She gave me a very unimpressed look, but she did give Bitter Pill a push on the shoulder. Bitter Pill put one pill into a pocket, then lifted a piece of plastic to her mouth, a candy dispenser shaped like a woman wreathed in skin, tubes running from the folds to her nose and mouth. The head was levered back, depositing a liquid jet into Bitter Pill’s mouth.

Crested started forward. I wanted to say ‘not you’, but he’d really only had one strike so far, and it had been well-intentioned.

“I’ll rally the others who are too chickenshit to jump in on their own,” Bluestocking said. “Send wounded to me. I’m certified.”

“As a?”

“Everything.”

I nodded. I was leery of parahuman healers, but this sounded more along the lines of conventional medicine, given a helping hand.

“He’s threatening to lock us all in,” Bluestocking said. “He had one of his hirelings reach out to me as a creepy whispergram. Don’t fuck this up.”

Swansong raised her eyebrows at me, but she didn’t say a word.

I turned to walk away without a response. Swansong leaned heavily into me, limping. We passed Chastity, who looked a little shell-shocked, and a lot intimidated by the maze that was unfolding.

The other kids had been hurt in a maze like that, if I remembered right. Chastity’s sisters and ‘cousins’.

“You good?” I asked her, pretty sure I knew what the answer might be.

“Hanging back,” Chastity said. “Bruised my hip there, leg’s wobbly, and I don’t think I can run.”

Swansong made an amused sound. I pointed a finger at her, stern.

“Okay,” I said. “Keep an eye on things here?”

She nodded, smiling slightly.

It wasn’t the best excuse in the world, but Chastity had done her part, and if she kept from being hurt, then Thud would stay down.

She observed while Bluestocking went to Paris’s side, absently rubbing at her hip.

Okay.

“Careful with your power,” Swansong said, as we reached the edge of the effect. She was talking to Damsel, by the angle of her head. “Capricorn said things are tricky here.”

“You be careful. I have control,” Damsel said.

Oh geez.

We split up, taking different paths, with Damsel going high, over a building that was looking a little crooked. Swansong stuck with me.

The soldiers were filtering into the maze, and I could see some by the weird geometry of the space, flashlights mounted on guns, masks and gas masks on.

Uneven ground, an enclosed space, and men with guns spreading out through the area.

They were doing it with an ease and focus that made me really concerned that they had done drills or practiced this.

And one of those squads was Cretan’s, who would be that much better at this.