She threw the ball to the right, but instead of smacking into her palm, it curved in the air, orbiting her hand in a long ellipse as a moon might a planet.

“What a relief,” she said. She was smiling a bit more, now.

The smile faltered a bit more as we faced the situation at hand.

Some of the police had come inside. My guys were standing near the windows, looking out. Some were talking to the police.

A share of the crowd had remained behind. Community leaders, possibly.

Fume Hood hung back as I approached them all.

“You’re in charge?” a police officer asked. He had a mustache. It bothered me, because I’d never really got mustaches, barring the truly awesome ones. This was lip decoration, bristly and at odds with how his hair was combed back and close to his head.

“Yessir. I’m Victoria, I take my orders from Instructor Gilpatrick at Wayfair High School.”

“They said you told them to follow our orders?”

“Or to keep a lookout for trouble. There’s still people here? Is there a problem?”

“No,” the officer said. He sighed. “I don’t know what to do with them. Yours or with the others. Situation seems to be resolving itself, but the teenagers in uniform are insisting it isn’t.”

“The capes say it isn’t,” I said. “I’d believe them.”

“Huh,” he said.

I took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, while the officer took a look around at the situation.

“Haven’t you talked to them?” I asked. “The capes?”

“A little bit,” he said. “Not recently. I don’t really know how.”

“They’re people,” I said. “Capable people who want to help.”

“They’ve got the eye thing, and the masks. One doesn’t have eyes at all,” he said. “He has these crystals. He pulled one out of the top of his head earlier, and it made a wet sound. It was in so deep it should’ve been inside his brain.”

“They’re people,” I said, again.

“It’s disconcerting,” the man said.

I wanted to say things to that, but I bit my tongue. I could hardly criticize when I’d been talking to Fume Hood.

I’d just—I’d really hoped for better.

“If you need me to be a liason, let me know,” I said. He didn’t give me an immediate response, so I called out to the squaddies. “Get back from the windows, guys! The working theory is a bomb, heavy impact, cape power, or something like an earthquake, and you don’t want your nose pressed against the glass when it comes!”

They shuffled back.

“Bomb?” the officer asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Can you get everyone here clear of danger?”

“To somewhere inside or further outside?”

I looked around. Crystalclear and the others hadn’t come to find us, so I was left to imagine the danger wasn’t super imminent. Inside posed risks.