“I just wanted hope,” Tristan said. “I wanted to be a regular teenager for a couple of hours, and feel like there were silly, stupid, good things over the next horizon. I didn’t—I wouldn’t have done anything. I just wanted to be able to pretend it was possible.”

“I thought it might be something like that. But you got close enough in your pretending that you spooked your brother,” Mr. Vaughn said. “I admire you for agreeing to this, for his benefit.”

Tristan shook his head.

In a sea of doubt like watercolor bleeding out into endless darkness, Byron counted his first real victory against his brother.

⊙

There’d been no fixes. The power labs had scratched their heads.

For half of his waking hours, portioned out in four hour chunks now, existence still resembled a kind of hell.

For the other half, however, things were good. Moonsong sat beside him, her hand finding his, giving it a squeeze. Off in the corner, Coiffure and Furcate were being silly. Furcate had been weaned off of their shitty lemon candy and had now adopted strawberry flavored drops, still of the grandmother’s candy bowl variety, but without the lingering taste of armpit. Their arm was in a sling, but they seemed to be doing okay. Tribute and Figurehead were chatting about team rankings, and they seemed happy enough with where Reach stood.

But mostly it was Moonsong. Mostly it was finally having an equilibrium. Rules had been set, reaffirmed.

Figurehead’s phone rang. The conversation was short. Figurehead paused to think after hanging up.

The chatter of the team stopped. Everyone looked, sensing the gravity of the moment.

“We found that asshole Paris,” Figurehead said. “He went after Furcate once, after Long John twice, and he got Reconciliation from Haven a second time, just a week ago. This is an all hands on deck thing.”

There was no discussion or thought really needed. Byron reached out for Moonsong’s hand, and he gave it a squeeze.

This was Tristan’s fight.

He passed control.

Immediately, he was aware that something was wrong. Aware, and unable to act on the fact.

“Whatever you need,” Moonsong murmured to Tristan. “We’re with you.”

Tristan was silent, not responding.

When he stood, heads turned. Something in his energy, in his expression.

When I get mad, I bottle it up, it releases explosively, indiscriminately if the person is a moron like my brother who can’t see how things add up.

But it was different for Tristan.

Tristan… when he got mad, he became unreasonably mad. There was no upper limit, and the usual boundaries seemed to slip away, much in the way that led to him stabbing at Byron multiple times. When he set his mind to something, he got it.

And when the two coincided?