Sveta was wearing a top she’d bought while shopping with me. With her new body, it fit differently. Her arms were exposed, and those arms had holes in them, like very geometric jigsaw pieces, the muscle showing beneath. She had drawn on her arms, covering them with sketched out artwork in pen that didn’t hold up with smudges here and there. The cauldron mark stood out on her cheek, no makeup covering it, and she looked exceptionally tired, in a way that was as different as it could be from Tristan’s exhaustion while still sharing the same word for the condition.

“But—”

“Sweetie,” Sveta said. “That looks like too much. We have one tinker here who can give us an objective opinion, and he’s saying no.”

Sidepiece piped up, “I’m sitting here on the sidelines and I’d say no, if it wasn’t so gnarly.”

“I don’t care what you think,” Kenzie said.

“It’s pretty badass,” Damsel added.

Kenzie took that in, then looked at Sveta, one hand extended toward Damsel, as if that verdict was evidence in her favor.

“No, honey,” Sveta said. “Those are the opposite of objective opinions.”

“But this is serious,” Kenzie said, one hand extended toward the screen. “What we’re doing is big. Isn’t it better if I do it with all the tools at my disposal?”

“Heating,” Rain held out a hand, grabbing his thumb. “You once said that phases at a rate of ninety-nine percent or something. If that includes heat inside your eyes and skull—”

“You’re misinterpreting me! It’s ninety-nine point nine to seven decimal places. That’s way different from ninety-nine percent.”

“Still. I’m terrible at math, but I suspect you’re running the equivalent of a constant fever.”

“If I was, it would be a very small fever.”

“Point two? If the slightest thing happens dimensionally, a weird power interaction, Vista using her power, the portal at the station nearby cracks open by ten percent, there’s got to be a chance that this very delicate house of cards flops over.”

“Okay, but—” Kenzie said, holding up her hands. “Counterpoint. That’s a very small chance. There’s a big chance that what my eyes and systems are giving me are going to be important.”

“Third,” he said, grabbing a third finger.

“If you do it like this it’s going to be forever before I can sit down and pull this together,” she said, plaintive.

“Infection, laceration. Super small percentage of it is anchored in reality, but it’s still in there. One is doing damage. But that’s not just one.”

“Counterpoint? If my eyes did pop or something, I could make really cool bionic eyes.”

She looked to one side.