Better at dealing with sustained onslaughts.

Something crashed behind me. I turned to look, still tense as the Wretch held out against electricity and held the black cloth. Rain had kicked the tinker’s tech-upgraded chair.

Another kick, and the electricity went away. Rain and Capricorn both hauled the guy out of his chair, back and away.

I let the Wretch drop away. The fabric hit the ground, and immediately, tendrils began reaching for it. Unrecognizable bits of flesh rolled out.

“You did that on purpose,” I said.

She looked at me, and I saw nothing of Sveta in that face.

“Kingdom Come,” I said.

The black cloth—none of the others had been wearing black. They’d been wearing prison uniforms. The cloth was Kingdom Come’s own costume.

“He’s controlling her?” Lookout asked.

“He’s trying,” I said, my voice shaky with the relief. “But the thing about Tress is that she’s worked ridiculously hard to get to where she is. It takes a kind of strength, and that asshole doesn’t have it.”

Kingdom Come opened Sveta’s mouth, worked her jaw. No words came out.

She doesn’t have full lungs, Kingdom Come, I thought. For her first year or so, she couldn’t talk or explain herself, not that she even knew the language.

“Let my friend go. Reconstitute, end the breaker state,” I told him. “And show me where Swansong, Ratcatcher, and Crystalclear are.”

“They’re in the back,” Lookout said. She brought her hand forward, holding the disc. The compass had lines extending out toward a door. We’d have to get past Kingdom Come to get there.

Going for the exit at the far side of the tunnel? Is there one?

Kingdom Come reached out with tendrils, groping at the ground and at piles of things. He worked to drag her prosthetic body across the floor, putting himself between us and what looked like a large computer server with cables running into the ceiling above it. Loops of metal bound tendrils together, and more cables and loops bound the tendrils to the body. Only a portion were free.

“Let her fucking go,” I said. I floated closer. A tendril slapped into the ground between us, slicing through the air with a sound like a sword might make.

“Thane,” a crackle of a voice could be heard, from the mess of technology to my left. “Stop what you’re doing, pull us out. Tell Kingdom Come and Blindside.”

Kingdom Come crawled closer to the console, blocking it off.

Rain, scrambling to rummage through the tech, found the device. He pulled it free and hit a switch. He hesitated for a second. “Clarify.”

“Who’s speaking?”

I mouthed the name.

“Kingdom Come.”

Tentacles slapped against the ground.

“We give her nothing. Find your way back.”

Kingdom Come dragged himself closer to the server.

What’s he doing? I floated closer, and tendrils struck out, forcing me to retreat.

How did this happen? Sveta in the center of the room.