“That’s without getting into Teacher and Goddess,” Capricorn said.

“Or us,” Tress said.

“Or us,” he conceded.

I looked away, back toward where the fighting was worst. The fires extended from the hole Goddess had put in the wall to a nearby administration building.

“We support Goddess first,” Swansong said. “Get Lookout, get Natalie, get control of the situation. All four of those things are tied into one another.”

“I don’t entirely disagree,” Capricorn said. “But Goddess is complicated. Do you know what master–stranger protocols are?”

“No,” Swansong said.

“It sounds like the kind of thing the annoying Protectorate mooks would use,” Damsel threw out her remark from a distance, as if it was an extension of Swansong’s ‘no’.

“It is,” I said, my voice firm. “But let’s settle for saying that the situation is complicated. The nicest way I can think of framing it is that if we help her too blatantly, we hurt ourselves in the long run.”

“Why do we care? Deal with tomorrow when it comes. I know at least two of us are clever enough to come up with something,” Damsel remarked.

I wondered if we could or should just walk away. If we weren’t waiting for Crystalclear to catch up with us again…

“Maybe we think of it as a question of reputation,” Swansong said. “If we appear to be too subservient…”

“Mm,” Damsel made a sound.

“Mm,” Swansong echoed her. She glanced at me and rolled her eyes slightly.

“I don’t really care about status,” Rain said. “I want people to be okay, and… I want us to be okay too. I’m here for a reason, and I don’t want that to get flipped upside-down or screwed up along the way. I know that’s a crummy thing to prioritize when there are higher priorities, like people’s safety, Goddess, keeping the peace, and keeping Teacher from becoming the most powerful man on all the Earths.”

“If he isn’t already,” Tress’s expression and tone were dark.

“It makes sense to go to Goddess,” Swansong said.

“It makes sense to split up,” Crystalclear said, as he rejoined us. “We have other issues.”

He’d returned from the apartment with the other undercover member of Foresight. The girl was short, her uniform not really fitting her, and she had improvised a mask of several pieces of paper and tape, several sheets forming a cone that encapsulated her face, with holes for the eyes that had pen scribbles surrounding each hole, darkening the perimeters. Sheets of paper were connected at one corner each to form ears at the sides of her head.

“Ratcatcher, meet Breakthrough,” Crystalclear said.

“I’ve theen thome of them around,” she said. “Thveta and I talked thome before I came.”

“Tell them what you told me.”