"I tried," Koumyou tells him with a sigh, finally sitting back down on the edge of their bed. "I tried to reason with her, to explain what she had done, why it was wrong. Why she was wrong."

He looks over at Devero, quieter now.

"She wasn't just ego, Devero, I was partially wrong on that. She wasn't willfully evil, she was incapable of empathy. Incapable of seeing anyone else as a person. Anyone. Incapable of love, no matter what you might have done, you would have never gotten that from her."

He has to look away, rage boiling under his skin again but not at Devero, no. Never at Devero.

"If she'd been caught before they gave her power, helped, she might have been okay."