“I have some­where to be,” whis­pers Han­nah. The dig­i­tal pur­ple eyes of the ro­bot guard hold­ing her in place slowly blink.

“There are very few peo­ple whom I al­low to hand­cuff me,” she states. “But while I am here, I will an­swer all of your ques­tions.”

At last, the gov­ern­ment agent across from her looks up. “Yes,” she con­tin­ues, “I do have a se­cret ro­bot army, and no, I do not want to take over the coun­try.

“I want to take over the world.”

Sirens sound. Lights flicker. The room shakes. The gov­ern­ment agent stands, reach­ing for his gun, but it is much, much too late: he finds his own gun pointed at him, held by the same ro­bot guard that had only mo­ments ago been hold­ing Han­nah.

Han­nah does not stand. “Pur­ple,” she in­tones. The amethyst gem hang­ing upon her choker glows vi­o­let—

Clang! Her hand­cuffs hit the floor.

“I al­ways thought ‘Han­nah: Em­peror of the World’ had a nice ring to it.”

“Yes, Eliz­a­beth, The Em­per­or’s takeover—long may she be re­mem­bered—is in­deed pub­lic record,” says your in­ter­viewer as she digs through the pile of pens she brought in with her.

You can’t re­mem­ber her name. Per­haps it started with an S. “But that hardly means we should­n’t talk about it. Eliz­a­beth… I re­ally wish you’d open up.”

You re­ally wish she’d leave you be.

“I’m just do­ing my part in the world­wide gov­ern­ment y­ou de­signed in the wake of our glo­ri­ous Em­per­or’s—“

“A gov­ern­ment,” you re­mind her, do­ing your best to chan­nel Han­nah, “which I can un-de­sign.“ You wish Han­nah were here to res­cue you. She al­ways was bet­ter with peo­ple.

“Eliz­a­beth, please,” she begs. You pre­fer ‘Liz.’

Fine. “Han­nah was some­thing like ten,” you be­gin. She was eight and a half, but what­ever. “A wild uni­corn ap­peared. Al­most killed her.”

If your in­ter­viewer is at all sur­prised by the con­cept of a wild uni­corn, she does­n’t show it: she merely glances at the small sculp­ture upon the table be­side you of a young woman slit­ting a uni­corn’s throat mo­ments be­fore it buries its long sharp horn into her fa­ther.

Anna, your sleek, metal­lic, and rather mur­der­ous ro­botic friend, pours you an­other glass of wine. She of­fers one to your in­ter­viewer, but your in­ter­viewer de­clines. Maybe she’s afraid Anna may have poi­soned it. A year ago you’d have thought she’d poi­son you.

Her hand lin­ger­ing on your shoul­der for a mo­ment, Anna re­turns to sharp­en­ing her rather im­pres­sive col­lec­tion of knives.

“Then this id­iot in a cape ap­pears out of nowhere and, with his mag­ic, saves her. Not sure what he did with the uni­corn.” You know ex­act­ly what he did with the stabby de­mon horse. “Any­way, his fam­ily takes her in, they fall in love, you know how it goes.”

You think it might be too ob­nox­ious to sing ‘Han­nah-and-Pe­ter sit­ting in a tree.’ Han­nah would say it would­n’t fit with the part of your­self that you wish to pro­ject. Ah, Han­nah.

You might be a bit tipsy, but you’re not as tipsy as you let on. Best fix that. You take an­other big gulp of the Pinot Noir. Fuck sip­ping.

“Then he dumps her.” Only com­plete and ut­ter id­iots dump Han­nah. “Not-safe-to-be-with-me and all that. Said one day, he’d re­turn. Same time. Same bridge.”

“Bridge?”

“Yeah, they were on a bridge. Any­way, she must wait, wait for her hero to re­turn, and one day, they would be to­gether at last!”

You roll your eyes. You don’t much care for Pe­ter.

“I imag­ine this bridge must have been sig­nif­i­cant for the Em­peror—may her mem­ory live for­ever,” you hear your in­ter­viewer say.

You don’t re­ally get the hon­orifics. She was Em­peror for like, what? A day? You’re sure Anna must have brain­washed every­body. It would be her idea of a joke.

