Owl let the others talk without joining in, content to watch how they interacted, paying particular attention to Hawk. She was still getting used to the idea that he was alive. It wasn’t that she had believed he was dead. It was mostly that she had lived for so long with the possibility of it. Having him back was such an enormous relief that she was overwhelmed by it.

She found herself thinking about how much the members of her little family had changed since they had left their city home. They had grown, some differently than others, but all in one way or another. She was pleased that River had come back from the loss of her grandfather, her dark despondency and apathy faded into the past. Fixit was better, too. He no longer talked about his failures and his shortcomings. He no longer agonized over his part in the death of the Weatherman. Even Cat was beginning to feel like one of the family. Slowly but surely, the others had accepted her, in small ways first, then in large measure. Panther was especially attentive, as if what they had shared in rescuing Logan Tom had forged a bond between them.

Maybe we can’t make this journey Hawk wants us to make, she thought. But it doesn’t feel that way. Not to me.

“So we got out from under the stands,” Panther was saying. “All these Krilka Koos stump heads start running for their lives. Logan, he was throwing fire at them with that black staff, yards of it, everything burning. It was something! But we got to him, me and Cat—he didn’t burn us—and we got him out of there and back up to the freeway. That’s where the Ghosts found us.”

“I brought the AV back to get them,” Fixit said proudly. “I told Owl we couldn’t wait anymore to see what was going to happen, that we had to come back for them. We would have gone right into that camp if we’d had to! Wouldn’t we, Owl?”

He stopped suddenly, staring at her. “What’s wrong?”

They were all looking at her, and she realized that she was crying. She wiped at her eyes, knowing she couldn’t explain why. “I was just thinking about Squirrel,” she lied. “Go ahead, keep talking.”