“I wanted Hollow Point, but that didn’t work out. This… it’s closer to a summer camp. Some shitty people, sure, but freeing, finally a chance to breathe, after a lot of bad days.”

“People who maimed others,” I reminded him. “When I gouged you beneath your mask, you said your mom would’ve cried over it. How’s she going to feel about this?”

“Low blow,” Prancer said.

Moose just made a bit of a face, almost a scowl, but then faltering, like he couldn’t bring himself to.

“Prance?” Moose asked.

Was that him deferring, because he legitimately couldn’t come to a decision, or was he checking with his boss or partner because anything else would be dangerous?

Not that I could imagine Prancer being an outright danger to Moose.

“We negotiate,” he said. “Give her a breath, come on. Enough have died.”

Swansong looked at me, then at my nod, lifted Etna up.

“What do you want?”

“Call off the reinforcements,” I said.

“Can’t. I’m not in charge.”

“Convince them.”

“Can’t. They don’t like me,” Prancer said. “I made a play for power and I failed. Lost my Queen.”

There were more vehicles on the road now. The cars Foil had disabled were moving now.

A convoy of capes and the kind of locals who’d worked with Nursery and accepted her methods because it meant a shot at a house.

Our team still wasn’t up.

“Let Sveta go,” I told the others. “We let you have Etna.”

The chess Case Fifty-Three turned his head slowly to look at Paris. Sveta gripped the head from five different angles.

“This the Svet’?” Thud asked, in his booming voice.

“Yeah,” I heard Sveta. It sounded like she was having trouble making words. “Let me fucking go!”

“Let her go,” Paris said. “She’s more dangerous to them than to us.”

They released Sveta, who escaped. Swansong let Etna slump to the ground, backing up to stand by my side.

I bent down and picked up one of the Harbingers. The second Harbinger was up, and crawled our way until he found ground steady enough to stand on. His leg looked mangled. In this manner, we gathered together. A very small group when compared to what felt like a larger assortment of others. Not because we were outnumbered by that much, but because they were more intact as a whole.

Swansong elbowed me. When I looked, she passed me a phone.

Ah, Etna’s phone. What had she been interested in? The reinforcements?

An overhead map with a field of red dots. The traps. Easily fifty. She’d been keeping an eye on the layout while trying to herd Swansong toward the traps. While moving around on her own. Probably everyone had something like this.

Seemed like Love Lost had been making a lot of use of the tinker power, lately.