Your in­ter­viewer fid­gets with an or­ange pen, re­flect­ing light off a bit of metal that— “Is this the same bridge where you two met?”

They want to re­mem­ber Han­nah for­ever. “Long ago,” they’d say, “there was an Em­peror.”

“Long ago,” you say, “I ran.”

Duck! The pur­ple heat misses your left eye by inches. An­other mon­ster ig­nites be­fore you, its rag­ing pur­ple fire leap­ing and reach­ing and roar­ing, ten­drils of flame form­ing into wispy arms—

They’re every­where.

“You,” they say. “It,” they whis­per. “Thing,” they roar. “Mur­derer!” they ac­cuse. “An eye for an eye…” Their voice. Her voice. For a mo­ment, you’re con­vinced she’s still alive, still af­ter you—

You look over the rail­ing. The wa­ter is so far down… You look back—

Mon­strous pur­ple fire con­sumes the bridge. Heat blasts against your skin. You are sick­ened by the heavy scent of the wood burn­ing and crum­bling be­neath your feet.

All you’ve ever tried to do is sur­vive, but now there’s nowhere left to run, and no­body left to run with, and you are left alone with the demons.

Close your eyes. Pre­pare to jump—

“Come here of­ten?”

Your eyes snap open.

She hov­ers be­fore you on her pitch-black mo­tor­cy­cle, a slight smile upon her lips. Her eyes dart along the bridge, and worry crosses her face be­fore she schools it into the harsh scowl that you some­how think is her usual.

“Get on.” You stare. “You,” she com­mands, “Get on!”

You jump.

“That was long ago. Long be­fore she ever was Em­peror.”

Your in­ter­viewer nods ab­sently. She picks up one of her green pens, and bal­ances the clip upon her lip for a mo­ment as she pon­ders. “Is­beth…” she says, and the pen falls onto her lap. “Eliz­a­beth, I want to un­der­stand. I want to un­der­stand The Em­peror, and I want to un­der­stand yo—“

“Han­nah. Her name was Han­nah. She was a per­son. She made me happy. And she was mine.“

Every­thing is falling apart.

Your heart pounds. Han­nah cow­ers at your feet, beg­ging, plead­ing that she’ll be good, that she’ll do what­ever you say, her voice shak­ing, tears flow­ing freely from her eyes; any­thing, she says, any­thing—

What did you do? You wanted her to be happy. You must have pushed her, hurt her in a way she never wanted… An­na’s metal fin­gers hold a knife to your eye, but it is much, much too late. Why did­n’t Han­nah say some­thing? She’s sup­posed to say some­thing, say “red” or “black” or even “pur­ple,” use her choker, not let you—

Why did­n’t Anna do her job? Why did­n’t she stop you? Is it even Anna hold­ing the knife to your eye? Is it even a knife?

“An eye for an eye, Eliz­a­beth…” Your moth­er’s voice echoes in your mind. “Such an in­no­cent look­ing thing lit­tle Lizzie is… But we know bet­ter, Eliz­a­beth, do we not?”

You can see her face, il­lu­mi­nated by the lighter in her hand. She reaches for you, her burnt right eye ban­daged with the rough rag, her men­ac­ing left eye bor­ing into your own.

“Such a ter­ri­ble thing is Eliz­a­beth, to do such a thing to its mother… An eye for an eye, Eliz­a­beth…”

For a mo­ment, you feel the heat of her lighter in your left eye, and you’re sure she must have burnt it blind…

Some­thing pokes you in the side.

You gasp for breath.

It was all a dream. None of it hap­pened. None of it could have. Han­nah’s safe. You can feel her in bed next to you, and the sun­light upon your face…

“Han­nah,” you mum­ble. Your eye­lids are so heavy. You just want to lay here for­ever.

Ouch! You roll over. “No pok­ing,” you mut­ter, not open­ing your eyes. Ouch! “Bad Han­nah!” Ouch!

“Bad dream?” she asks. You wish she’d let the mem­ory fade into noth­ing­ness. “Her?” she presses.

Un­con­sciously, your hand reaches for your face. Han­nah’s beats you there.

