The other two, the Wretch simply held. I waited, then I moved my hand. There was no way to tell if it would work or not, because they broke to pieces as the grip tightened or changed.

I bent down and looked in the direction Capricorn had gone, and I reached down to one of the chunks of stone.

It crumbled in my grip. No power in effect.

We’ll work this out, I told the Wretch.

I straightened. Sveta reached me, having walked over. Her metal shoulder bumped my spiked one. Solidarity.

The phone was answered. There was squabbling. Boy and girl.

“Cryptid.”

“She hasn’t gone home?”

“No family dinner to get back to. She’s fiddling. Her person’s here, the guy Natalie knows.”

“I’ll have a talk with her in the morning,” I said. Talks were overdue.

“You call for something? I hope you called for something. I was asleep and you woke me up. The thing go okay?”

“Atrociously, actually,” I said. “But it’s not over, as far as I’m concerned. I need you to call people.”

I could hear his groan. I could also hear Kenzie in the background, volunteering her help.

“Or give me the numbers. I’ll call.”

“It’s fine. I’ll do some. Which people?”

“Everyone underlined in green. It’s not an emergency, but if they’ll do us this favor and help out, we’ll pay them back, or I will.”

There was a pause.

“If I didn’t spontaneously swap rods and cones in my eyes, that’s… a lot of people.”

They were the ones I didn’t think would take too much convincing, ones we’d worked with or had contact with.

Capricorn was back. There hadn’t been delay in getting the info. His arms were folded as he stared at me, and orange motes danced to either side of his head, forming shapes. Like branches.

Like antlers.

Prancer. His last hurrah, or his new and improved way of doing business. It couldn’t be easy—not someone we were already gunning for. It only reaffirmed my conviction here.

“Yeah,” I said, setting my jaw, glancing at my two teammates. “A lot of people. The villains might not want to stick by the rules of the cops and robbers game, but I want to keep the penalties.”

Beacon 8.6

“I have a random thought,” I said.

Sveta and Capricorn were with me. Heroes were arriving—some in cars. They were the ones I’d labeled in green. The friends, the acquaintances, the ones where I figured there was enough trust that we could promise a favor in exchange for their help and they’d listen. Our vantage point on the roof of a garage put us above them all.

“Do share,” Sveta said.

“When the team was first getting together, I was trying to wrap my head around it. In thinking about names and thinking about themes, whatever I thought about, I felt like there was always at least one odd man out.”