As I flew closer, I could see the pair of Swansong and Damsel at the balcony. Both wore the prison-provided coveralls, but Swansong wore a white undershirt or camisole under hers, the front left open. Damsel wore only a black sleeveless top, her coveralls tied at the waist. Fitting those claws through the sleeves would be very difficult. They gripped the railing, metal blades long enough for her to scratch her toes without bending over, a thin, ripped webwork of skin stretched over them.

It was only Swansong who hopped down from the balcony. Her blast interrupted her descent, and interrupted many of the shouts and calls from the woman inmates at the other doorways and balconies.

Swansong was as elegant as her raw, crude detonations of darkness and warped space were violent. At the same time, I could see the tension in Damsel as she looked down at us, claws gripping metal railing, her eyes wild. She looked like she could barely resist jumping down as well.

Capricorn and I were the first at the scene, as Tress dropped down to Rain’s side, touching one of her new parts.

It was Tristan and Byron, Swansong with Damsel looking down, and then myself. Our halves removed by one step, one way or another.

“Your… sister?” Capricorn asked.

“She’s stuck where she is,” Damsel said, referring to herself in the third person. She didn’t look like she could sit still, her claws moving, metal scraping metal.

“I could come. We’re on the same side,” Damsel made it sound like she was being intentionally insincere.

I met Swansong’s eyes.

“She watched the meeting with Goddess,” Swansong said, as if that summed it up. She tilted her head to one side. “Where are Cryptid and Lookout?”

“Lookout is with Goddess,” I said.

Swansong’s stare was level. Again, that curious stillness.

“Your little friend is in good hands,” Damsel commented from above. She smiled.

Everything in her micro-expressions was different. The degree to which she fractionally widened and narrowed her eyes in the course of a single sentence, the slight movements of her bladed hands, as if to create implications as she said ‘hands’, the intonations. All of it was keyed in a way that suggested an implicit threat or imminent action, like she was coiled up and ready to… blast with her power or lash out.

This wasn’t the Ashley I’d come to know. This was the Ashley I could imagine working with the Slaughterhouse Nine.

“Is she safe?” Swansong asked.

“She’s—” I started to answer. “She’s with Goddess.”

Swansong nodded, “And Cryptid?”

“Cryptid left. On an errand for Goddess with my sister.”

“He’s being more Cryptid-like than usual today,” Tristan observed.

“Of course he is,” Swansong said. She glanced at me. “Your sister?”