“It won’t help his ears,” Tattletale said. “Or skin. The giant’s strong. You just need to see her and she gets all five of your senses. We’ll need to be careful.”

I looked at Grue, and he nodded. I looked at Sveta, and saw her concern.

“Come,” I told her. “Master–stranger protocols very much in effect. I trust you.”

Sveta followed. Tattletale did as well.

Back to the fighting. To the Giant, and to the Simurgh.

The room had taken a beating when we’d made it a staging ground in the raid on Teacher’s base. Now… there was a hole in the floor that a house could have been dropped through. Chevalier still fought.

He struck the Simurgh. She caught a power out of the air with telekinesis, a crescent that shimmered. She threw it to one side, and gore splashed up against the wall.

“How do we do this?” I asked.

“I’ll darken the way. You fly. If you’re close, I’ll give you your shot.”

“I’ll be helpless.”

“We’re helpless anyway,” Tattletale said, behind me. “Grue will be affected by Mathers if he sees her. Be careful, I’ll do what I can to guide.”

“What do I do?” Sveta asked.

“Back me up!” I called out, flying forward with more speed, breaking away from the group. “If they get me, get the syringe!”

I tapped my chest to indicate where it was.

He pumped out darkness.

And I threw myself into the most dangerous battlefield I’d ever been on, utterly blind, unable to orient myself in the air, and unable to hear a thing.

Just me, and the aches and pains I felt.

I used my best judgment to estimate where she might be, and to get closer.

In an ideal world, the darkness would dissipate. I could inject, and the Simurgh would lose control. Dinah would gain some leverage, we’d get some more people back into the fight, and we could fight.

The world was not so ideal. Something hit me, hard.

Forcefield down, and I was spiked down into the ground, hitting concrete and sliding on a thin layer of grit and gravel for what felt like forever in the oily dark.

Until I was no longer in the dark.

I twisted my face away, searching for a place and a perspective that didn’t risk me seeing Mathers. I looked to the side—

Chastity and Cassie, slumped against the wall, holding hands, eyes open.

I looked down. I was by the massive hole in the floor.

In the gloom of flickering lights, amid dust, amid debris, there was only one thing that was white and clean.

Seven floors down, below the hole, my sister was standing back while people tended to wounded. It looked like someone had been plunged through the floor by telekinesis or some massive attack. She did nothing.

There was a piece of rubble to my left.

I feel strong. I feel okay. I have control. Only one thing holds me back, poisons me.