Even when things weren’t great, or when there was a measure of resentment or hurt feeling, there was sometimes hope. There was a lingering fondness.

I flew, lifting Lookout over the crowd, past Weld, Sveta, and Capricorn, who were together, Weld with one arm around Sveta’s back, helping to keep her upright as they tried to talk to five people at once.

We landed on the far side. There was a crowd here too. It was more the team leaders like Mayday and Houndstooth who were lingering here.

We lingered, waiting. Lookout craned her head around, looking at the Dragon-mech.

“She combined my tech with that hack Brim’s stuff for the eyes, I think,” Lookout said. “I know I signed off on other PRT tinkers using my stuff, but it kind of sucks that she didn’t use just my stuff on its own.”

“If you get a chance, you could ask her why.”

“I don’t think I could. She’s so amazing and important, and I’d sound so petty.”

She was interested, her attention occupied, but I had no idea on whether she was okay. I wasn’t sure the home situation was good like this, as temporary as it was, but did she ever have a good home situation?

I could have asked her how she was, but I wasn’t sure I could trust the response. She would sooner tell me she was fine when she wasn’t than be upfront and risk scaring me off.

Maybe… a roundabout route?

“If Swansong was here right now, what would she tell you?”

I saw her head tilt.

“Don’t overthink it. It doesn’t matter what I feel or know. How does she respond? Generally speaking, not about Dragon. But about anything today.”

“You keep telling me stuff and changing what I’m supposed to think about.”

“Just… don’t think. Off the top of your head.”

“She’d be like, imbecile. Go kick ass. Be proud of yourself. I dunno.”

“Doesn’t sound quite right.”

“I’m not the Swansong whisperer,” Lookout said. “But I know she treats me pretty nice and she doesn’t think much about other people being important. They’ll all be… subservent?”

“Subservient,” I said.

“They’ll scrape and bow before her in the end. So she’d say even Dragon shouldn’t be a big deal.”

“Maybe,” I said. “I’m focused more on you than on her, though. What would you regret? Saying something and being shut down, or saying something and maybe getting a neat bit of info?”

Lookout shrugged. “I get turned down a lot, I guess.”

“I didn’t mean to frame it that way, but…”

“But…” she picked up where I’d trailed off. “Can’t hurt too badly.”