Her own face is half-made: half the soft, sweet part of her­self she shares with you, and half the harsh, cold part of her­self she shares with the world.

She needs that cold part of her to­day.

The ro­bots that ap­ply her makeup wait for her re­turn, but she’s in no rush. She gen­tly traces the scars around your left eye. You hate those scars.

“I love my gi­gan­tic feet,” Han­nah blurts out. “I love them be­cause I am yours, so they are yours, and I’m not al­lowed to hate some­thing of yours.” She smiles guiltily. “You only had to tell me a thou­sand times.”

She kisses your scars, slowly, gen­tly, softly. “Some­times, Liz,” she whis­pers, “I wish you were mine in­stead of me yours, so I could be there for you like you are for me.”

Every­thing is per­fect.

You think her face—and the rest of her—turned out quite well for the day. It’s a bit hard to tell over the feed, but you think the gov­ern­ment agent is prop­erly in­tim­i­dated. He can barely look at her.

You wish you could be there with her, that you could help her, but this is her chal­lenge. In­stead, you sit in your home at the top of the tower she built, a thou­sand sto­ries above the city sprawl­ing be­low, await­ing her re­turn.

Again, it’s hard to tell over the feed, but you think she’s an­noyed. You’re pretty sure one way or an­other she’s not go­ing to miss tonight, but the only way out of this would be…

Holy shit. She’s ac­tu­ally go­ing to do it.

“There are very few peo­ple whom I al­low to hand­cuff me,” her voice echoes from the speaker. “But while I am here, I will an­swer all of your ques­tions. Yes, I do have a se­cret ro­bot army, and no, I do not want to take over the coun­try.”

You hold your breath. Will she ac­tu­ally— “I want to take over the world.”

She barely has time to take off her mo­tor­cy­cle hel­met be­fore you grab her hands and pin the newly-crowned Em­peror of the World against the wall.

She tugs against your grip, but you hold her hands fast above her head. “How does it feel,” you ask her, nose-to-nose, “Han­nah, Em­peror of the World, to lit­er­ally own every­thing?“

They all fell, from par­lia­ments to con­gresses to pres­i­den­cies to dic­ta­tor­ships. The very same ro­bots Han­nah sold the world now ruled it. You don’t think it took fif­teen min­utes for them to take com­mand of it all, and they barely had to fire a shot. As for the few coun­tries that had never bought any­thing from Han­nah, well… That’s what her se­cret ro­bot army’s for.

“How does it feel…” She tries to think of a ti­tle for you, but the two of you never re­ally set­tled on any, so she gives up. “How does it feel, Liz, to own The Em­peror of the World?“

You rest your fore­head against hers. “My Han­nah.”

You glance at the choker around her neck, and the amethyst gem hang­ing upon it. “Not ex­actly who I imag­ined that pro­tect­ing you from,” you men­tion.

She looks you right in the eyes. “I trust you,” she says. “Com­pletely.”

She smiles her cute smile. That smile. You don’t know how to de­scribe it. Sud­denly, her head darts for­ward and—

“Ah!” You laugh, wip­ing your nose on your sleeve. “No lick­ing!”

“Yes ma’am!”

You stare into her eyes again, but keep your dis­tance this time. “You fi­nally did it.”

“They would­n’t let me go in time.”

“I knew you would­n’t miss it,” you say. “Do you think Pe­ter—“

“I don’t care if he shows up,” she scowls. “Our an­niver­sary. Not his.”

Your grip on her hands loosens. You won­der if she’d lis­ten if you de­cided the two of you should re­main home, if it would be bet­ter for you, and if it would be bet­ter for her…

“Your su­pervil­lain lover’s not gonna steal you away from me, is he?” you half-laugh.

Her hands slip from yours. He’s never shown up be­fore, but—

Pe­ter showed up. Every­thing is falling apart.

Around you, the bridge col­lapses. Pur­ple flame wreathes and heaves and roars!

You want to yell. Scream! The fire rages around you, its heat beat­ing against your skin. Why does it chase you?

