“You don’t have to. The cold doesn’t bother me,” she said, while looking very bothered by the cold.

“Wear it. I have a forcefield,” I said. “You’ll have to find someone else to lean on, though.”

“Noted,” she said.

I was already feeling the bite of wind. I slipped all of the accessory parts into a pocket and I fixed my breastplate back into place—I had a long-sleeved thermal top on beneath, like a skintight sweater, and I did have gloves on, with bandages under one glove. There were still slivers of glass stuck in the bandage and the fabric of the glove, from where I had punched the trap.

“Victoria,” my mother said, while I was still making sure Swansong was squared away.

I turned in the air.

“It was good, back there. The negotiation. Getting through a bad situation. I’m proud.”

“I’m pleased too,” Swansong said. “I’ll turn Breakthrough into some top notch villains, just you wait and see.”

She laughed, mostly for her own benefit, and she might have glimpsed the frown on my mother’s face, because she doubled down on the laughter.

Capricorn broke away from Foil to see what was up.

“Give her a shoulder to lean on?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Gentleman,” Swansong said. She sounded far too pleased with herself, for whatever reason.

We were making some headway now. Some walking, some jogging, with the group getting a bit more spread out. The stragglers like Swansong would catch up. I hoped that a lone wolf like Rachel would hang back and wait for us if she found something, instead of going in alone. I didn’t know how predictable she was or how she operated.

I hoped too, that Damsel wouldn’t try to stalk ahead and tire herself out too thoroughly in the process, just to prove she moved faster than her sister.

Moose was waving me down. Please let this not be too complicated.

“What is it?”

“Paris, Thud, and Contender. They’re going in the same direction we are. They cut through the trees between the outcroppings, way over there. Harbinger Two saw them.”

I looked. ‘Over there’ was three hundred feet away, down in a valley. The trees were thick. I was surprised they could see anything.

“Good to know.”

“I want to shoot,” Harbinger Two said. He was the one who was most aware and able, sitting on Moose’s shoulder still.

“Which one?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Either of the two men. Not the deviant. Hard to say how they’ll react.”

I paused, considering.

“You have a gun? Foil can lend you hers,” I said.

He held up his slingshot.

Contender was looking to join religious extremists after being far too okay with what had happened. Paris was worse.

“I won’t stop you,” I said. “Maybe don’t kill.”

The Harbinger nodded. “I said I’d balance the equation.”