“There’s no way for me to answer that question without causing problems or having more headaches later.”

“That’s kind of an answer on its own, isn’t it?” Tress asked.

“Is she trustworthy?” Capricorn asked Aiden. “Not just for this vote. If we’re doing anything, my team needs to know.”

“Juliette’s good at cape stuff,” Aiden said. “She says she likes watching people die. I’d say listen to her unless people might die.”

“Qué chingados…” Capricorn muttered, looking at Tattletale for confirmation, which she didn’t give. “Can’t be simple.”

Can’t be simple with Tattletale either, Darlene thought. Tattletale had wanted to separate her and Aiden like she was separating Aiden and Lookout, until Darlene had made her argument in the car. Her power made Aiden safer. If Candy was the only one with Aiden then that would be bad in its own way, because Candy egged him on. If none of the young Heartbroken were with Aiden, then the older Heartbroken would be, and very few of them were good role models… and Aiden would be worse off in the future, because there wasn’t going to be a time anytime soon where he wasn’t surrounded by the Vasils.

Tattletale had agreed, points for that. But she’d wanted to separate them and Darlene would remember that for a while.

“The benefit of this is it’s simpler,” Tress said. “Mobilizing is hard, and what happens if we go all the way there, communications are dead, and we can’t find them?”

“Good point. What about you? Your votes?” Capricorn asked. He turned toward the group.

“Mine? Ours?” Aiden asked.

“Sure.”

Darlene felt Aiden blink. Felt him make those small actions that prepared him to speak like an adult to adults.

“My birds are here. This looks like the kind of place where I can use them. I don’t know if it’ll work wherever we end up.”

Darlene looked around. The university was a lot of large, spacious buildings, with sloped concrete overhangs covering walkways, outdoor ampitheaters with stone stairs instead of seats that were now covered in snow, and second-, third-, and fourth-floor aboveground tunnels that extended between buildings. Right now, they were among the dorms. Cradle was said to be active on the other end.

She could see how the birds would be useful.

“Let’s stay,” Darlene said.

Capricorn nodded. “Let’s move to a better position then.”

Tattletale was looking around, taking in information. Tress walked forward on her hands, her ‘body’ barely touching the ground, Capricorn beside her.

It was nice that they’d asked instead of telling, and it was the best thing ever that the handshake had been a thing and that everyone thought it was cool.