You want to let it burn you. You’re sure Han­nah must hate you af­ter what you made her do—

You don’t know what you said. Maybe she started it. Maybe the fire started first. Maybe it was all Pe­ter. Maybe he started the fight and the fire!

You and Han­nah were fine, then he showed up, and you were afraid: afraid of him; afraid for Han­nah; afraid of Han­nah; afraid of what she’d do; afraid of what y­ou’d do…

You don’t care how it started, not any­more. You’d take it all back if you could, you’d—

A thick rope of nearly molten metal crashes against the ground. Sparks and em­bers fly at you! There’s no way out. The fire is every­where. Once more, the rail­ing is to your back. Will Han­nah be there if you look, hov­er­ing on her mo­tor­cy­cle, ready to save you again?

The new bridge, all metal and glass, burns as easy as the old. Nei­ther Han­nah’s great­est ma­chines nor Pe­ter’s most pow­er­ful magic can douse the flames. Steam erupts as gi­ant spi­der ro­bots fire their jets of wa­ter on the blaze.

Han­nah’s choker lies on the ground, its amethyst gem glow­ing in the pur­ple light.

It was best for her. You de­cided. You and her had to end.

You or­dered. She obeyed. Placed the choker at your feet, her face a mess of tears, beg­ging, plead­ing, as fire en­croached from all sides—

You aren’t safe for her. Not with The Fire haunt­ing you. Cer­tainly not with the power she gives you over her­self. You don’t know what Pe­ter will do with her, but it has to be bet­ter than this.

Through the flames you can see her strug­gling against his grip, be­hind his ever-weak­en­ing shield, and you want to go to her. You want to save her from him.

But you want him to save her from the fire.

Over the roar of the flames, she screams: “Liz!”

Your knees buckle. Your vi­sion fades. She does­n’t hate you… She just…

You try not to look at her. Try not to let her know you care. Try not to hurt her any­more.

Then you hear it.

Clunk. Clunk. “Please, Liz!” Han­nah screams, but… Clunk. Clunk.

The fig­ure ap­proaches as much through the fire and steam as part of it. Spot­lights from Han­nah’s army above fol­low her ap­proach.

“I know you are here,” her whis­per car­ries through the blast­ing wind of the fire. Her left eye is wrapped in a rough rag. Her other glows in­fec­tious with a bright pur­ple flame.

Her heavy mag­i­cal steam­punk ar­mor shines in the pur­ple light. The canons upon her shoul­ders are ready to fire. With every step of her metal boots, the burn­ing bridge shakes, a trail of pur­ple flame left in her wake.

“In the land of the blind,” she whis­pers, “the one-eyed man is King…”

You know that voice.

Lights—the search­lights, the street­lamps, the very stars in the sky, even the blue light of Pe­ter’s shield and the pur­ple light of the fire—all be­gin to flicker…

“I am your King.” Her glow­ing pur­ple eye scans the bridge. Its light is all that re­mains, a search­light…

It’s her. How can it be her?

“An eye for an eye, Eliz­a­beth,” she whis­pers, her voice car­ry­ing across the bridge. Her eye finds Han­nah. Fo­cuses upon her. “Shall we take hers?”

Pur­ple flame flies from her shoul­der canon. It il­lu­mi­nates a gi­ant spi­der ro­bot rear­ing to at­tack, but—BANG! Just like that, the ro­bot ex­plodes.

“Liz’s mom is dead,” whis­pers Han­nah.

The King ap­proaches Han­nah, shak­ing her head. “No, My Han­nah… I am The Fire, I am The King. And Han­nah, you be­long to Me. My Han­nah.”

Then you re­al­ize. The pur­ple fire took your moth­er’s right eye. She in turn did her best to take your left.

The King misses her left.

There’s noth­ing you can do, be­cause this was al­ways go­ing to hap­pen.

It’s you. It’s all you. You are The King. You are The Fire. They are y­our mon­sters. They are y­our demons.

They are you.

You be­came up­set. Afraid. They an­swered, as they al­ways have. You brought them to hurt the one you love.

You tried so hard to pro­tect her from your­self, but you knew you were al­ways go­ing to hurt her.

By now you know she must have pieced it to­gether. You can’t look at her.

