I closed my one eye, and brought up Kenzie’s map—or I tried to. Instead I got a new image, abstract, with lots of abstract rectangle, diamond, snowflake, and other fractal shapes, of varying complexity and size, all connected in a webwork of horizontal and vertical lines. Some were yellow, some were white with black outlines, and some were multicolored between the two. Some notes by Lookout were on the side, as were some cryptic options.

“What’s this new data?” I asked Sveta. “Uh, between the map and the full chat.”

“Hack progress,” Sveta said. “I was watching while you were getting your hand wrapped up. Kenzie had questions and I had educated guesses.”

“Got it,” I said. I blinked through to the map. While I waited for it to update, Sveta stepped forward, bending down beside Rain, and took the offered marker.

“Antares needs a guard or encasement over her hand,” Sveta said. “You have tools?”

“Some,” Rain said. “What do you need done?”

I answered, “Something strapped to the forearm that extends forward over the hand. Leave my hand free underneath, so I can still grab things if I have to?”

“I might be able to do that. I saw a wall panel over there.”

He climbed to his feet, taking my offered hand, and jogged off.

“What about the east side?” Tristan asked his old teammate, tapping the drawing of the map. “Do you remember who went in through there?”

“No,” she answered.

“Victoria,” Tristan said. “With our group spread for the second wave, who went in through portals bringing them in from the west?”

“The benched members of the Shepherds, some sub-teams. Mortari’s… kids, I guess?”

“The Harbingers,” Swansong said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Things One through whatever. Never sure what to call them.”

“Thanks,” Tristan said. “It came up a couple of times already. When they sent us in, they didn’t send us in by the gates near where our acquaintances and teammates came in. Furcate was saying her sub-squad changed course after some tinker hijinks made walls and rooms move. We changed course a bit because of the obstructions we ran into. So that’s why we ran into each other, but that’s not what Cinereal wanted.”

I made a mental note of the name. Furcate. Had it changed with the costume, or had I gotten it wrong? Civilian name and cape name?

“Do you doubt Cinereal?” Swansong asked.

Tristan shook his head. “I—no. That’s not what I’m getting at. Cinereal probably thought it would be bad for morale if we made our second attempt at breaking into this place and found all of our old teammates or the first-string members of our teams dead. Add in how complicating it is if at the same time we’re running into people who should be dead but aren’t…”

“Which a good thing,” Furcate said. “Yay, being alive.”

“So good a thing,” Tristan said.