“Thank you,” she said. She put a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll get back to it someday. Do you need anything?”

I shook my head at the offer.

“Julien is out to pick up some ingredients I forgot. He’ll be back in a few minutes. Why don’t you give Victoria a tour, Kenzie? We’ll talk over dinner. I’m interested to pick your brain and learn more about what you’re doing.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

Kenzie led me up the stairs to the top floor. Black and white photos showed Julien and Irene together. Here and there, there would be one of Kenzie.

“I’ll show you my room!”

Irene was an interior decorator, if I remembered right. I was left with the feeling that the house was being presented as a kind of showcase, more than it was a lived-in place. The wall colors were striking, the artwork eye-catching to a distracting degree, with bright reds and yellows in otherwise muted rooms, and the style was unerringly consistent across the rooms I’d seen. I felt like being in this house for too long might give me a headache.

“Bathroom, if you need it,” Kenzie said. “My dad’s study. He sometimes goes in there to smoke with the fan blowing it out the window, but it stinks so we keep the door closed. My parent’s room is at the end of the hall, and this is my room.”

Every room thus far had been cool blues and purples with monochrome flooring, artwork, and tiles, a few points of colorful definition aside. Kenzie’s room was unpainted, the walls plastered with art. Her bed was made in a way that made me think she’d done it herself, rather than have either parent do it, and there were two desks and one bookshelf, all strewn with papers and pieces of things. Plastic bins held a few dozen random pieces of electronics each.

I could smell the food cooking downstairs. I was ravenous.

“You said you moved around a lot. Is it nice to have a place to stay and make your own?” I asked.

“It so is,” she said, bouncing on the spot. “Team poster. There I am.”

It was a poster of the Baltimore PRT. Mayday was on it, though he wasn’t in the leader position; he took the second position of the line that formed where each adult member of the team stood behind the right shoulder of the person in front. The Wards were a numerous bunch, not as organized as the Protectorate, with some sitting or crouching in front of the lined-up heroes, others gathered on perches behind the members of the group at the rear and far right of the line.