“Sure,” I replied, taking my time with the word, feeling less sure in the two-Mississippi seconds it took me to utter it. “Maybe fame is the wrong word. Prestige has a power to it.”

I glanced at my mom as I said it. Was that her idea, too, rather than my own?

“Me too,” Lookout said. “Fame for me. I want lots of people to cheer for me and think I’m awesome. Does that make me shallow?”

“No,” Tempera said.

That thought brought me to the edge of what felt like an existential cliff—the wobbly, spooked feeling that hit when at a high ledge and the brain and body momentarily forgot that flight was a thing. I’d had similar wonderings when I’d been in the hospital. I’d wondered if my thoughts were my own, and it had been terrifying and maddening, because they’d been all I’d had. My heart had been my sister’s, because of the hormones, dopamine, connections and whatever else that had resulted from the changes—

—even just thinking about that made me feel nauseous—

—and my body had belonged to… nobody. Nobody and nothing. Not a single fucking soul had wanted it. Not me, not my family, not the hospital, not my sister—

“I think Capricorn would be down for it, but I’m not sure about the others.”

Maybe my sister had. Maybe it hadn’t been an accident.

“Ah,” I said, trying to bring myself back to coherence. “The others and fame?”

“Yeah.”

“Swansong yes, for sure,” I said. “Tress. I don’t know about our multi-trigger or Cryptid.”

“We need to bug our multi-trigger to come up with a name,” Lookout said.

“Yeah,” I said. I felt distinctly out of place, with the memories and the existential brink such a short distance behind me. “I think there’s potential. For rising in the ranks. I think I’d be happy with it.”

“I have no interest in that, so if we get too much attention, we’ll send the people your way,” Fume Hood said.

I smiled. “I don’t think it works that way.”

“If—”

She was cut off as Dragon’s craft started up. Narwhal and Cinereal joined Dragon and Defiant on board. Weld, I saw, remained behind.

Another crisis, of the sort that wasn’t announced or explained. Some of our best were out there now, trying to handle it.

And this—this series of attacks by Cheit. We had to handle it ourselves.

There was a rush of wind as the air blew downward and out, with the Dragon-craft navigating a route through the foliage so it wouldn’t knock too many branches down. In the midst of it, it was hard to be heard, so I just signaled a goodbye to Tempera and Fume Hood.

“You’re pretty deep in thought,” Lookout said.

“Sorry. Talk with Defiant, then my parents, thinking about our goals.”