“You could fake an identity,” Mira agreed. “That’s what semblances do. You can look like me or my father. You can pick up pieces of things you see and make them part of you. That doesn’t mean you’re alive. If you think about it, looking any way you want is the opposite of having an identity. You’re a complicated, powerful semblance. But you are a semblance. Semblances are extensions of the will of their creator. Unless somebody else takes control.” Mira turned her attention to Quima.
“How could anyone control Miracle?” Quima asked. “Everyone in this room only lives thanks to her generosity. I lend her advice. I give her friendship. And I think she has the right to exist. Is that a crime?”
“It is if you’re tricking her,” Mira said. “It is if you’re only trying to be the next person who steals her from me.”
“Nobody can steal me,” fake Mira said. “I make my own choices.”
“Do you?” Mira asked. “When did you choose to leave me?”
Fake Mira offered no answer. Her eyes strayed to Quima.
“When did you choose to be born, Mira?” Quima snapped.
“Yes!” fake Mira agreed. “Some choices aren’t ours to make.”
Mira gave Cole a nervous glance. The quick look told him that she was about to gamble. “When did you decide you’re better off separate from me?”
“It was . . . ,” fake Mira started, then hesitated. “It was after talking with Quima.”
“Really,” Mira said.
Fake Mira flushed. “Quima gave me good advice. I chose to take it.”
“Do you take a lot of her advice?” Mira asked.
“She’s a friend,” fake Mira said. “Like a mother. I don’t do everything she wants.”
“For example?” Mira pressed.
“She wants me to kill people who attack me,” fake Mira said. “I . . . don’t like that idea. If they can’t hurt me, I’d rather just collect them.”
“You got that from me,” Mira said. “I hate the idea of killing anything. Even bugs. But I did have lots of collections. Before I left the palace.”
“I know everything about you,” fake Mira said. “I don’t need reminders.”
“You’re letting an enemy exploit you,” Mira said. “She’s manipulating you.”
“Quima wants me free,” fake Mira said. “You want me trapped.”
“If I die, so do you,” Mira said. “We’re fundamentally linked. How can Quima change that?”
“You have to be willing to let me go,” fake Mira said. “Then she’ll use her shapecraft to separate us permanently.”
“What’s shapecraft?” Mira asked. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“Me neither,” Liam inserted.
“One of many things you don’t know,” fake Mira said condescendingly. “Shapecraft is to shaping as shaping is to everything else.”
Mira looked somber. “Quima can mess with the shaping power itself?”
“Exactly,” fake Mira replied.
“Which means she can mess with you,” Mira said.
“I would never—” Quima began, but fake Mira held up her hand.
“She can free me from you,” fake Mira said. “That’s all she wants.”
Mira emphasized her next words. “What if she just wants you free from me so she can take control of you?”
Cole thought Quima looked like she was trying to act unflustered.
Fake Mira glanced at Quima with a hint of suspicion.
“You’re on to something,” Liam encouraged. “Keep going.”
“Hmmm,” Mira continued. “Why would Quima care about helping pure shaping power find freedom as a semblance? It isn’t her power. She would have no reason to feel attached. Why mother it? Guide it? What would be in it for her? Not much. Unless the goal was to trick it. Maybe she was partners with whoever stole it in the first place. Maybe the whole plan was for her to take control of it.”
Fake Mira stepped close to Mira and put a hand on her shoulder. “Drop it. If it’s a trick, it worked. I’d rather be with her than with you. My choice will never change. I don’t care if you think I have no identity. I’m content with who I am. So is Quima. If you refuse to set me free, I’ll do whatever it takes to change your mind. Stop clinging to me. I’m not yours anymore. Let me go.”
Cole could tell that the conversation was unraveling and that it wasn’t going to go their way. What was their next move? How could they fight something so huge?
“Quima holds the reins,” Liam said, his voice urgent and hushed. “She has Carnag’s mind. But the substance of Carnag belongs to you, Mira. At some level, she knows that. You keep soaking up energy.”
“You get that Quima could have shaped you to feel this way,” Mira said, her tone resigned to failure. “You get that you’re probably only feeling what she planted with her shapecraft. You’re not making choices. You’re reacting as designed. She probably started molding you the second you were on your own.”
“Enough,” Quima said. “Don’t be selfish. I can end this right now. Give me your permission, and I will free you and Miracle from each other.”
“I’ll die first,” Mira insisted.
Mira’s fake father stepped out of the wall behind Jace and held a knife to his throat. “She doesn’t worry about herself,” the tethered semblance said. “How much do you care about your friends, Mira? Those abilities you lost haven’t belonged to you for most of your life. Let them go, and you and your friends will live.”
“What about not killing?” Mira cried.
“I never had enough motivation to take a life,” fake Mira said. “You told me I inherited that trait from you. I may have been wrong to resist Quima on that point. My hesitation must have been you talking. Fortunately, I have the power to change.”
“Don’t give in,” Jace said.
“If she doesn’t, you’ll die, and I’ll move on to the next one,” her fake father said. “It won’t end with your friends, Mira. One by one, innocent after innocent, we’ll apply the needed pressure. You have until I reach five. One.”
“I can’t open up Carnag,” Liam said. “I’m trying to tunnel in, but she won’t let me.”