Victor was drinking. It was an E88 Bar, deep in their territory.

Nobody was bothering him. Good. Being a skill thief had some advantages. He knew how to keep drinking without passing out or getting drunk too quickly.

He was—

The room fell silent behind him. Victor paused, then looked into the mirror.

Trollhunter.

He wasn't dressed in his armor, or any of those ridiculous sweaters he liked to wear. Someone had managed to come up with a suit that didn't look silly, the somber colors blending into the surroundings. The various patrons stared at him, but nobody made a move.

Trollhunter had gone one on one with Lung. His girlfriend had gone one on one with Leviathan and they were both alive. Nobody needed Kaiser's hands-off order to realize they'd better not start anything.

"I thought the Truce was still on," Victor said.

"I'm off duty," Trollhunter replied. "Director Piggot is going to be pissed when she hears about this. Sitting next to you, I'm going to be in M/S confinement for the rest of the day, and then we go back to New Orleans for search and rescue."

"So why are you here? You don't seem like the gloating type."

"You and Othala were listed as custodial guardians. She was with you."

"Tammi." No sense in worrying about cape identities now.

"Yah." Jim paused. "She was doing evacuation duties."

"And then what? She decided to throw rocks at Leviathan?" he paused. "That's what Tammi did, isn't it, get in fights she should avoid? Like trying to go after you? That's why she was there!"

Trollhunter didn't say anything for a moment. "I don't know why she was there. You know that Endbringer fights are voluntary. She was part of my team. I put her on evacuation duty because the road was jammed and the waters were rising. She wasn't supposed to get near Leviathan."

"So she died for a bunch of mud people who were too stupid to get to the shelters."

Trollhunter tensed, holding his breath, then blew it out, slowly.

"She died for a bunch of people who were too frightened to think straight. Kids, men, women. She lifted them up on her flat beds and before Leviathan came…" Jim shook his head. "I don't know how many she got to Claire. A lot."

"And then what?"

"Leviathan. He moved, I'd never believed something that didn't fly would be able to move so fast. There was a tidal wave. She had two loads with her—she looked back, but didn't drop them… Then the wave caught them all."

"And you survived."

"And I survived. Because Leviathan decided to go after Claire, not me."

"So now you told me how she died. Why are you here."

"She was the first," Jim said quietly. "I've had friends die before, people fighting alongside me. But she was the first person I sent to her death. If I had told her to go away, like I did someone else… She might be alive."

"Like you said, Endbringer fights are voluntary. You couldn't have done that," Victor said. He owed the kid that. At least he wasn't talking about how Tammi had somehow redeemed herself for the Empire in death.

"Maybe not. But she was my responsibility." He glanced over at Victor. "And I'm here to ask for something."

"What?"

Trollhunter told him. Victor reached down into his wallet and came up with a picture, handed it to Trollhunter.

Tammi, sitting on a horse with a dubious expression on her face. "That was when she was seven," Victor said.

"She looks…" Trollhunter stared. "Nervous."

"She never liked heights, at least not before her trigger. They got her nervous and that got her stuttering."

Trollhunter didn't laugh. He took the picture from Victor's hands and nodded. "Thank you. I'm… I'm sorry she died. If I could have saved her I would have."

"Yeah." Victor paused. "Kaiser sold her out. Figured that she'd spend some time in juvie, mouth off, get the shit kicked out of her by everyone else and come back more dedicated than ever. She figured we were going to fight for her, that she'd already paid when Hookwolf used her for a punching bag, and then Kaiser told her she was going to… surrender. Because she was loyal to the Empire." He gripped the beer tightly. "My last talk with her was at the Endbringer briefing. She was pissed. My last talk with her."

"I'm sorry." Trollhunter looked around. "The Empire… all the capes that she worked with…"

"Yeah?"

"Why aren't they with you now? This is when people need their friends."

The words were completely guileless, Victor knew. No gotcha about them, just an honest question.

And that made it hit harder than Hookwolf. Something bubbled up, a thought given form.

"You can tell Piggot that Othala and I aren't going to stick around the Bay."

"What about—"

"Fuck the Bay, fuck the E88, and fuck Kaiser." Victor shook his head. "I'd like to get back to my drinking now."

"Sure." Trollhunter got up and left Victor to his drinking. He figured that Kaiser would call him in tonight, assuming that he was just pissed and would come back aboard.

That was fine. They'd be long gone by then.

Jim walked down the street to the PRT building. He hadn't been near Victor long enough to suffer a skill drain, but Piggot and Armsmaster had both been pissed, so he'd go right into M/S when he got there.

That was fine. From the reports, Victor and Othala had been as close to Tammi as anyone, and they deserved to know how she had died.

He looked down at the picture. Did you change your mind at the last? Is one good deed enough to make up for everything else?

But she wasn't any older than Jim—younger, actually. Did that mean anything? He'd forgiven Stricklander, and Stricklander had probably killed more people than the entire E88 put together—hell the only difference between Stricklander, when Jim had first met him, and Kaiser, was that Stricklander saw all humans as inferior.

Jim sighed and put the photo in his wallet. The decisions Tammi had made were hers. He would mourn the 7-year-old who could have taken a different path, and the lost chance that she might have one day made the right decision.

Where she might end up, what judgment she'd face? That was up to Someone other than Jim.

With that, he walked into the PRT building to face the music.