There was an exchange of words, and I was glad I couldn’t hear it. Then she crossed the room to walk over to Darnall.

The image froze as she disappeared from view.

I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

My parents had the effect. They’d passed it to her. That was that. She couldn’t use her power on herself, unless something dramatic had changed when we’d cracked the crystal.

Speaking of…

“Crystal?” I asked.

“Doing outreach,” Lookout said.

“Aunt Sarah?”

“Protecting Riley Davis.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay. And Chris?”

“They’re going to hunt him down.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He was spreading half-truths and they asked Jessica, who asked Riley, who said he was a problem. They’ll imprison him and take away his stuff if they can. Jessica said to, I think, as a compromise.”

“Okay,” I said.

She swiveled in my direction, and I quickly took a half-step, half-fly back.

“Right at the beginning, the promise was that you wouldn’t leave me out. All my life, I’ve been left behind, or ignored, or…”

“Bringing you with isn’t a good thing if we’re taking you to a bad place or an ending,” I said.

“Leaving me behind isn’t a good thing either,” she said.

In so many ways, she was precocious. She was smart for her age, she had a work ethic that a squadron of thirty-five-year-olds wouldn’t have. She was, unfortunately, advanced for her age when it came to relationships, and the kinds of things or dynamics she might get entangled in.

In other ways, she was a child. Not yet a teenager. There wasn’t a rational argument I could make that she would accept. There wasn’t an emotional argument I could make that would budge that heart of hers.

“No,” I told her. “Sorry.”

“Sorry,” Sveta echoed me.

“Okay!” she said, brightly. She swiveled, turning to the computer. “I’ve got important stuff to do anyway.”

“I don’t know if you want to have a conversation—”

“Nope!”

“Make preparations…?” Rain asked.

“I’m preparing now. Doing stuff.”

“What if we asked you to step away from the tech? Disengage? This is all pretty… it’s a lot.”

Kenzie turned back my way. The eyes etched into her round mask stared at me.

“I don’t want you to regret not talking with us now, years from now,” I told her. “Because part of the reason we’re doing this is to give you those years. And people like you, and people without powers.”

She turned back to her work. “No, it’s fine. I’m busy.”

“You can’t avert this, there’s no fix, there’s no tweak, it’s not…”

“I know. That’s fine. I’m busy,” Kenzie said, firm, her hands at the keyboard.

“You don’t want—”

“I don’t,” she said, with more emotion, her skinny arms tense.

Kenzie stared at the screen, hands at the keyboard, silent.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “You had a freakout earlier, then you seemed to rally. Being away from your tech seemed to help.”

“Talking with Grue helped some,” she said. “But…”