“No other motivations? Nothing underlying? You’re one hundred percent better?”

“Fuck off. Like you’re any better, you fraud. The religious crap you’re latched onto now is just excuses. I’m—”

She fell silent. Victor had turned his head sharply, hand raised.

She turned to look, and she saw Moonsong approaching. Brown-haired, wearing a costume with a dress built in, a slit down one side. A moon motif, of course, played into everything, from mask to shoulder decoration, belt, and bracers.

“It’s a process,” Scribe finished her rant, bitter. They’d been overheard. This was going to fuck her so bad. Fuck.

She could actually feel the walls of the metaphorical prison now.

“Hi, Moon,” Victor greeted the young woman.

Moonsong made no sound while she walked, and her hair had some float to it. Reducing her own gravity or something. She had her arms folded.

She didn’t return his greeting. She seemed stuck in her thoughts.

Scribe touched the wall behind her as she slouched back. She focused, and she concentrated her power in her fingertip. Pressed it out into the wall. A small telekinetic signature that slowly encapsulated the entire structure as the signature grew more elaborate. Wrapping it in a kind of forcefield that would only hold it, not protecting it.

Her other hand found her staff.

Speak of the devil and she appears.

Not that Moonsong was a devil. Not that Scribe felt like she would get attacked. But she’d dealt with volatile types. Especially after returning to the clan for the third time. She didn’t face down an unhappy parahuman without being ready to fling a half-ton of concrete at them.

“I need you to leave my rookies alone,” Moonsong said, finally turning to look them in the eye.

“I can’t speak for Scribe, but I won’t go after them to find your mole or whatever,” Victor said.

“No mole,” Moonsong said.

“Come on. Let’s get real,” he said. “You sent one of them to watch us and feel us out, see if we were talking about stuff.”

“No mole.”

“You wouldn’t have come here this fast if there wasn’t one.”

“No mole,” Moonsong said, for the third time, giving him a hard look. “Believe it or not, I’ve been keeping an eye out. If one of the two of you aren’t visible at any given time, I wonder, I double check. I listen in.”

“Are we in trouble?” Scribe asked.

“Right now? We’re in crisis management. We focus on the city. The citizens. You guys leave the rookies alone. That includes you, Victor. I know Vessel thinks you light up the room.”

“Not doing anything to Vessel.”