I was surprised, and not just by the question. The tone caught me off guard.
Atlas hadn't exactly been polite before now, but he'd been neutral about it. His condescension had structure. Through every word it was as though he was simply expressing his place in the hierarchy, letting me know he was stronger than me, that he knew where my power started and where it ended.
I didn't mind. Everybody was stupid about that particular topic, even me. I didn't know where my power ended. It certainly was just leaving from the starting point. I mean, what could I say, I only had two villainesses of the five available to me.
But being the good and outrightly just person that I am, I wasn't going to cut a man's head off for underestimating me.
Now, though? Now I felt like I would. Because Atlas's tone hadn't just shifted, it had dropped off a cliff into something straightway threatening.
