I had planned to suggest half an hour, as a fair compromise, but that she’d asked left me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

“Fifteen minutes. Say what you’ve got to say.”

“I want there to be back and forth. I don’t want you to tune out.”

“Okay. Go.”

She nodded, very exaggerated, too fast. Her hands were visibly shaking, even as she pet Dot.

“Then,” she told me. “Then um, I’ll start with something I know will get your attention. Appeal to the side of you that loves cape stuff. Or loved. I don’t know if you’ve changed.”

I remained silent.

She swallowed hard. “Back at the Birdcage, I came into contact with Glaistig Uaine. She’s Valkyrie now. I got a glimpse of how powers are organized. I figured out Gold Morning before it happened.”

“Okay. Were you able to get it to anyone?”

“No. Not really, but I tried. I did fill them in once I was out. But that map, that set of connections, it’s still kind of there. The central hub is dead and all shards are acting like Cauldron shards used to, not developing right, not aggregating data in the same ways, not updating or adapting to their hosts like they should be. A lot of just outright dumb now.”

“The broken triggers.”

“Yes. And Dauntless. The Kronos Titan.”

“A broken second trigger multiplied by a portal and time effect, or something.”

“Kind of. Um. But when I work on the right people I see the landscape that’s laid out, the old roads where connections used to be. I think we’re going to see more.”

“More broken triggers?” I asked.

“More Dauntlesses. A lot more, and soon. The city’s the worst spot… it’s like all those portals? Them being there make it easier for the big, messy results to happen. Like tearing paper with a row of holes in it. The holes guide the tear.”

“How certain are you?”

“One hundred percent. Ninety-nine percent. Weird stuff can always happen.”

I nodded to myself.

“Victoria, the city’s like a lake covered in ice, with countless cracks spread across it. Powerful capes are staying away from it because they make it worse. They’re too heavy for the ice.”

“They haven’t said anything.”

“If we abandoned the city and set up elsewhere, those cracks would still spread. The end result is the same, except it’s a bit delayed and a lot of people die because they abandoned the infrastructure, supply chains, resources, and support the city offers.”

“They’re trying to find answers.”