“I told you, I don’t. But my brother does, and my dad, and so do lots of this-siders. People who are scared of what this city has become. We shouldn’t have to live in fear all the time.”

I’d heard this a million times before. People actually believed that othersiders were violent—or more violent than this-siders, just by nature. They believed that their powers were weapons, and that they’d use them against a this-sider whenever they felt like it. Just for fun.

Idiotic. But lots of people swallowed that nonsense. And if someone was stoking those idiotic beliefs, I could see them gaining a lot of power.

“I’m sure their message resonates with a lot of people,” I said diplomatically.

Connor looked up. “Are they going to get us?”

“Shhh,” I said, and kissed the top of his head. Feeling awful, for saying stuff that had scared him. “No one’s going to get anybody.”

“But they hate us.”

“They’re just scared,” Evvy said.

This was all so new. Seemed like just a little while ago, Connor tuned out every grown-up conversation and never had an idea what any of us were saying.

“I got you, kid,” Quang said, and picked up a spoon from the table. “Anybody tries to hurt you, I’ll do this to them.”

The spoon vanished, and then reappeared outside the window. Plummeted into the river; sank like a stone. Connor laughed, and clapped.

“My boys,” Radha said, walking in.

“Look at Connor’s latest,” I said, holding up the place mat.

“Such an artist,” she said, pulling up a chair. She reached out, took Connor’s hand in one of hers and mine in the other. I could feel the cracks in her skin.

Stout and sturdy and fearless as she was, I could see the weariness in her face.

“Noodles?” Evvy asked, and at our enthusiastic nods she headed for the kitchen. Connor hopped off my lap, began to run through the mostly empty restaurant.

“You shouldn’t encourage this,” Radha said, pointing to the place mat.

“Why not?”

She released my hand. “Are you blind? Don’t you see what’s happening in this city? You haven’t heard that people are disappearing now? All over, dozens of othersiders—not coming home from work, vanishing on the way to school. It is not safe for him to use his power out in the open where anyone can see.”

I knew that people were being targeted—harassed. I hadn’t heard that people were disappearing. Certainly not by the dozens. I’d have to ask Cass about that one. See what she’d learned. Because of course the Darkside Police Department wouldn’t be doing a damn thing to rescue abducted othersiders.

“Mama, look!” Connor called.