“We don’t have a way of getting in touch with her.”

“We have a way of getting in touch with Chris, and Chris is with her,” Sveta said.

“I’ll call him!” Kenzie said.

“Don’t—just…” Byron started. He trailed off, looking to me for help.

I wasn’t sure what to give him. I was aware of Sveta’s stare.

“…I’m going to step outside,” he said.

“Can I talk to you? I’d really appreciate your perspective on things,” Natalie said.

Sveta’s eyes bored into me.

But just as he couldn’t really argue for a reason to not call Goddess, we couldn’t give a reason for him not to step outside. Not without fights breaking out, one way or another.

The phone rang. Natalie hurried to get her coat on, flipping up her hood, before following Byron outside.

“Who is this?” a strange voice asked, voice amplified by the speakers.

“It’s Breakthrough,” Kenzie said. “Is Chris there?”

“He is,” the voice came through. It was male. “He’s not human right now. He gave me the phone.”

“Show us?” Kenzie asked.

“I’ll take a video?”

“Please.”

There was a pause. Then Kenzie brought up a video on the wall. It was an image taken from the ground, looking up. A tall figure, feathered, looked like a vulture might look if it had been rolled over with a truck. The neck twisted around and bent backward, the head lolling back and hanging with curved beak extending down, one yellow eye staring. Along the inside of arms, black eyes that were nearly invisible in the black and gray plumage blinked. It moved its head, raising one arm with taloned fingers at the end, and gestured in the affirmative, blinking slowly.

“He’s scratching something on the ground. He… didn’t give you his number?”

Kenzie snorted. “We’re in the middle of something big. We wanted to talk strategy. Can you get her on the line?”

“She’s close. Let me get her, and I’ll put you guys on speaker.”

There was a moment’s pause, the only sounds in the room being the sound of the rain outside, a torrent of water flowing from a gutter that was ajar, and the noises on the other side. As wrong as everything felt, my little betrayals of Sveta, my complicating things when they could be so simple, the idea of having Goddess decide on a course of action was awfully tempting.

I could hear the noise of Goddess arriving, with a rush of air, a rustling of the phone.

“Breakthrough.”

“We were raided by Teacher when we checked on one of his pawns. She’s the prison pharmacist, and she has laced drugs or something like it. She made it back to the prison.”

“Disappointing. What happened?”