Snow blew around us. I was aware of cars on the road that had slowed to see what we were doing. Standing in the middle of a firefight that made no logistical sense, as each piece of the puzzle was frozen at a different time and place than the others. Powers were flying, bullets in the air, people mid-motion, and none of it jibed. Jibing would have to be puzzled out in another way at another place. That was if there were clues to be gathered there.

“It’s going to be another few minutes. These people are all packed in together, and I can do things like take a snapshot of EM levels, or brainwaves, or DNA, but I keep getting cross-signals. I’m having trouble pulling them apart. But we will! We will figure out who you all are, mysterious attackers!”

“I know who one of them is,” Tristan said.

“We know them,” Rain said.

“You—you saw enough details to do a visual? You must have a power if you did, because my onboard camera isn’t getting a good lock.”

“Not a power,” Rain said. “Passing familiarity.”

“Do tell,” Ashley said.

“That right there?” he indicated the people who were gathered as a mass. “That’s messy because it’s a cluster. And right beside it?”

“What?” Kenzie asked.

“Another cluster,” Rain said.

“There’s another,” Tristan said. He indicated the gouges in the ground with the earth spewing from them. “I know this one. He wasn’t at the Fallen fight, but there’s some old history.”

“Paris?” Rain asked, his head snapping around.

Tristan nodded. “Or one of his cluster. But that silhouette looks right.”

“Oh,” Kenzie said, hurrying to type out a word on her phone. She aimed at the center of the back, and an image flickered across the spaces she was aiming at, its head trying fifty different orientations before finding something suitable. “Then this is—”

“March,” I said, an instant before the image of her ‘hare’ mask and the brimmed hat with the masks’ ears poking out the front came into solid, crystal-clear focus.

“She recruited,” Ashley observed.

“Yeah,” Rain said.

“She didn’t try to recruit you?” Sveta asked.

“I was in jail. Maybe she tried?”

The Undersiders hadn’t gone running to Parian and Foil for refuge. Or maybe they had, but it wasn’t necessarily the primary focus. They’d gone there to protect them.

Polarize 10.5

“Oh no,” Swansong said, her voice deadpan. “It’s the fuzz.”

“Oh no!” Lookout echoed Swansong, her voice anything but deadpan. “Are we in trouble? What do we say? What do I do?”