“I’d say leave. Heck, I’d say you have one teammate with severe enough injuries they should leave too.”

“I’m not sure the way out is going to be any easier than the way forward,” I said. Fighting like we’d been fighting, through thralls and other obstructions, but with a pack of wounded? Doing it with morale at rock bottom because we were bailing?

“We’d need some relatively able-bodied people to handle it. I’d say if you’re capable of fighting but not on your A-game, then you can handle thralls without their full faculties, but not the kind of capes Balk and Stonewall were telling us are up ahead.”

“In my defense, I did help stop one or two tricks back there. They tried discharging an electrified power core into the water. Stopping that was fifty percent me, minimum.”

“Alright,” Siren said. “Can’t argue that.”

“If we need people to escort wounded out ASAP, then I have ideas for names. But I want to see this through.”

I didn’t mention that Imp’s idea of getting to the prisoners was part of our plan. If I left, then I’d want to replace myself to ensure they had the necessary help to get that done, but at the same time, spreading the plan around increased the chance Teacher got ahead of it.

“Besides,” I heard Swansong. “I’m not leaving. I’m pressing on.”

I turned my head to look. The door had a window at head level, and Swansong stood with her back to the door. I could see the back of her head, a bit of the angel pilot’s blood still on the edge of her ear and in her white hair.

“Your ribs?” I asked, suppressing a wince as I pulled my top back on.

“Skin pushed more or less where it should be, everything’s bandaged. Venarum said he won’t stop me. Not that he would dare.”

“I saw your injury,” Siren said. “I wouldn’t encourage fighting in that condition. The kind of drugs you would need to ignore the pain—”

“No drugs,” Swansong said. “Drugs mess with powers. I don’t need any surprise changes throwing me off.”

“As opposed to the hole in your side.”

“Skin deep.”

“And the ribs that looked charred.”

“No cracks, no fractures. It won’t slow me down. Besides, if I took other drugs, I couldn’t safely take the drugs Shin gave us.”

The power altering drugs the Coalition government of Shin had given us. One to boost raw power, only to be used if we had absolute confidence in our control. One to boost range, at a loss of power, same stipulation about control. One to just scupper every aspect of a power and render it useless, if we could get it into someone’s bloodstream.

“You want that, huh?” I asked, as I got my breastplate on.

“More power? Of course.”