The goal had been to make it to a place where staff had access to water. The siege in the gallery hadn’t quite allowed it.

Withdrawal had to move carefully, with the bulky frame and the hallway that was only ten feet across. Caryatid followed.

“Hey, Withdrawal,” I said. “Nice showing.”

He released a heavy, shuddering sigh.

“Finale would have been nice to have around,” he said.

“Wouldn’t have been good for her,” Caryatid said.

They found a spot to sit down, Withdrawal’s long limbs folding up to a degree to maintain a more compact silhouette.

Thinking about Finale got me thinking about Lookout, and thinking about Lookout got me thinking about maps.

Communications were still limited, we only had access to Lookout if we could use her tech to hack a computer, and only then for a brief time, apparently. But we had the maps, and that was her contribution. With Sveta, Rain and Ashley, I went over the maps, talking about options.

“Hey, Azúcar,” Tristan said. He was still making bottles. The group around him had shifted.

I looked up.

Tristan was paying attention to a girl in a cat mask, ears sweeping back along the sides of the head, gauntlets on.

“Hey, ass,” was the response.

“Uh, Capricorn,” I said. “Careful. Remember what they said.”

You’ll only hurt yourself.

“It’s okay,” Azúcar said. “I’m a little bit further along. Normal rules for the flock don’t apply. I can cheat it.”

“Sure,” I said. I was aware that there were others standing nearby. ‘Sarah’ being one, younger than she’d been when she died, now that I could see her standing still in decent lighting.

“You look good,” Tristan said.

“I feel good,” she said. “Nine-six-ten-five.”

“You changed it.”

“Dying necessitates change,” she said, looking down the hall in the direction of the fighting. What we were supposed to fight past and through. They’d be setting up. “But you’d know that, wouldn’t you? False deaths? Impermanent deaths?”

“Yeah. Guess so,” Tristan said. “Good to see you. Glad the numbers are so good.”

“Only going to get better,” she said. “I’d say it’s good to see you too, but…”

She made a movement of her head. Hands wrapped in oversized ‘cat claw’ gauntlets moved up, claws moving close together.

“…only a little good.”

“I’ll take it,” Tristan said, eyes down on the bottle he was making. Then he blurred.

Byron filled the bottle with water. He stood straight to hand it over, and she wrapped him in a hug. He hugged her back.

I didn’t try to listen in on their conversation, but they were speaking at a volume above murmurs, below whispers, and it was impossible to turn my ears off.

“Moonsong?”

“Alive and well, last I heard. With this whole thing, though—”

“Don’t be such a downer.”

“We broke up.”