“She was always at her best dealing with the smaller scale and the biggest, most abstract stuff,” Foil called out. “Fights and powers, conspiracies, not running cities! That was always her sticking to someone else’s game plan, manipulating the parameters. She was best when she was taking care of the Undersiders. When she had to look after herself, because not being at her best meant she might not be able to manipulate and steer her friends.”

Skitter and Imp?

“Except they’re okay now!” Foil’s expression had changed below her visor. She was almost smiling, but it was a sad smile. “Imp’s okay! Rachel’s okay now! Parian and I are okay! Heartbroken are less broken than ever! New Brockton was even okay! The ones who aren’t or who couldn’t be okay are dead!”

Rachel snarled. When I looked, she was just goading her dog to keep running and to run harder. Tough going in the tall grasses and bushes that ran along the side of the road.

Or at least, the goading and tough way forward was a good excuse.

Losing teammates was—I could sympathize with that.

“She has no purpose?” I asked. My hand was cold where it was holding my hood up. I pulled it down, using my other, and drew closer so I wouldn’t have to strain my throat yelling. “How does that lead to a screwup like not knowing what her own mercenaries are doing?”

“She has a purpose, but it’s killing her,” Foil said. “She looks after the city. It’s that thing that drains her and brings out the worst in her. It doesn’t fill that need she has, but she does it because she has to.”

“She did it, past tense,” I gritted out the words. I’d have to bail in a second to throw the Wretch up. “She keeps talking about how she’s bailing, she’s out, she doesn’t want to get involved.”

“Yeah. What’s she doing instead?”

“Looking after Chicken Little. Do you mean he’s her project now? Like the Undersiders were before?”

“Except he’s okay too,” Foil said. “Most of the way to okay. And she’s trying to steer him when he’s already on course to being a good—whatever he ends up being. And that drains her, I think it surprises her how much. She doesn’t accept input, not from me, most of all, not from Imp, Rachel doesn’t give input, and I think everyone that’s paying attention is pretty sure she’s going to either get him hurt, drive him away, or get herself hurt.”

I thought of the little man I’d felt so much like I’d wanted to coach and guide. The boy with the birds.

“She looks like she’s in her element but she’s not. So she puts more of herself into it—”