The others arrived. Marquis, Cryptid in camouflaged human form, Lookout and Capricorn. No Lord of Loss—he was too big for the room.

It was Marquis who rushed to the dying man’s side. I felt an anxious stab in my chest as I saw the angle of his head, the way he tied his hair back and secured it with a loop of bone. His expression, which looked entirely as serious as the situation warranted, yet seemed lacking in something—in light.

I saw her in it.

His tools were cruder, but they were tools. He helped Sveta cut the wires, and then began to work on the open wounds, sealing them in complex bone encasements.

“They’re using me,” the bleeding man said. “They got me. I’m a way of passing messages between dimensions, and a tool, a weapon.”

Marquis redoubled his efforts.

I looked away, acutely uncomfortable, then stood, because looking away wasn’t enough.

I’d done what I could, and my presence by the man only made it harder to give care. I kept an eye out for where I could jump in, grabbed one or two things to hand them over—like the scissors on the desk.

The man went on, and I tried to focus on the words. “The war is a distraction. It pulls us away from the city and away from things that matter. They’re after all the groupings of capes. The big teams, the places capes rally. They want Goddess, and they’re going to go after her when they’re strong enough.”

“Who are they?” I asked. “Is it the same people who attacked the portal? Earth Cheit?”

“Can’t hear.”

“Cheit!” I raised my voice.

“Not Cheit. That’s—distraction. Ah.”

There was a pause so long I thought the man had died and Kingdom Come had gone.

Cryptid was now giving his assistance on the medical front. He seemed to know more than I do when it came to that.

I glanced at the desk. Everything was missing, shredded.

I opened drawers, found nothing.

When we left with our victim, I doubted I’d get to come back and investigate. Not tomorrow. Stuff would change. Lord of Loss or Marquis would do their own investigation, or use someone like Spruce.

Between the cabin wall and the board at the far right of the desk, was a shitton of dust, with some discarded tissues and food particles.

I used the wretch and shoved the desk away from the wall by a foot. Nothing hidden in the debris. I moved the desk back.

“Let me know if you need help,” I said.

“No need. He might just live,” Marquis said. “We’ll need to get him to a hospital soon.”

“Do you need me to fly him?” I asked.

“Better to have him in a truck with me and one of our doctors beside him,” Marquis said. “If he springs a leak mid-flight, he’ll be gone.”