“It’s out more often than not. It’s easier to travel into the Norfair span and use facilities there than it is to rely on what the cabins offer. The service is up for one or two hours a day, and it’s restricted at those times.”

“It was better, but that was before,” Nursery said. “The attacks have been knocking out services. The city has had outages.”

“Amen,” Lookout said.

Cryptid nodded.

“You said attacks?” I asked. “These aren’t accidents or poorly laid groundwork breaking down?”

Sveta added, “Some people were suggesting the outages were malicious, but the people in charge have been quiet. If there are any arrests, they aren’t telling anyone about them.”

“It’s very malicious,” Nursery said. “Enemies of Gimel know they can’t pick a fight. Our population is small, but the number of capes scares them off. They know where Gimel is vulnerable.”

I had some idea, too. I’d thought about how much damage the outages, communication loss and disruption of both work and supply had done, especially with the timing.

The colder months were coming. We were already in a bad spot, but if infrastructure was stressed or disabled… the costs and loss of labor would have an immense impact.

“This is the war. We’re being attacked,” I said.

“Undermined,” Nursery said.

They were going after the weak points, hitting them again and again, so the cracks would fan out. Something would give.

“Can you give us the details on these attacks so we can confirm that ourselves?” Capricorn asked. “There might be a lead we can chase.”

“Possibly, but not now,” Nursery said. “I have to talk to people before I share our sources, and some don’t like your team very much. It may take convincing.”

Capricorn nodded.

Nursery had been tied into Prancer’s group by some fashion. There would be some upset people.

“Are these the same people we’re after?” Sveta asked me. “It’s similar M.O.s. They’re hurting us by attacking the city.”

“Maybe,” I said. “If so, they have an uncanny ability to hide their activities and hit the city where it hurts.”

“These people,” Lord of Loss said. “Am I right in guessing you’re after the culprits of the portal attacks?”

Damn it. It wasn’t a hard conclusion to draw, but it put us in an awkward spot.

“Yes,” Capricorn said. “Yeah, you’re right.”

I really hoped Lord of Loss and his trusted people weren’t on the enemy’s side, or we’d tipped them off, and they were now covering every base.

Capricorn nodded. “We have reasons to believe you weren’t directly involved. One of those reasons is that we have pictures with their faces.”

“You’ll recognize one,” I said.

He held out his hand in Lookout’s direction. She gave him a phone, the screen glowing.

Capricorn found what he was looking for. “These are the ones we have so far.”

The others approached Marquis, who took the phone and held it in a position where most of the others could see it. I hung back a bit.