She was quick, faster than I would have been on foot, and wore a sweatshirt, pyjama bottoms, boots, and her mask with its crooked nose. Her hair was a mess, to the point I was pretty sure she’d been in bed when I’d buzzed in, despite the fact it had to be one or two in the afternoon now.

She leaped to another building and caught the fire escape, and then she leaped down, catching hold of an air conditioner. Bare handed, freezing cold metal. She let go with one hand and caught a rat that was tracing her own route, following her. She placed it on her messy hair and then reasserted her grip on the air conditioner.

She leaped from air conditioner to window, landing on the frame. I shifted direction, and in the time it took me to reach her, she opened the window and slipped inside. The window shut behind her.

I stopped short of entering, because there were enough people in the hallway and I didn’t trust myself to not hurt anyone by barreling through. I watched her route and flew around.

At the next window, I saw her round a corner. I traced her route again, watching through a bedroom window as she let herself into an unlocked apartment, looked through a kitchen window to see her head into the next room.

Back out into the hallway. I opened the window and entered.

She was quick enough that I almost missed what happened while I hauled the window open. Only the fact the hatch in the wall was held open for a second to let one of her pet rats follow her in let me know. It clanged shut. I flew to it, and I opened it.

By the smell, it was the building’s chute to the dumpster.

I flew back out the window, tapping it firmly with my foot so it would close, and flew around.

She’d put some distance between us. She’d exited the chute and the dumpster at the bottom of it, and I saw her entering a building.

Two hawks swooped down, snatching up the rats that followed behind her.

There was a pause, with her holding the door open, the door blocking my view. Then the crooked nose of her mask extended out and up, as she tracked the disappearance of her pets.

I landed.

About two seconds later, while I approached with arms up to show I wasn’t a threat, the thought connected.

Tattletale had invited Chicken Little for a reason. This reason. She’d guessed Ratcatcher was one of the fringe candidates, and she’d brought the bird master to go after the rats.

Non-lethally, she’d stressed.

She was going to be so insufferably pleased with herself, that it all came together like it did.