“I want to keep that going. If I quit on the hero shit now then aren’t I just saying I only did it because I was dating him, or because of him?”

“You’d be saying you cared about him and you needed to focus on you for a little while. The rest of it doesn’t matter. Nobody who matters is going to judge you.”

“I matter,” Sveta answered.

I gave her a look, tilting my head to one side, then tilted my head further. “Can I give you a hug?”

She didn’t answer, instead putting her arms around me. The agitation from earlier that had led to her hurting me, if very little, seemed to have passed. I could feel the give in her shoulders, the pushback from tendrils that held them in place, the lack of structure to her upper body, and the weight of her arms. I was aware that tendrils were supporting the Old Man a couple of feet from us. He seemed remarkably okay with it, though he might have still been dazed by the fall down the stairs.

“I don’t get to act on my emotions,” she said. “At best, I’d go to my—Weld’s apartment, my old room, lock myself in and relax my control. But I don’t have a room to go back to.”

“Yeah,” I said.

A thousand thoughts went through my mind, and I felt as though I could have sorted and filed them, putting things into an order or priority, if the day hadn’t started with my meeting with Jessica and ended with Teacher’s power move.

“You’ve got a ten thousand yard stare there, Antares,” Tattletale said. My eyes went to her, tracking her as she walked around the car. Snuff pulled away.

Sveta broke the hug. She gave me a curious look.

“You sent Snuff away?” I asked Tattletale.

“To get food for the sprogs. I’m going to break my promise of being back for dinner, so I might as well feed them. Besides, what’s he going to do if the Wardens decide to unilaterally arrest me? Fight Dragon, Defiant, Vista and Narwhal? He’s good but I don’t think he could beat any of those guys.”

“True,” I said.

“At this point the only reason I’d bring him along would be to protect me from you two bullying me, and he’s done a piss-poor job of it. He’s got a long way to go before he’s a proper Jeeves.”

“A little conspicuous for a hypercompetent butler,” I noted.

The other car had parked a little further down the street, and the trio were approaching. Engel glowed in the dark, and the glow—I had to look away. She looked like music and the smell of flowers. Synesthesia. It was deeply uncomfortable.

“Come on,” Tattletale said, winking at me. “Let’s see how fucked you all are.”