“That sounds fucking miserable,” Tristan said.

“He’s still one of my favorite people, even if he’s being a complete butthead right now. It was nice to talk about him. He was nice about Ashley. Do you mind, Kenz, that I’m talking about her? I could understand if it was…”

“No. It’s the opposite of minding it,” Kenzie said. She was walking in the midst of us, and from my angle I couldn’t really see her face.

“He had some anecdotes from when it was just him and her talking. Armstrong had some too. I’ll share them later.”

“Please do,” Kenzie said.

“Armstrong was so proud of how well she was doing, it really affected him that she was gone, you know? I can’t say I felt exactly the same, I never really felt… I don’t even know how to put it. She wasn’t someone I clicked with, not in a general sense. But I have a ton of memories of conversations like the one I mentioned to you a bit ago, Victoria, about Ashley wanting to be Case Fifty-Three. Times our differences made the bridging of the gaps feel really meaningful.”

“That makes a ton of sense,” I said. “I kind of feel the same way. Probably about very different things.”

Sveta smiled. “Very different things.”

Rain was talking to a cape with a helmet covering the upper half of his face, a scar across both lips at the lower half. The armor the guy wore was partial, covering one shoulder and pectorals but not the other shoulder or belly. It was all done in the chrome dome look, all smooth surfaces, with the rest of the costume being dense red mesh with metal threading through it. He had something like six modified revolvers with barrels the size of toasters holstered along his spines, so the handles fanned out, and four more at his belt.

I didn’t count myself a fan of the look. Maybe a small part of that was being grumpy from being sick and grumpier with the general disheartened feeling over Swansong.

“Still talking about Love Lost?” Tristan asked.

“Nah. Told Naphtha, he’s going to run it by Warden leadership. I was recounting what happened with Nieves in our last run-in, and Hard Boil.”

“This is Bullet Time, Bullet Time, meet Tristan, Victoria, Sveta, and Kenzie.”

“Public appearances scare the crap out of me,” said the cape who looked like he was tough enough to smash his face into a brick wall until the wall gave. “My knees knock, I’m not even joking. It came up because I mentioned Nieves arrived and asked what Precipice knew.”

“Nieves is here?” Sveta asked.