Tristan shrugged. “He didn’t have to say all that. He’s quick to say there’s a problem but he doesn’t suggest alternatives. He whines about the circumstances but he won’t attend the therapy and he doesn’t want to work on figuring out better courses of action. It pisses me off sometimes, especially when he elbows into my time to make what I’m trying to accomplish harder.”

His tone was hard. Pissed off seemed like an apt description. I’d seen Tristan, casual and smiling some before he’d changed, and now this felt like a complete, sudden shift.

It was easy to forget that he was in there while Byron was out here, feeling things, thinking, his mood changing during that short conversation.

I could see the expressions of others. The sympathy on Sveta’s face, the tilt of Chris’s head.

Ashley looked especially focused and attentive, her pacing around the hill having come to a stop. One of her hands was at her hair, pushing it back out of her face, the water helping it stay there.

“It seems like hard feelings are inevitable,” I said.

“Yeah,” Tristan said. He looked away. “I can keep my shapes ‘alive’. If they’re still alive when I change, they become water. If they aren’t, they’re there to stay. Same for Byron’s water. It’s effective if he makes water, sloshes it over someone, and then changes, to make it solid. We’ve tagged a good dozen villains that way.”

“A dozen is a really good number for a teenage hero.”

“Yeah,” Tristan said.

“You’re pretty lucky, getting a name that fitting for a power like that.”

“Constellations forming rock and water?” Tristan asked. He snorted air through his nostrils. “Want to know the hilarious thing?”

“I do,” I said. I wasn’t sure whatever he was going to say was ‘hilarious’, given his tone, but I’d hoped today would be a lighter endeavor, and any humor would help.

“We weren’t even rock and water, originally. Reach bought the name from the last Capricorn. She got wounded in battle and she retired. Win-win. We got settled into the role, got our name, our armor, our brand, and… power changed to match.”

“That’s really interesting,” I said. “There’s a lot of potential there.”

“There is. Absolutely. And not all of it’s good,” Tristan said.

“But some of it is,” Sveta said.

“Some of it is, yeah,” Tristan said. He offered her a small smile.

I could see the concerted effort he was making to pull out of the funk. A few words from his brother and he was upset enough that it showed in his tone and the direction of what he was talking about.

Tricky, that kind of negativity sitting just under the surface.