And this was after days of stress, and months, a year of seeing his cluster every night. What we’d done to force him out of the room was screwing with the way his power had been distributed.

The Lumberjack threw the piece of wood he had been whittling, straight for Red. Red made a movement of her hand, and there was a small splash of gears and pistons, of cranks and pipes, some red hot, barely larger across than a dinner plate. It was followed by another splash, hotter and larger, like a stone was being skipped, and a third, even larger, massive, with a piece of machinery taller than Red was lunging out of the ground. A mechanical claw seized the piece of wood, destroying it, before disappearing into the ground with another ‘splash’.

People backed away from the droplets of molten metal that had been thrown out.

“Remember your power educates them,” I said.

“I remember,” Rain said. “I disabled it just as he did the stupid thing.”

He’d been loud as he said it.

Worrying we’d been heard, I was mindful of the group on the roof, and flew up, leaving Rain where he was. None were close enough to hear Rain. They’d heard the commotion and headed to the door, where they now gathered.

Still fifteen or so on the roof. The captains were at one spot where boxes had been set out for sitting on. I saw the player, and guns set against walls, in easy arm’s reach. Nobody had abandoned their weapon.

I watched and waited, trying to get a sense of them. As they started to turn back around, situation assessed, I dropped back down.

Sveta was there, at the corner of the building. Her tendril reached out to its maximum range, slapping my shoulder. Scared the hell out of Rain, who almost lost his perch.

I motioned for him to stay, then followed. Sveta was careful to pull back, to move away as I moved forward, keeping a healthy distance.

Sieben. The woman who’d been the biggest pain, and Drei, the woman with the flashlight and bad smoking habit. My mother stood over both, a blanket over her and them, shielding the glow of the blades she held to their throats.

“They saw us,” Sveta murmured. “There was a noise, and that one did a weird thing where she didn’t look toward the noise, she focused down on us. She called the one with the flashlight.”

“Power?” I asked. “Answer. Quiet.”

“No,” Sieben said. “Good habits.”

“I have bandages, belt, back pouch,” my mom said. “Use them for a gag. Left pouch for—”

“For wrist-ties,” I guessed.

“Cuffs.”

I got the bandages and cuffs. Gags around the mouth. We set them back to back, wrists behind them around the stomach of the other.

“If you make a commotion, we can reach you before they do,” I said. “No fumbling around, no shuffling, kicking, or banging.”