“Wish I could tell you more, hon,” Tattletale said. “I don’t have enough data.”

“Hey, Kenzie?” I asked.

No response.

“Do me a favor, don’t listen in? Don’t look back at this past recording and dig this up to relisten? I want this bit to be me and Tattletale.”

A pause. I wondered if she was listening after all. Surely Tattletale would—

“Okay.”

“There she goes,” Tattletale said. “Straight to the puppies.”

“There’s puppies?” I asked. “Damn. Almost wish I was there.”

“It’d be awkward. Like how awkward your kid is feeling right now. You and this current… project you have her handling, connecting you to your team, it’s her only connection to Breakthrough right now.”

“I know. Just… gotta get through today,” I said. I gripped the railing with my hand that had the bandage around the missing fingernail. Gripped the phone. “My power changed.”

“Yep,” Tattletale said. “Floating phone earlier kind of gave it away.”

“I’m worried I changed.”

“Wouldn’t rule it out. Is that a bad thing?”

“It’s a thing. Could be bad. It’s hard to separate it out. How much is me, how much is her?”

“And how much is the fact that you almost died last night? You were burned all over, you got a very concrete reminder of how mortal you are. You got a massive wake up call about just what exactly it is we’re dealing with. Powers, greater forces. It takes a while to wrap your brain around that, once you’re faced with the reality of it.”

“That feels like a cop out,” I said.

“Or is saying it’s your power doing the talking the cop out? Didn’t it work for Amy because it was a cop-out?”

I gripped the railing harder. “I’m really hoping that’s not what she takes away from it.”

“Or you’ll ask your dad to off her?”

“Okay,” I said. I closed my eyes. “This isn’t exactly what I was hoping to get out of this conversation.”

“You wanted mollycoddling. Sorry hon, Mollycoddle is a whole ’nother cape out there somewhere. You get the Tattletelling. Annoying, hard to confront truths and possibilities. Last night you dove literally headfirst into powers and everything there was out there. You had a near death experience. You found out things you weren’t ready to learn.”

“So none of it’s the power?” I asked.

“Antares, honey, you’ve been in this business longer than I have. You lived it even before you triggered. You should know the answer to that question.”

“Last night, when Dragon questioned me, I didn’t even know my own name.”

“Isn’t that telling?” Tattletale asked.

There was something in her tone there that reminded me of who I was talking to. The villain who used information against people. I was baring my every vulnerability to her in this moment.