“Okay,” I said, interrupting before Lookout could get carried away. “Footage of these guys, as they make the approach. Maybe they brought something.”

“Oh, right, on it!”

“Victoria,” Tristan said.

I turned to look, and the orange motes he was drawing manifested into a shape. It was a little more triangular than rectangular, the point scraping the ground, but it had a bar across the middle and it had a hole in the front to peer through, if I kept my head at the right angle. Black stone, run through with veins of what looked like copper, gold, or a mix therein. It tipped toward me, and I caught it with my burned hand and my shoulder, before catching it with my other hand.

“Stand back,” I said. I glanced back to make sure the coast was clear, and then I activated the Wretch.

Stone creaked and strained as the Wretch grabbed it, and it bucked this way and that as hands gripping the top and then the side pulled at the edges. Part of the bar broke almost immediately.

Tristan did something cruder with his shield, drawing it small. He drew out more motes near where I was, and as I advanced, he advanced into the motes, putting his shield out so the stone would manifest and bond to it.

Once I knew he was doing that, I picked up the pace.

“Rain,” I said the word instead of calling it out, because the acoustics of the tunnel meant that sound would travel. “If Tristan and I go down, use your ranged power to stall and distract, don’t hurt anyone, get Lookout and Damsel clear.”

“Yep,” he said, like it hadn’t even needed to be said, didn’t even warrant a full ‘yes’.

“And me?” Monokeros asked.

“Your orders are the same ones Goddess gave you. Keep an eye on Lookout. Make sure she gets out safe and sound.”

“I meant he should rescue me too.”

She didn’t even get it, did she? That she was that ignorant, that fucking unable to see the wrong in what she did, that she might even say she’d do it all over again. A complete and utter monster, behind me, her footsteps running. She could use her power on me at any moment—

“He could,” Tristan said, behind me. He was the only one besides me who wasn’t a little winded by the running. Rain seemed to be doing okay too.

Hearing that voice, the firm shutdown of the monster, it helped.

Too easy to get pulled—sucked down a rabbit hole.

“Guys,” Lookout said. “My mask is fritzing out.”

“Your mask?” Damsel asked.

“I’m all wired up. I’ve got cameras for eyes, and they aren’t working,” Lookout said.