Auzure. I felt a bit slimy at the thought. When I’d hunted for a position in a team, they’d been nice up until they let slip that what they really wanted was my sister. We’d worked with them in passing since, mostly at arm’s length.

“Dido? She does fine. Her team makes money,” I said.

“The team makes money. Lark manages money well. But Dido is a disaster waiting to happen when cold hard cash or theoretical cash are involved. There’s a reason they keep the team small and the growth slow and steady. She’s like an alcoholic with a wine cellar.”

“You said it was more than an ordinary disaster,” Sveta said.

“Everyone would feel it, at least a little,” Tattletale said. “There’s at least a subconscious reason she named herself after the woman who threw fortunes away in history and myth.”

I frowned.

“At least a few of those times were ruses,” Sveta said.

“People tend to have reasons for doing dumb things,” Tattletale said.

“That feels like pretty obscure mythology,” I remarked to Sveta. “Knowing those were ruses?”

“Dido marries Pygmallion, and the mythological Pygmallion is the guy who made and married a living statue. I related,” Sveta said. A sad look passed over her face.

Ah. The statue, the boy made of metals.

“That’s pretty out there, for stuff to be researching,” I said, trying to keep the conversation normal and light.

“Uh huh. I spent a long time looking for cape names and costume ideas, when Breakthrough was new. I’m so, so glad I didn’t go with Galataea or anything Weld-related.”

“I wouldn’t have let you,” I said.

She squeezed my hand, and her eyes dropped to look at where her Rain-made prosthetic hand with its not-quite-right skin clasped my gloved hand.

“Bright spots in a dark day,” she murmured. “I can feel this.”

“You good to do this?” I asked. “Mission in enemy territory?”

She nodded.

I looked out the window as we emerged into light.

The road in through the station had passed through the series of turnstiles that would lock and block away the majority of the fumes when any vehicles passed through.

We were out of the station now, passing by more guards and some idle capes I recognized from three weeks ago. Inhabitants of the Earth N corner world. We traced the top portion of an ‘S’ curve in doing so, carrying on north.

No Etna among the idle capes, as it happened.

Thinking about Etna made me think about violence and death, even though I’d gone reasonably easy on her. She’d just been a face or a mask to latch onto, like an annoying, ostentatious song in my head. The thought led to my mom, and my dad, who had gone with her. Neither had returned from Earth Shin.