Ashley’s selection of dresses were more for events than for casual wear, but they were good. A halter cocktail dress with an angry flare of white feathers at the collar, a slimmer dress that almost completely covered one leg, while leaving the other bare. All in whites, or white with black or gray decorative elements.

“It’s an aggressively crisp, put-together look. Are you willing and able to dress the rest of yourself up to match?”

“Naturally.”

“Then go for it.”

“No condemnations? No calls for more color?”

“Nah,” I said. “I know what you’re capable of.”

“That I could take your head clean off your shoulders if needed?”

“More like I know you can live up to a style this severe.”

“Um,” Sveta said. “Sorry to jump in.”

“We forgot about your coat. Do you want to buy it?”

“I thought about it, and I think I’m going to go to the other store for the patchwork one.”

I smiled.

“Don’t be smug,” she said. “I’m taking Kenz.”

She took her battery pack too. Leaving me with the Ashleys and their battery pack, just heavy enough to be obnoxious.

I gathered up the dresses we’d liked, and took them to the counter. The Ashleys were holograms, so they couldn’t carry, and one of my hands was burned.

“Only reason I’m going to condemn someone for what they’re wearing is if it’s offensive or if it’s clear they could do better. The first gets the hero in me acting up—”

“Terrible, terrible,” Damsel said.

“—and the second is going to make the inner coach in me antsy. Nothing quite so infuriating as being witness to someone doing something just slightly wrong or a lot wrong, regularly.”

“I feel that way about almost everyone, doing anything,” Ashley said.

I looked back over my shoulder, toward the store where Sveta and Kenzie had gone. I could see them at the counter, the dress draped over the end of it.

“They’re good. I like them,” Ashley said.

“Is she okay?” I asked. “Kenzie?”

“No,” Ashley said. “She’s almost as bad as when I first met her. Better in some ways, but in others…”

She didn’t finish the sentence. I wondered if she was expecting her twin to finish it.

“We’ll keep an eye out,” I promised.

“Please.”

Sveta and Kenzie emerged, Sveta now wearing the jacket. She flickered slightly as Kenzie bolted ahead to where the Ashleys and I were.

“Rain went to the food court,” Kenzie said.

“Are you surveilling Rain?” Sveta asked, mock stern.

“No. I saw him walk that way,” Kenzie said. “No, I’m kidding. Yes, he has my tech on him and I’m keeping an eye on that tech, so I know kind of where he is. But I’m keeping an eye on my tech, not on him, specifically.”

Ashley gave me a sideways look.