onward. Any moment, she felt she'd begin to hear the raiders. Any moment…

Yet when the rustling strides of an approaching toma finally met her ears, the sound came from the direction of the garden. Her throat tightened, as did her fists. Yet she still walked.

The pace didn't slow until it was very near, and then the sole tomas trotted towards her, around, and finally stopped her dead in her tracks. Growling low, she stepped around the tomas, and walked away. It came alongside her, matching her footfalls.

"Why are you doing this," he asked softly. "What do you think-"

"You know what I'm doing."

"Then why try to trick me? I have a scope, you know."

The barn roof! Damn it, he must've climbed up there and seen her turn from Glaston-ward towards the valley mouth. "I can hold my own against you, you know. You may as well-"

"Were you going to use Callisto for this?" he suddenly interrupted. "How could you bring her into this, the strain would probably kill her! The garden's defenseless now, if someone were to raid it at this moment we're too far to…You were really willing to put Callisto in that kind of danger?"

"Huh?" She looked up at him, confused. He was pointing behind her, where Vanessa spotted a figure on foot, about a forth an ile back. "How in the…"

"She jumped out after you did."

"She was in the cart? That sneaky little…"

"Perhaps you were too distracted to notice," he surmised, dismounting from his tomas to walk alongside her. "Vanessa, I'm sorry about your head. They're trained with a whistle; I suppose I never mentioned it. Come back," he demanded. "It's not going to work."

Vanessa's eyes watered from the throbbing of her head, and the suns were so bright… "I've done this a hundred times before. It always works," she grumbled.

"Not on these humans, it won't. I spoke with the siblings, before I sent them off, to NEGOTIATE, mind you. And from what they told me, I know those men won't run off in fear of you. They're desperate, unreasonably focused…Wave your weapon around, and they'll keep coming," he explained. Pausing, he waited for a response, but she stared forward angrily, quickening her pace. She was stumbling some. "They heard about your weapon, they'll be wary of it. Word spread fast after your escape, and the description of your arm was…well, to my recollection, it's remarkably accurate. They all know about it. They're not terribly afraid."

"What…?"

"You didn't kill anyone, Vanessa. They…Una and…Corn, or something like that? They lived."

"But I…"

"You thought you killed them. But you didn't – it would've been an easy mistake to make, given the state you were in."

Sure, she was dizzy and disoriented and her vision was hazy at the time, but she was so certain that there was a lot of red, that their injuries were extensive.

"I'm not going to kill anyone, that's not the plan," he continued genially. "I sent the siblings off to appeal to reason. Would believe me if I'd told you my plan?"

She thought a moment. "But, you just said, they're unreasonable…"

"No I didn't. I'm just trying to say fear won't work on them, not from you. They'd be more likely to shoot you upon spotting you, once they saw the woman from the story than to turn tail and run from you."

"Shut up! I can't risk believing you! Even if you DO know all that, if you really mean to do what you say, if it doesn't work out you'd still kill-"

"Vanessa!" he roared, grabbing her by the shoulders to stop her. "I don't want to play the judge and executioner anymore! Didn't you say I've changed? Have you changed your mind? A few lies from a girl you've never met, and I'm a monster again?"

Frowning, Vanessa stared off in Callisto's direction. She was just standing still, like them. "She speaks the truth," she sighed.

Knives' hands left her shoulders. He gazed at the side of her face she had turned to him, the scarred part. "How unfortunate," he murmured as he watched her watch Callisto, and in one swift motion he plunged a little syringe full of fluid into her shoulder.

"Whu-" she tried softly, as her eyes unfocused and she fell into his arms.