Because they were Rinke and Riley, it took even longer for the gap in the conversation to happen. After twenty minutes, Valkyrie couldn’t effectively interrupt. Rinke wasn’t making goblins, he was making homonculi, and he felt that was an important distinction, because they didn’t have personalities and they existed purely for labor. Riley had questions and answers and she’d been experimenting to figure out options. Rinke had things to say about being king or not being king.

But Jessica appeared, knees and hands grimy from gardening or farming on the small scale, and Valkyrie abandoned the conversation, quite likely offending the king-who-wasn’t.

“Ciara,” Jessica greeted her, smiling wide. “You found us.”

Ciara nodded. Emotions welled up, but she managed to keep them from overflowing.

“I’ve only had the chance to seriously look for a week,” Ciara admitted.

“A week you’ve been away from the city?”

Ciara nodded.

“Still keeping your distance, I see. Venturing this far away from home when you could be there?”

It was meant to be joking, light, observation, not admonishment. But Ciara wasn’t used to showing weakness.

The tower and the atmosphere gun. The Simurgh. The power effects betraying convention. Broken triggers. Ghosts. Tinker devices left unattended. Chemical weapons. Mutants. War. Being hated or treated as alien or creepy everywhere she went. Being judged for tending to her flock. Being judged for failing her flock.

She could deal with that. She could stand tall and she could face it down. They were comfortable unknowns and question marks.

“The city. We’ve talked about it. Why I’m… staying comfortably away,” Ciara said.

“The biggest threat,” Jessica said.

“The biggest threat. Yeah. I’m terrified, Jessica.”

Polarize 10.1

“It’s hard to know where to draw the line sometimes,” Sveta confessed.

We were standing at the crosswalk. We’d just met near the station, hugged, and were heading down toward the city core. I’d just come from my physical therapy for my arm and having a doctor look at the burn on my arm, and I had the buzz of the recent exercise, the endorphins from the pain, all on top of the feeling of being freshly showered and toweled off.

No costume—only a sweater, jeans, boots, and a gray wool coat with overly elaborate buckles. I did have my bag with me, but I wasn’t packing the costume inside. No equipment, but with the buzz, clean feeling, and endorphins, I had all of the emotional armor and preparation I could pull together for seeing family.