“Yeah,” Contender said. “And Paris? Paris has his own thing going on.”

“You don’t need to talk about me,” Paris said, creepy-quiet.

“If you’re trying to scare us, it won’t work,” Contender said, one hand at his neck. “You can’t use her for leverage if none of us give a shit.”

“She’s not leverage,” Swansong said. As she paced, Paris threw another dart. She destroyed it before the geyser could appear. Pale as she was, the red line and the trickles of blood stood out on her face and at her scalp, running through her hair to matt an area with blood. “We’re getting used to the idea of killing. Again, in my case.”

I drew in a deep breath, exhaled. Etna blew bubbles.

Sure.

“This looks worse for you than for us,” Contender said. “She hasn’t hurt anyone, not that I’ve heard, she wasn’t a part of this except that she was one of a bunch of people they hired. I don’t know what happened with this kid she apparently hit, but—”

“Contender,” Paris said.

Contender looked over at the tall, long-haired man.

Paris just shook his head.

Telling Contender to shut the fuck up, using silence to evoke silence.

Etna struggled, but she didn’t find the means to get her head out of the water.

Ice water, it had to be. When I glanced at Paris, Contender, and Vulturehawk, I could see how the cold and damp was getting to them.

Thud, who held Sveta against the ground, didn’t seem to mind overmuch. Sveta was adapting to more targeted holds, hauling on Thud’s knees, pulling his head down.

This—it was a stalemate of a particularly dark sort. If we—if I backed down now, hauling Etna out of the water, then I wasn’t sure I could go as far as was necessary the next time I had to make the call.

And Contender was probably right. They probably didn’t care.

We needed a break for the stalemate, and it was either going to be one of theirs or one of ours. Ours were out of action. Theirs…

I glanced back.

Prancer and Moose were approaching, picking their way across the water. They had one of ours hostage—Sveta. Three of ours if we included the Harbingers, who we couldn’t help.

“Big bad Paris,” Swansong said. “Can’t even protect his subordinate. From all I heard about you… I thought you’d be more.”

He didn’t take the bait. I was put in mind of the cold, calculating professional, rather than Love Lost’s type.

Moose and Prancer reached the edge of our collection of capes. I saw Moose pause as they got to a vantage point where they could see Etna moving awkwardly while belly-down in water.

“Hey,” Prancer said. “Blue and Bitter are coming, along with the rest. Your buddies won’t recover before they get here.”