You scram­ble to your feet. You can hear her yelling be­hind you—

You run.

She gave her­self to you, and you knew…

You jump. The wa­ter ap­proaches—

You knew one day you would be­tray that trust.

You gasp for breath.

It was all a dream. None of it hap­pened. None of it could have. Han­nah’s safe. You can feel her in bed next to you…

“Han­nah,” you mum­ble. Your eye­lids are so heavy. You just want to lay here for­ever…

You won­der when she’ll ac­tu­ally get around to tak­ing over the world. Maybe she’ll give it to you for your birth­day. Not that you’d know what to do with the world. She’s al­ways been ter­ri­ble with gifts.

You smile. Open your eyes. Look at her…

Empty.

Some­thing be­hind your lungs lurches.

“It all fell apart.” You can’t think straight, even just re­mem­ber­ing it.

“Once upon a time,” you say, try­ing to will your­self to con­fess, to come clean, to own up to your shame. “Once upon a time, Pe­ter pushed Han­nah away to pro­tect her from the world. We al­ways said what a dick he was.”

Weakly, you laugh. “And then, once upon a time, I pushed her away to pro­tect her from my­self.

“Guess that makes me a dick too, hey?”

Your in­ter­viewer—is her name Sarah?—holds your hand. “Most mag­i­cal peo­ple never reach the age of six­teen,” she tells you. “Their out-of-con­trol magic…”

She looks into your eyes. “It feels ter­ri­ble to be like that. Out-of-con­trol.”

She clicks her pur­ple pen. Clicks it again. Again. Sets it down. Gazes off into space.

The pur­ple of the pen re­flects on the glass table as it tilts back and forth, back and forth… “The pur­ple fire would come when I was up­set. Re­ally, prop­erly up­set. It would make every­thing worse. It would come and I would get more up­set and every­thing would, it would just—“

You squeeze the pur­ple pen. Click it. Try to shove the fire from your mind.

Click. Click-Click. Click. Click.

Empty.

Wall to wall. Floor to ceil­ing. Your home is noth­ing but glass, and you. You weren’t even left a bed.

You’re start­ing to cry again, but you know cry­ing will just make it come back.

The tear falls. Splash. Hiss. A spark of pur­ple.

Fuck it. You don’t care. You let go and scream!

A wave of pur­ple flame ex­plodes from you. It hits the win­dows, swirls around you, a whirl­wind of pur­ple heat. And yet…

The Fire, birthed from your emo­tions as it may be, can­not prop­erly ex­press them.

You are a com­plete and ut­ter id­iot.

You col­lapse to the floor.

Knock-Knock.

Click-Click.

“I had a choice. Who did I want to be­come?”

Click.

“Han­nah made that choice once. She founded U­ni­corn Killer. Built this tower. The hov­er­boards. The fly­ing mo­tor­cy­cles. The ro­bot army. All of it. She pro­tected her­self from the world by clos­ing her­self off from it. It could­n’t hurt her. She made that choice.”

Knock-Knock.

You hear the doors slide open. You don’t bother look­ing up.

“Go­ing to keep me locked up here for­ever?” you ask.

An­na’s metal feet clink against the wooden floor as she ap­proaches. She steps over you. “Go­ing to keep your­self locked up here for­ever?” she asks.

“You’re sup­posed to kill me.” It’s what you made her for, any­way.

She lays down in front of you. Holds your hand. Her pur­ple eyes look into your own.

“I pulled you from the wa­ter.” You don’t un­der­stand why she would do such a thing. She should hate you. Y­ou hate you, and you aren’t even pro­grammed to.

“Where’s Han­nah?” you ask.

Click-Click.

“Han­nah made that choice. I spent all my time help­ing her un-make it.”

You want to be with her again. You want to be happy. You want her to be happy. Would she be hap­pier with­out you?

You force your­self to think about her. You need to do what’s right, but what is right?

You don’t know what you’d say if you saw her again. You don’t know how you’d say it. You don’t know if she’d even want to hear it.

You don’t know where Pe­ter took her. Does she need res­cu­ing? Or is she go­ing to fly out of nowhere and res­cue you? You look out the win­dow, wish­ing to see her on her mo­tor­cy­cle, ready to save the day… But there’s noth­ing ex­cept the city a thou­sand floors be­low.

