The Fallen camp was busier than it had been earlier. A share of the people who had helped with Oberon and Skadi were here now, milling around. Our fire was occupied by Advance Guard and two groups I couldn’t place, with a few members of the Patrol standing around because there wasn’t enough sitting room. The people around the fire provided the block against the wind that Imp had asked for when she’d wanted Gibbet to make snowmen.

My phone, and not one of the clunky brick-phones, vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out, but it showed an endlessly looping ‘loading’ message. A half-bar of signal. It would take a bit.

I still had to get back to Dragon. I’d tried reaching out earlier and she’d put me off, telling me to get in touch later. My worry was that it had to do with Lookout.

On that note, my team had taken out their eye-cameras. Only Lookout had hers in, and she was—I closed one eye for a few seconds, then let the heads-up-display come up. The map we’d had in Teacher’s base didn’t have an equivalent for this camp.

I could see out of her eye, and saw her at a desk, a puppy in her lap.

“ReSound,” I addressed Advance Guard’s leader. She had a costume in yellow and orange gradient, with dark concentric circles and the jagged, dark lines of a typical Advance Guard costume. “Have you seen Breakthrough?”

“They went that way,” she gestured vaguely toward one end of the settlement. “Didn’t pay much attention, sorry.”

“No problem. What about the Undersiders?”

“Which ones?”

“Uh, Tattletale, but I could do with knowing Rachel Lindt’s location too.”

“Council hall, that way, and uh, stables, that way.”

“Thanks.”

“Slumming it?” Shortcut asked.

My old friend Shortcut. He’d been an incidental run-in prior to the Community Center attack. Stupid fucking costume that looked similar to ReSound’s, except the circle bits were bladed and were crafted to look like they were stuck in his body. His weapon was stuck into the dirt behind him.

“Get bent, Shortcut. I’m too tired and hurt, and in a situation like this, anyone who’s willing to help is okay in my books.”

“You realize we wouldn’t be where we are right now if it weren’t for the Undersiders, right?” Shortcut asked. “That attack on the community center? That was Tattletale. Do you think Fume Hood getting shot today would have mattered if Tattletale hadn’t pulled what she did at the end of the summer?”

“I’m more inclined to blame the people who shot her rather than take the convoluted path necessary to blame one of the villains,” I told him. “Frankly, I’m all out of blame.”