“Aww, that’s sweet,” she said, before handing the phone to Tattletale.

Not sweet. Necessity, I told myself.

“Sorry about that. There’s a reason I hole myself up in an office for days on end. It’s because this lot plus a thinker headache add up to a quantum headache,” Tattletale said, sounding like she was speaking in a direction that wasn’t to the phone.

“Not a thing!” I heard Imp.

For all her complaints, Tattletale sounded more like the cocky, confident villainess I tended to imagine than she had since our… reunion in New Brockton Bay, for lack of a better word.

“Quantum tripwires,” I reminded her of the conversation.

“Yes. Devices that trip in response to being observed. With big flashes that stick in your vision or mind’s eye. But mostly it’s the portals. Contessa is on her way back from Cheit. She’s got a captive Teacher with her. She led a group in there and leaned on them pretty heavily to get around the special countermeasures he put in place.”

“She’s got Teacher, so he’s out of the picture?”

“You dealt the knockout blow. Reset his thrall network, took away the addictive impulses of being under his sway. His thralls took him hostage and kept him while fending off inquiries from Cheit government. Custodian and Ingenue are still in the wind, one of them literally.”

One off the mental checklist.

“Any other blind spots?”

“Only that Contessa is still malnourished, with slight atrophy of the limbs, it’s slowing her down. She’s also slowed down because she’s having to reset her layers of defenses. Stuff she’d ask herself regularly, to guard herself against every eventuality in the days and weeks. After her trauma of being captured during her one taste of freedom and independence, I think she’s being extra slow and extra careful. Not blind spots, but factors.

“Okay,” I said.

“Moving on to Dinah?”

“Before that… still on the subject of Contessa.”

“Shoot.”

“Big threats. There’s a lot of shit that a precog of her caliber could have gone after, right?”

“A few things. Machine Army?”

“Stuff like the Machine Army. It’s hard to ignore the evolving, endlessly reproducing machine hellscape that’s encroaching on our front door, so I think the Wardens have that base covered.”

“Fair,” Tattletale said. “You want to make sure we’re leaving as few stones unturned as possible.”

“Yeah,” I said. For what it was worth, I was happy to be focusing on the task. I felt more me than I had when trying to sleep, showering, eating, or playing the secret commander and shot caller in the situation room. “Okay so… my mind goes straight to the files.”

“Imp told me about your little library.”

“Yeah, uh, don’t remind me of that. I’m still pissed about the kerosene she poured on my stuff. And the fact she tried to burn down Swansong’s apartment. So—okay. Quarantine sites are a starting point when you want big and problematic, while still being easy to forget about.”