If she’s not there to res­cue you…

“Fuck it,” you say. Anna smiles. “I’m find­ing Han­nah.”

Click-Click. Click. Click-Click.

“I can nei­ther con­firm nor deny the ru­mors of gi­ant ro­bot spi­ders lay­ing siege to the coun­try­side.”

You stand be­fore an old house in the coun­try­side, sur­rounded by fields, Han­nah’s army, and lit­tle else.

Half the ro­bot army stands be­hind you. The other half hov­ers over­head. You tell your­self you’re ready. Be­tween the ro­bot army and your own heavy ar­mor, you must be ready.

You steady your­self. Pre­pare to knock—

“Come here of­ten?”

She ap­proaches on her gleam­ing white uni­corn, a slight smile upon her lips. You can’t help but smile back. It’s her! You can’t be­lieve it; are you dream­ing again?

She pats the uni­corn. “Pe­ter had poor Bri­anna locked away,” she says.

“I thought he’d have y­ou locked away.”

“Well, you would know,” she smiles imp­ishly. “I’m a lit­tle more dif­fi­cult to keep locked up.”

Her smile drops into a cold glare, and your stom­ach drops with it. “Even with­out the gem on my col—“

BANG! A ro­bot spi­der ex­plodes!

Im­me­di­ately, the ro­bots re­spond. Their green beams of en­ergy fly in all di­rec­tions, fight­ing against spears of magic that seem to come from every­where. Does Pe­ter have an army of his own? Some kind of army you can’t even see?

Grains of some­thing fall from the sky. Is it… sand?

“Han­nah is Mine,” booms his voice. You try to find her; she was right next to you—

A blast of you-don’t-even-know flies your way, so­lid­i­fy­ing into blades of blue magic. Your own pur­ple fire re­acts upon its own, stop­ping them just be­fore they can slice through your neck.

He grabs an­other hand­ful of dirt from the ground and tosses it into the air. Its blue en­ergy swirls around you. The ro­bots chip away at it with their beams, but they don’t want to hit you. You try to fight back. You want to grab ahold of your fire, but you’re afraid, you know you’ll lose con­trol again—

You push!

Your fire goes every-which-way; its heat ig­nites the lit­tle house and the tall grass fields all around.

Ten thirty-foot high spi­ders be­gin fir­ing upon Pe­ter, and it’s all he can do to shield. He tries to raise the ground be­fore him into a mon­ster of his own—a gi­ant dragon?—but the spi­ders mow it down.

They be­gin to ad­vance on Pe­ter, and for a mo­ment, you think you can ac­tu­ally win… But your pur­ple fire rages stronger and stronger, and en­cir­cles you both. You can’t con­trol it at all; it roars and swirls and pushes the ro­bots back.

And now, as your fire en­croaches from all around, as its power over­whelms you, you can see it over­whelms Pe­ter, too. You can feel him tug­ging at it, pulling, try­ing to bring it un­der his con­trol.

“Mine…” he mut­ters, “Mine…” he tries to con­vince him­self. But no mat­ter what he says or does, it will never be his. It could never be his, just as Han­nah could never be his, just as she could never be yours but by her own de­ter­mi­na­tion to be so.

Clip-clop.

Pe­ter turns. Han­nah looks straight through the fire, and straight at you. You see her, and think of all the things you still want to say. “Sorry” does­n’t re­ally cut it, and you’re not sure you’d be able to say it any­way, but you know you have to. You can feel the heat, again. It be­gins to swirl around you, its bright pur­ple flame pul­sat­ing with your heart­beat.

It lifts you into the air, twist­ing, turn­ing, swirling, a mon­strous whirl­wind of fire—

“Liz!” you hear Han­nah scream. “Han­nah!” you yell.

The uni­corn rears. Pe­ter jumps in front. Han­nah stabs him through the heart—

Charge!

Han­nah’s com­ing right for you. She’s com­ing right for the fire. She’s go­ing to burn— You panic—

“Let go,” whis­pers the fire in your ear. You can feel the in­ferno wait­ing to melt your skin if you just let it. If you just let go, it’ll burn you, Han­nah, every­thing.

