Beyond that, there were stages of quality. One man with a frayed basket-weave mesh of two cloth types, worn as a scarf. A woman with a complex five-part braid to her shawl seemed to be the one in charge. Colors seemed to signify gangs or group affiliation.

We had settled down in an area of the prison the gangs seemed to stay away from, because the conditions weren’t great—it was cold enough there was a puddle of water in the corner with hints of ice at the edges—and because it was under the cameras. A couple of older women and two family groups were set up in this spot.

“If you hug my leg that tight, you’re going to cut off the circulation,” Ashley told Kenzie.

But the kid was already asleep. Ashley seemed to make peace with it.

“The first time I met her, I found her really hard to get used to,” Vista said.

“Kenzie?” I asked.

“Mm. It took me a while to realize why. Wasn’t anything to do with her. It’s that she’s the opposite of me, back when I was a hero her age.”

The gang hadn’t moved. They stood in the hall, staring us down.

“I look back and I wish I’d tried harder to be a kid. Have friends my own age, crushes my own age instead of crushing on an older boy. I wish I’d leaned on people more.”

“To be fair, he was crush-worthy.”

Vista made an amused sound.

Ashley turned her gaze my way. She hadn’t used her power on herself recently, and with the apparatus out of her eyes and in Rain’s possession, she didn’t have her pupils erased or her smoke effect. Her eyes looked almost normal. In the dim, I could see her eyes move between me and the gang.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding slightly. “Yeah.”

Ashley nodded. She’d just wanted to make sure I was aware.

Did they want to intimidate us? Were they keeping track to see if we all fell asleep at the same time?

“This thing about them sharing bodies or whatever?”

“They feel what the others feel.”

“Yeah. That’s a little weird and creepy.”

“Yeah,” I said, I laughed softly, keeping my voice down to avoid disturbing anyone. “Absolutely. But it’s complicated.”

“Keeps her mind off of the idea of a lonely Christmas,” Vista said.

“That too,” I said. “We’ll talk to her about it.”

“I don’t want to begrudge her anything she needs or wants,” Ashley said. “Even if it’s ‘bad’.”

She made air-quotes as she said it. When she lowered her hand, it rested on top of Kenzie’s head.

“Bad is bad,” I said. “But I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing.”