“I’m surprised you know that.”

“I studied a great deal while trying to figure things out. It is up to you whether you want bridges or a chance to let your brother out.”

“Bridges,” Tristan said. “Thank you. I’ll get right on that.”

Shamrock approached, leaning into Gregor. She had something translucent folded over one arm. I cocked my head to get a better look at it. A shirt that looked like it was made of clear plastic. Gregor’s?

You rock your weird, Gregor, I thought. I kind of resented that he was one of my hometown capes who hadn’t showed up to Leviathan, but… whatever. It wasn’t worth holding onto the hard feelings.

“Sveta,” Gregor said, in his heavily accented voice. “I heard you traveled worlds, looking for your birthplace.”

“I did,” Sveta said. “We didn’t have any luck. But I still found it. Found my old self. In dreams at first, then in… through those cracks down there. Garbled and filled with static, but it was old me.”

“Are you happier for it?” he asked.

“I… no, not really. I haven’t exactly had time to digest.”

“That is fair.”

“But I know myself better now. I have a better sense of what parts of me are nature and what parts of me are… forgotten nurture, I guess?”

“That is good. I am glad.”

“We’ve been rooting for you, Sveta,” Shamrock said. “Since the whole thing with the Irregulars. We’re sorry you got the short end of the stick.”

I wanted to fly out and find a telephone pole again, but I didn’t want to abandon Sveta at this juncture. I stood by her, placing one hand at her shoulder, and sensed the tension, felt the movement of her body shuffling.

“Titans!”

Titans plural?

The call came from above us. From Legend.

The countdown was still ticking.

“Get into position!”

Crystal took to the air, flying up closer to her mom.

Tristan looked over at his work, then reached out, clenching his fist. It solidified. A roiling mass of building material.

Gregor slimed it while it was still emerging. Cementing one part to another and minimizing the rubble that was thrown off.

Between that and some of the other stuff around us, there was an area maybe two hundred feet across that was good to walk on. The areas beyond had some bridges, but it wasn’t a lot.

It felt like so little.

Our numbers felt so small. Seventy or eighty, total?

I was willing to bet that the bulk of our guys were over near the entrance to Bet. Dealing with the Machine Army. A mistake from yesteryear, carried over to the present. We wouldn’t have been told because Tristan wasn’t the only one of us who needed a glimmer of hope.

And this was feeling increasingly hopeless.