Fifteen of us and three dogs were gathered, and all were silent, but for the labored breathing from Tattletale.

“Bluestocking hoped you’d resolve the issue in the background, come back, and go away. Not bring it to her literal doorstep,” Prancer said.

“Her house?” Tattletale asked, jerking her head. The one we were camped out by.

Prancer gave her a long look. In the gloom, his eyes seemed bright, his attention clearly on the gravity of Tattletale’s injury.

“Bad—”

“Forget—forget I asked,” Tattletale said.

“She’ll help,” Prancer said. “She wants concessions.”

“Concessions?” I asked. “We’ve fucking sailed past the place where the line used to be drawn, where people put their shit aside because fuck no.”

“She’ll help,” Prancer said, voice firm. “But if you don’t want some asshole villain pulling a mutiny and taking over, giving you a repeat performance of all of this in a few months or a year, she needs to give her people something. You need to give her something to give her people.”

“Money?”

“No. Special status for the Rows. You do what you can to convince the mayor, make sacrifices, pull favors, whatever. Mayor knows what we’ve been asking for.”

“We know,” Harbinger One said. “It’s come up. All of the benefits of being part of the city and none of the costs. Open trade, loosened restrictions on goods despite being an alternate world with health risks and quarantine. No taxes, but access to the library net. It’s a hard sell.”

“Thank you,” I said. Context.

Tattletale gasped out a response, “Establishes her place on the—shortlist of people who control economy. Second rung.”

My mom folded her arms, leaning in close to whisper something to my dad.

I knew her well enough to guess what. In fact, on thinking about what she was probably saying, I could extrapolate. She loathed giving the villains what they wanted. If we couldn’t stop them, we could keep them from scoring a win.

I knew why that idea had rung so true, and why it had been something she’d clung to and repeated more often in recent years. She’d watched us give our hometown to villains, inch by inch, the perceived idea the Protectorate and Wards had given Lung territory because he was too dangerous to uproot, and that heroes had conceded it to Undersiders.

Because she’d given a villain what he wanted and expected once, and took a child into her home. And that home had been sundered.

“What happens if we can’t convince the mayor?” Swansong asked.

“Penalty clause,” Prancer said. “Two members of Breakthrough join Bluestocking. They’re at her beck and call, people get to see it. Six month—”

Gunfire cut him off.

“Foil,” I said. “Harbingers. Get MYOSHA and Prong.”

The Harbingers approached one corner of the building. Foil went to the other, jostling Rain aside, borrowed slingshot in hand.