We were past the worst of the minefield. Ashley broke away from me, staggering forward on peg leg and one leg that wasn’t cooperating, and she struck out with her power, twice just to keep her balance or push herself upright when her leg was starting to give, a third time to strike at one red light that had blinked to life.

I followed, mindful of Swansong’s blasts. The spasms had subsided enough that I could put my arms at my sides instead of having them folded up against my chest or awkwardly around Swansong. ‘At my sides’ wasn’t the best way of putting it, as fingers were curled up into claws and I couldn’t really extend, swing with, or rotate my hands and arms. It was a fight just to keep them from getting in my own way.

A glance over my shoulder suggested the others weren’t recovering in any visible measure. This recovery seemed to be because I’d only taken a glancing blow. That my heart hadn’t actually stopped seemed to be because I had armor at my chest. Something to conduct or take the focus of the arc, I couldn’t say.

Contender, a Case Fifty-Three with ‘feathers’ that looked more like worn leather than any featherlike, Paris, and Etna all stood lined up against Swansong, the Harbinger and I. In the back of their group, Sveta wrestled with the ‘rook’ Case Fifty-Three, and she seemed to be losing. He was pressing the edge of her face into the ground like he was trying to break it in half.

“Leave her alone!” I hollered the words.

I saw him visibly pause.

“He don’ like tella he what do, no yah?” the other Case Fifty-Three said. A string of English with some heavy tonal emphasis on vowels, especially on the ‘tella’.

“Not unless you want to egg him on,” Contender said, putting one fist inside his hand, cracking knuckles.

I tried my forcefield on for size. Skintight, but I could feel the rustling, sense the extension of it, as a hand reached out here, a Victoria-ish shape emerged there.

Something simultaneously reassuring and quietly horrifying. If only there was some way to keep the forcefield in its wet-paper-fragile state, where it hugged my body again and didn’t echo my worst nightmares.

At least it didn’t break when I took a step.