“Yeah,” he said. “How’d you get me?”

“Old records.”

“Antares is the kind of geek who reads old PRT files,” Sveta said.

The Old Man nodded.

“The past never lets you go,” he told me. “The amnesty doesn’t protect me?”

“Right now, you’re being protected, that’s a main goal of ours. But Tattletale thinks you know something we can use, the rest of the people here want to hurt you. Cooperate with us and we’ll be fair to you.”

“Okay.”

I got Semiramis’s attention, and we began to make our way downstairs. Since the open construction of the stairwell didn’t really obscure view at any point from anywhere on the ground floor, I put myself between the man and the crowd, to better block their view. Sveta descended the stairs beside me, while Semiramis followed. Little Midas caught up and followed, with Tattletale and Snuff. The Old Man had a bad leg, apparently, and limped. I held his arm, in part just to keep him from reaching for anything, if the limp was a trick.

A lot of eyes were on us as we made our way down, step by step.

“Out of curiosity,” I said. “Etna. What happened to her? She okay?”

“She retired,” Midas said, behind me.

“She retired?”

Prancer explained, “Went out after Bitch and her hounds, that night three weeks ago. Took a hit, decided she was done. Hung up her costume, moved. Said she’d probably have to do something cape-ish to work out her stress, so she might be a B-list heroine.”

“Oh,” I said. “I think that was me who hit her.”

What the fuck was I supposed to think about Etna now? The idea of that being what had actually happened had me caught between this being a bad, cruel joke, like saying someone’s puppy had gone to live on a farm somewhere, and it being real and me then having zero idea what to think of the inept villain who irritated me so much but had actually done something cool.

“You hit her so hard she retired?” Tattletale asked, grinning.

“It wasn’t a hit, exactly. Is this a bad joke?”

“No joke. And you’re going to have to regale us with your explanation of what this mysterious technique is,” Prancer said. “Was it a specific angle of hit? A combination?”

“You’ll have to teach me, whatever it is,” Sveta added, playing along.

“I tackled her in the air. Spun her around pretty violently, then dumped her into the side of a hill.”

“Ten-eighty spin with a punt to finish it?” Prancer asked. “That’d do it.”

“More than ten-eighty and I didn’t punt. I spun, stopped, and after a momentary pause I… very firmly introduced her to the hillside. I measured my strength.”

“And worried you killed her,” Tattletale said.

“I—no. I—”

“You worried you killed her.”

“If someone disappears and the last thing you remember is a K.O.—”

“Midas!”

A voice from the crowd. We were partway down the stairs.

Fuck.