“Fine. Conceded. But you fought our hometown dragon boy and lost, judging by that burn—”

“Won. I did pretty fucking awesome, actually.”

“You won against Lung. Right. Really helping your case, here, Miss ‘this wasn’t a fever dream’.”

I moved to elbow her again, and hit a square of forcefield.

“Fought Teacher, fought Goddess. I have a hundred texts from Aunt Carol, who was no doubt trying to see if she could reach me and use me to steer you back on course—”

“No comment,” I said.

“And twenty texts from your dad, who was interpreting Auntie C’s actions or crisis managing.”

“Fair bit of crisis managing, I think. I saw Amy,” I murmured to Crystal.

“Oh,” she said, and the levity where she’d been making fun of how hectic we’d been and complaining in good fun was all gone. “How was that?”

A very careful, neutral question.

“Not well. She left.”

“Left…?”

“Gimel. She and Marquis left to take a leadership role in another Earth. With Cryptid.”

Crystal nodded. “Your dad said Marquis was active on Earth N. It would make sense for him to take a firmer hand, go to Earth N—”

I was shaking my head. Sveta added a “no” for good measure.

“Another uninhabited Earth, using the skills he learned, then.”

“Inhabited,” Sveta said. “Shin.”

Crystal’s uncovered eye bugged out. “That’s Goddess’s.”

“Was. Amy, Marquis, Cryptid now.”

“We don’t know how far they’re going with it,” Sveta added.

Crystal didn’t have a retort for once.

“It’s okay,” I said. “That’s a mess that’s going to have to be dealt with sometime, but not today. As shitty as it is to say, it’s a load off my mind that she’s not here.”

“I don’t think it’s shitty,” Sveta said. “You’ve been more at ease since all that.”

I shrugged and gave Sveta a smile. I turned more attention to Weld, who was apparently pretty content holding his girlfriend, his attention half on us and half on the crowd. He saw me looking.

“Vista.”

I perked up, looking.

“She’s just talking to her dad now. She was with her mom earlier, and her parents can’t stand to be in the same place at the same time.”

“And even when she sees each of them separately, it’s about who she saw first, who she saw longest… I guess that’s not better?”