I checked my phone again. No more messages from Dragon. The last message she’d left me could theoretically be a sign-off.

Tattletale talked while looking out the front window, drawing out her sentence, as if she was trying to reset the flow of the conversation, “The reason I’m concerned about you being on your phone is that you just ran off to intervene in a crisis. If the emergency communications work this way, then it’s theoretically possible to use them to send weaponized messages and distract you again.”

“If it’s a crisis like what just happened, doesn’t it make sense that I’d want to be on top of it?”

“If they’re watching us closely, they might decide to unload now because they know you’ll see it. If you had put the phone away and obeyed your own communications blackout, they’d hold that back.”

“Or they’re mounting a general offensive and they’ll release it anyway, hoping to break up our support network. If that happens, we come back from what we’re doing here and find everything on fire.”

“We don’t want that,” Sveta said. “I’m saying that as someone who was on fire and feels the sting pretty—completely and constantly.”

I reached out for her hand, gripping it in mine, giving it a squeeze, then waggling it.

“You don’t have to do the shakey-shake thing,” Sveta murmured. “Rain gave me hands with a full tactile range.”

I gave her another waggle. I caught the faintest smile on her face before Tattletale’s voice pulled my attention away.

“Look. The situation’s bad, it’s getting worse, based on the hint from Dragon. The best thing we can do is cut right past all the mess and go for the heart of the issue. Put the phone away,” Tattletale said. “You’re clinging to it out of brute-classification tendencies and I’ve got to tell you, this isn’t a situation you smash or take head on.”

I could have argued, but I didn’t. It was possible Tattletale was stressed, from how exasperated she was being. I held down the power button and let the phone go black.

“Good,” Tattletale said. She was in the front seat, her head turned to look the opposite direction. She was using her power to identify what I was doing. Obnoxious. “Fill me in, how did your deal with Bluestocking and the Mayor go?”

“Why?” I asked.

“So defensive. I’m not trying to get secret info here—”

“It’s between them and us.”

“—I’m trying to figure out the particulars of the situation we’re walking into.”

“Why would that matter to what we’re doing?”

“I’ll tell you if you tell me,” Tattletale said.