I swallowed.

“No familiar voiceth for me,” Ratcatcher said. “I have no friendth. Jutht my rathth.”

“I consider you a friend,” Crystalclear said.

I saw her draw in a deep breath and sigh.

Rain’s arm scraped against the wall as he shifted posture. Crystalclear half-turned his head.

“You don’t have to stay, Antares. Just, uh, give me what you have to give me.”

Crystalclear extended his hand, his face not turned quite my direction. I looked at it. It didn’t waver.

“Unless you aren’t comfortable,” he told me.

“I have to be. I’m the one who pushed for this,” I said.

I reached out and gave his hand a squeeze.

“I can thee it,” Ratcatcher said. “Tiny movementh of tinier hairth, all over your hand, your fathe.”

Crystalclear nodded.

“Come,” Ratcatcher said. “You can give a girl a kith on the cheek, or hold her hand if you’re thicken.”

She pushed her mask a bit aside. There was scar tissue on her cheek and chin. Her hand reached out, and her pet mouse poked its nose out of the sleeve.

“I should warn you, last in, first out, it means… the further down the chain, the faster it takes effect.”

“I know,” Ratcatcher said. “I’ll thicken out or do thomthing thupid if I don’t hurry it up.”

Crystalclear took her hand in his, leaned over, and gave her a kiss where the mask had previously covered the side of her face.

“Fucking heavy,” Ratcatcher said. Her hand tremored as she withdrew it. She turned her rat mask with the crooked nose to look down the length of the hallway behind her, as if she expected to see someone or something there. An answer or a distraction from this present moment.

Typhlosis reached out with a hand. Toward Crystalclear.

“I could, if you wanted more time to get where you’re going,” I told her.

She shook her head. Crystalclear extended a hand toward her, and she laid her hand in his, momentarily. She withdrew it with as much or more care than she’d set it down.

“Typh is helping keep track of who we’ve gotten to,” Crystalclear said. “Wardens have resources, the big teams are organizing, Foresight’s got a whole roster of people we’re hoping to get to in the next thirty to sixty minutes.”

“And we’ve got to get where we’re going,” Typhlosis said. “And make arrangements. For stuff like Ratcatcher’s pet rats.”

“You want to get moving then,” I said.

“We’d better,” Crystalclear said. “Is a goodbye appropriate? Too much?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But thanks for making this easier.”

“Whatever happens, if this works or doesn’t work, I’m glad I crossed paths with you, Antares.”

“Likewise.”

The parting of ways wasn’t as graceful as I might have hoped it to be. We were going in the same direction. We headed back toward the stairs in two barely separate groups, me joining Rain and Sveta, Crystalclear with Racatcher and Typhlosis. When we reached the stairwell, and they turned to go down, Crystalclear gave me a little wave, like the wave I’d given him earlier.