A young man with brown skin and an umbrella that didn’t seem to budge in the wind walked beside her, the umbrella open despite the lack of necessity.

On the other side was a young woman with brown hair, freckles dense on her face, neck and arms, and tattoos visible on the backs of her hands, poking out of voluminous coat sleeves. A white duffel coat, with red toggles.

The others kept glancing at me, double checking me, making sure I was okay.

“The Attendant had a member who got hurt,” Capricorn reported, in Tristan’s natural confidence. “Mission fail.”

“Damn,” I said. “Can we follow it up?”

“Everyone is tied up or resting. Nothing available, no. It wasn’t a big mission either.”

“They still failed,” Swansong said.

The laborers had built these stairs to make getting from one side of the hills to the other easier. The path was a touch convoluted, but it was better than hiking up steeper slopes. At the halfway mark, a gazebo-style enclosure or lookout had been set up, with benches inside and out, plexiglass windows, and a fire pit in the center.

Buckets of sand and shovels were sitting at the ready beneath tables and in cabinets that had been built into benches. At that fire pit, a fire burned, keeping its flames down as the wind seeped between plexiglass and stone column.

My heart was pounding.

We were all, Cryptid included, assembled. We’d established a ‘v’ formation. Capricorn was at the front, me at his right shoulder, Swansong at his left. Beyond Swansong was Rain, while Sveta was by me. Past Rain was Chris, while Sveta kept Kenzie close by.

She walked with audible, powerful footsteps that shouldn’t have echoed like they did, given the environment. I could hear her. And I could her the scuff of shoe on stone. I knew those footsteps—she’d never picked her feet up enough when she walked places.

It became hard to breathe as they stepped into he enclosure. This was it. We’d taken precautions and we were making use of safety measures, but the wait was over.

“I would say thank you for coming, but what’s the use?” the Lady in Blue asked. She reached out in the direction of the fire, and it swelled in size.

It was an oddly disconnected fragment. The formality so brief I had to replay the question twice in my head, the question not directed at anyone in particular.

“We’re here and we’re open to talk,” Capricorn said. “We’re a novice group but have information and we have connections. Are introductions in order?”

“Bianca,” the Lady in Blue said. “This is Luis, and I hope you know who she is. I already know your names.”