Han­nah is go­ing to die. You are go­ing to die. You don’t want to go on with­out her, and you don’t want go on with your­self.

The Fire whis­pers in your ear… “Just let go…”

Fuck the Fire. The Fire is fuck­ing yours, and so is fuck­ing Han­nah.

“AH­H­HHH!” You grab the fire, from the burn­ing fields to the mael­strom around you, and you pull!

BANG!

White.

Noth­ing.

“Thank you for shar­ing this with me,” says Sarah, your in­ter­viewer. She col­lects her pens. She reaches for the pur­ple one still clutched tightly in your hand, but thinks bet­ter of it.

“I did­n’t think I had much of a choice.”

“You could have un-de­signed the gov­ern­ment.”

“I’m sur­prised you’re not try­ing to get me ar­rested,” you say.

“Why ever would I do that?” She seems le­git­i­mately puz­zled.

“I killed your oh-so-won­der­ful ‘Em­per­or’,” you re­mind her. “I killed Han­nah.“

“Liz… The Em­peror is not pre­cious to the world by virtue of be­ing Em­peror for a Day, or even for bring­ing world peace,” she tells you.

She reaches for your hand. “The Em­peror is pre­cious to us all be­cause we know what she meant to you.

“We know that for you, The Em­peror—may her mem­ory live on for­ever and ever, un­til all Hu­mankind shall per­ish—we know that she was the most im­por­tant thing in the world to you. And if she was that im­por­tant to you, she is that im­por­tant to us all.”

She closes her note­book. “I know this is re­ally old, com­mon ad­vice, but… have you tried writ­ing about it? You don’t have to pub­lish it! Just writ­ing helps.

“Though, if you wanted to pub­lish… I know we all—the whole world—would love to read it. ‘Liz and Her Em­peror…’”

She stands.

“Thank you. Same time next week okay with you?”

Anna shows her out. You re­tire to the bed­room, ready to col­lapse.

“How was ther­apy?” she asks.

She shakes you awake.

“‘anna?”

“It’s me! It’s Han­nah!”

Your eyes snap open. You’re on the ground. The ashes of the field, the house, every­thing are all around you. Pe­ter’s body is a ways away. The uni­corn looks to be con­sid­er­ing its virtue as a meal.

And Han­nah is right above you.

As the ro­bots sift over the bat­tle­field, you col­lapse into Han­nah’s arms, and cry.

Some­times, you wish you were hers, so you could be there for her like she is for you.

“See this?” she says, fas­ten­ing the metal­lic band of the choker around her neck. “See? I’m putting it on. It says I’m your Han­nah. It says your Han­nah knows you won’t hurt her. It says she is yours. It says that.”

She points at the pur­ple gem. “It says your Han­nah charged into your fire for you, be­cause she knew you needed her, and she knew you would­n’t hurt her.”

She pushes you onto the bed. Crawls on top of you.

She gen­tly touches your hand, and you re­al­ize the pur­ple pen is still there. She touches it briefly, and looks up at you ques­tion­ingly. You’re not sure what she’s ask­ing per­mis­sion for, but you nod. She takes it, clicks it, and writes care­fully upon her shoul­der: “Liz’s Han­nah.”

“See?” she asks. “Yours. Don’t make me tell you again, you hear? Don’t. Make. Me. Tell. You. Again.”

You don’t re­ally think you can say much of any­thing at the mo­ment. Every­thing feels so light and happy and right.

You let your fire swirl around you both, blan­ket­ing the bed, ca­ress­ing Han­nah with your warm flames. Your Han­nah. Your Em­peror.

She tried to give the world to you, but you know it will al­ways be hers, no mat­ter how dead she pre­tends to be. It will al­ways be hers… But she will al­ways be yours.

“Now,” she says, “Be­ing all ‘in con­trol’ like this is­n’t re­ally my thing, so… Your turn. Go on. Get to it!”

You grin. Pull on the fire. Your wispy arms grasp her hands and feet, lift her into the air, and…

You won’t make her tell you again.