“The powers you can use are restricted based on the power,” he said. “Powers you willfully use or turn on are a no. That would be your aura, Antares. Probably your power, Capricorn. Sveta should be fine. Lookout should be fine. Precipice…”

“I turn on all of mine,” Rain said.

“Are there any you can turn on now and keep on?”

“My blades.”

“Do that, then. This way. The portal at the end of this hall will put you close to the Inwood region. We opened it ourselves.”

“I can keep my flight on?”

“Same idea, yeah,” he said. “Someone had a metaphor for it.”

“The ice is cracked, it’s fine if we spread out our weight and don’t make any sudden movements,” I said. I started flying.

“I think their metaphor was about animals on the other side of the glass at the zoo, and not wanting to tap or tap so much it irritates whatever’s on the other side. Yeah. If you have to use a power, don’t use it while everyone else around you is.”

“The villains aren’t going to be playing by these rules,” Tristan said.

“No. We instructed the Huntsmen to communicate with the villains if they could. They should warn them of the risk.”

“That’s not going to work, knowing Damsel,” I muttered. “And if she’s in charge—”

“No guarantees,” Golem said.

“She likes to be in charge,” I said.

“Yeah,” Kenzie said, still bouncing.

Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck.

“That’s about it. She says the numbers get better and I trust her,” Golem said. “Before you go, is there anything you can tell me about Contessa? Stuff I can pass on? I let you through security and I tacitly signed off on this… it’d be nice to throw the skeptics a bone.”

“I hate that we have skeptics,” Sveta said. “You guys already know this, probably, but she let her guard down before she got caught. Gave herself a day without using her power, and that’s the day Teacher attacked her. Or so she says.”

“You don’t believe her?”

“I think the words that come out of her mouth are engineered just as much as she engineers every last action to produce an outcome. Dinah has a limit to the number of questions she can ask. Contessa doesn’t. She can manipulate every last detail.”

“Fair.”

“I don’t think we got into the nitty-gritty details when we briefed you after the raid, but when it came to deciding how I should deal with Saint, she immediately assumed I’d kill him. Then she shut off her power before I could ask whether I had to. I think that’s an ongoing problem. She takes the most efficient route, regardless of the casualties or side effects. What Dinah is talking about, with how her plans were spoiled? I think that might be a side effect.”