They did follow after, though they didn’t take root. I gathered my thoughts again. “They are intimidating enemies, but they aren’t perfect. If you want this, and I think you do, then maybe it’s worth going down that road.”

“Beating our powers? The agents?”

“Yeah,” I said, and my voice was quiet. An older man came in through the one door, entering the mall. The warm air rushed out, the higher pressure in between the sets of double doors serving to force the cold air out. When the old man was gone, the other set of doors closed behind him, I continued, “Yeah. I’m getting tired of being out of control. I’m tired of being surprised. I’m tired of the betrayals, big and little, from family and teammates.”

Sveta nodded emphatically, her expression serious, lips pressed together into a line.

“Not just being out of control, but being controlled. I just—no way can I tolerate that. Not Valefor, not Amy, not Mama Mathers, not Kingdom Come, in your case, not Goddess. Before the prison attack brought things to a standstill, we were building something. Based on some of the emails I’ve skimmed, we can mostly pick up where we left off.”

“You could talk to the team about this,” Sveta said. “You’re bringing it up with me, first. Like you did with your forcefield.”

I nodded.

“Why?”

“To gauge. How far do you want to go with this? It’s weird, but I know what the others want by now. You… I get the impression that you could find one or two key things or key answers and you could be truly happy. You have the second coolest boyfriend ever, you’re beautiful, you’re artistic, you’re compassionate, and you could hold your own in any team.”

“You might be overselling me.”

“But if someone could wave a magic wand and grant you one wish… you’d be okay, wouldn’t you? You could settle down and be happy?”

“One thing? There are things on the side I care about. Um, beyond my own issue, I care about the Case Fifty-Threes. I kind of want to find out where I came from.”

“But if you had a magic wand with one wish, those are things you could still handle, right? You could donate to charities or support an organization. You could travel on your own, once things settled down.”

“I might have too much of the hero bug in me to stop altogether,” Sveta said. She leaned into me, her head resting on my shoulder.

“Good to know, then,” I said. “The reason I ask, and the reason I’m asking you first, is I wanted to know how far you’d be willing to go?”

“In what way?” she asked.

I tried to articulate it, and then settled for shaking my head.

“That’s not an answer.”