If he was immune to it, there was no reason to continually extinguish it. It was very possible that the Pharmacist’s fire could ignite Lung’s fire immunity. But she had eyes on the situation, and she was keeping him safe from her power, while he thrived in an environment where fire and heat were so ready at hand.

Lung ignored Byron’s water, ignited or no, and threw out flame, walling off my access to Rain.

In the midst of it, I saw Rain using one of his lesser-used powers. I could see it only because I saw the purple sparks and the lesser purple flames in the grass swell.

Reinforcements had to be on the way. Crystalclear was working on it in the access tunnels. We had Cryptid on the far side. We had—fuck me, we had my sister, of all people. The people we’d lined up on the far side to delay Teacher were no doubt regrouping.

We had to survive long enough for help to come, while keeping the monsters like Lung from doing any real, lasting damage. If we could do that, then our lesser sins might be forgiven or looked past. The harm of guards, our means of gathering information. The false pretenses by which we’d arranged our visits, when we had a real stake in things.

We had to endure. We had to endure against a man-turned-dragon who would burn any normal individual to a crisp, and a hidden woman who would expertly burn the abnormal out of anyone else. Until reinforcements.

They were showing up now. Help. Assistance.

The first of them, unfortunately, were Lung’s reinforcements, not ours. A blood-spattered warden and Deputy warden.

Our reinforcements were worrisome in a completely different way. When Goddess lowered herself from the top of the building to the ground, voices went quiet in nearby buildings. She was essentially alone. Natalie and Kenzie were close enough to see, but they were apart from Goddess. They had the assistant warden with them. Our guy, who theoretically was able to detonate the bombs that were strapped to most prisoner’s ankles, or to leave them be.

It looked like he was closer to panic than not, for what little it mattered. He, Lookout, and Natalie were in the company of a woman who stood behind Lookout, hands on our teammate’s shoulders. Monokeros. The child-killing Unicorn IV.

And I couldn’t even afford to do anything about it.

Lung roared, as only a person with an enhanced physique could, and then he leaped forward.

Goddess matched him, lifting herself up, the purple fire catching and then tracing the invisible diagrams and forces that buoyed her, only a few feet behind her because she moved fast enough to outrun its pace. More fire traced other powers she was using, blinding her and burning away the invisible, abstract forces that reached out from her and toward Lung’s brain.