Her power had nothing to do with steel, but her name and identity kind of did. Brandish. Steel out, steel in the spine, steel in the expression. Unflinching in meeting my eyes, like a swordswoman might not flinch as she crossed swords with someone else in a duel.

No, not a duel. Not a training session either.

Pure demonstration. This was for her sake, and it was for mine. But it wasn’t an exchange.

I had napped, taking forty-five minutes to myself to try to restore what hadn’t been restored by the time in that alien landscape. Carol hadn’t rested at all, working out with my cousin that we would be going out later, then immediately starting with her wardrobe, hair and makeup.

All in all, Carol had taken an hour to get ready.

My clothes were somewhat rumpled, so I ventured back to the bathroom and called out, “Crystal?”

My voice wasn’t that loud, but it sounded deafening with how quiet it all was.

“—hate being bothered when I’m showering. Give me a few minutes of peace, damn it—”

The grumbling continued.

“Can I borrow clothes?”

“Yes! Go away!”

Crystal wasn’t a morning person.

I stepped away to fish around in her closet, when I heard her talking again, which led to me exiting the bedroom to get closer to the bathroom door and listen.

“—not from the boxes.”

“You don’t want me to grab anything you’ve already packed?” I asked.

“Didn’t you hear me?” she asked. “You’re interrupting my shower and you’re not even listening.”

“You told me to go away, so I walked away. Your shower’s in progress and you have water on you, nothing’s interrupted. Stop being prickly.”

“Stop interrupting my shower and I’ll stop being prickly.”

“I’ll grab something. Thank you.”

I’d just reached her closet when I heard her talking again, which forced me back out of her room to get to where I could hear her again.

“—can check on Mark.”

“What?”

“While we’re there at the new headquarters, we can check on Mark. They should have a link to Shin.”

“Okay,” I said. “Stop talking. Shower. We’ll work it out after.”

I rolled my eyes, looked at Carol, and realized what I was doing when I saw how unflinching she was, not batting an eyelash, not really reacting or reflecting what I was doing or what the external world was doing.

The smile she put on her face was very much the kind of smile that was put on faces. Nothing wrong with it, but I could tell she was making an effort.