“It’s complicated,” Rain said. He must have seen the look on my face, because he added, “The powers wax, wane, and shuffle around. I try to keep track. He was loaded to bear on that day, if I’m remembering right. The only power he didn’t have a lot of was mine, and maybe a little bit less of his own.”

“Right,” I said. “Which is yours?”

“Uh. Mine is a blaster power,” Rain said. “It’s pretty mediocre. I shoot things or people and they’re vulnerable to being broken for a short while after. To put it simply.”

“Mediocre is sort of the name of the game when it comes to clusters,” I said.

“I’ve got a tinker power, I make extra arms and hands. They’re not very good. Barely above what I’d be able to make on my own, fragile enough that if you grab something wrong they can break, no strength, ugly. The prosthetic focus is part of why I was introduced to the group, I think.”

“It was,” Mrs. Yamada said. “We thought there was a chance of insights across designs.”

Sveta would be one, obviously. Ashley raised a hand, slender, with black-painted nails.

I couldn’t tell that her hand was prosthetic.

“I wasn’t much help, because I’m a really bad tinker,” Rain said. “I can also catch my balance or secure my footing more easily, that’s my version of the big guy’s mover power. It’s handy in a way, lets me turn on a dime or keep from falling over.”

“Wait, his power was the mover power? The arms and emotion power were his secondaries?” I asked.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Rain said. “I think he had a bit less of his own power that day, with the way it was sorted. My last power is an emotion power. Guilt and doubt, over an area. It’s pretty tepid.”

“He hit me with it a few times,” Tristan said. “Tepid is a good word for it. You can actually not notice you’re being hit by it.”

“And it waxes and wanes, you said?” I asked.

“My blaster power can get a bump some days. My others, no. They stay at about that power level. The others change it up more, they’ll act on days they’re strong.”

“We may be getting distracted,” Mrs. Yamada said. “I might suggest you carry on this discussion later. Victoria can fill you in on…”

“Snag,” I said. “Sorry. This is actually really interesting though. I’d be happy to talk it over another time.”

“It’s good to have a name for him,” Rain said. “Uh, okay. Getting back on topic, I know I’m a little selfish in why I’m doing this. Wanting people to have my back.”

“We all need people to have our backs,” Kenzie said.