Can you at least acknowledge that Moonsong’s backing you up, shoring you up where you’re weak? You’re lost in the focus on the mission and she’s handling the team for you.

“Update from Furcate and Wheel?” Tristan asked.

“In position.”

The location was part of a mess of buildings, set in a triangular plot of land that seemed as though it had been pledged to three different buildings, ended up shared by all of them, and was then complicated further by the access and egress roads. An apartment complex loomed over a capital-E-shaped section of storage lockers, with a view that was further blocked by a squat building that was shared by multiple stores.

It was no surprise that none of the three installations seemed to be doing especially well. Like plants trying to share the same sunlight, water, and soil, all three withered, with an apparent lack of thriving.

A highway, a major road, and a road leading off of the major road and into a morass of suburbs boxed it all in. The car they were expecting eased its way down a narrow passage that cut beneath the highway, onto a single lane road that would turn the bend and enter the area with the storage lockers.

They heard the slamming of the car door. Tristan leaned out to look, a fleeting glance before he pulled his head back in.

The image was momentary, but it stuck in Byron’s mind’s eye. A man with Boundless’s height, but Tribute’s frame. Boundless could have been a basketball player, if he’d been coordinated in the slightest, and Tribute was a middleweight boxer.

It was Paris, in costume. His mask was the sort that covered the top half of his head, going down over his eyes and nose, his hair was long, very straight and blond, and the costume was a mix of loose cloth, like a mantle worn over the shoulders, and the form-fitting, with cloth and leather bands wrapped around arms and torso. Black and blue-green, with decorative flourishes in a spade-like shape at the front of the mantle, where it hung over his sternum, and in the metal at the end of his belt.

He’d been bent over almost double to look into the car window.

“Let him go, let him go,” Tristan whispered.

Is he talking to the group, or is he talking to himself?

The car had to maneuver carefully to navigate the tight space. It had been here before—the roads in and out of the storage locker area were confusing to new visitors, with most being one-way and one being out of sight.

“This is where he comes after he gets hired for a mission,” Figurehead said. “Our sources were right. Shit.”

Figurehead’s nervous. His power gives him better info with unfamiliar targets. He’s run into Paris before.