If Cat donned her Suit, she could be outside in a second, bursting through the plate glass window to the street. Instead she ran out the front door, turned the corner so tight her shoes slipped on concrete and she almost fell, caught herself on the ground with one hand—

Glass shattered above as Maura Varg dove out the bedroom window, shard-misted, forearms crossed to shield her face, farther than a running jump should have taken her, and arced headfirst toward the pavement.

Cat sprinted across the street toward her, arms pistoning. If she could catch Varg before she came upright—

A cry from her left, and too late she heard the triple-beat of a horse at gallop. Should have closed the street—she looked left and saw wide black equine eyes and rearing hooves and a rider’s moon-shaped face beneath an absurd tricornered hat as the hooves came down. She dodged through molasses, the horse eighteen hands at least and plunging, and she knew what those hooves could do to human flesh—

She fell into the silver void, into the ice-melt lake that waited at her brain stem’s root, and leapt clear of the hooves, which could not hurt her anymore, because she wasn’t human anymore exactly.

Nor was she, exactly, Cat.

But she didn’t want to hurt the horse.

Hooves fell, slow as a ballerina’s lofted leg descending. Somewhere a butterfly’s wing beat. On North Shore, a wave rolled onto the beach and did not roll back.

She stood in the road, a statue of fluid silver. Behind her, other Blacksuits secured the apartment safe house, which she saw in flashes: dreamglass piled on the kitchen counter, broken bones and windows, captives splayed on the floor. Safe. In front of her, Maura Varg fled into an alley. Cat followed her. She closed with Varg, not fast enough—the woman’s glyphwork must be pushing her to the edge of sanity, to outrun a Suit. Alley shadows fell slick on Cat’s skin, and far below the world she heard the sunken moon’s song.

A carriage pulled up at the far end of the alley, door open. She saw it, and through silver the other Suits saw it, too, and Justice activated plainclothes officers nearby for pursuit. Varg would make the carriage before Cat could catch her. Normal horses couldn’t outrun a Blacksuit, but not all horses were normal.

A black, burning blur fell on Varg from the rooftops. She struck pavement and then the alley wall, skidded, found her feet in a tussle with a smoking human figure. Not a Blacksuit—and really burning, skin licked by flame, charcoal flakes falling as he moved. Fangs flashed bone white within the fire.

Raz.