I followed her gaze and saw the Nemean Titan retreating from a group of capes. Mayday was bombarding it, pushing or pulling it back with a hail of his power’s artillery fire. Keeping the Nemean Titan away from people. It looked like a losing fight, where he had to anticipate every move, and one feint might see it avoid a few hits.

Victor.

I found my team. Tristan was talking to Parian.

And Lookout—projected Lookout, was bouncing in place.

Legend was barely even visible now. He was aware of an omnipresent threat that the Impaler Titan could space-distort his lasers and send them to new targets. He flew to keep one Titan or another between himself and the Impaler.

“We ready?” Rain asked.

“As much as is possible,” I said. “I have to go back in a short while to get my gun. Until then, I’m diving in.”

He nodded.

“It’s kinda cool, having the team together again,” Kenzie said. “Except Natalie. I should really have a tiny floating camera with me that’s just for Natalie. How cool would that be?”

“Not cool in the slightest,” Chris said.

“What’s actually uncool is that Ashley isn’t here,” Kenzie said. “If she was, then we’d really be reunited.”

“I saw her,” Rain said.

“You—what?” Tristan was paying attention now. He’d been staring off into the distance.

“When I was in there. I… didn’t have time to think, only to act on instinct. I put my hand against crystal and I transmitted a message. The way they talk, the… I think the way Scion talked, they tap into every part of the overall system that’s capable of expressing an idea, every chunk of crystal and part of the greater landscape that has stored data that relates to the idea, each one given a different weight. And the message I chose, it woke her up, got her attention. She appeared for a moment. I’m… pretty sure she’s there, here, helping now.”

“Do you think I could talk to her with my camera?” Kenzie asked. “The one I used for Tristan and Byron, and for breaking into the dream room?”

“You have a better idea than I do,” Rain said. “But if you want all of Breakthrough back together… you got it.”

Kenzie nodded.

“I broke Skadi off from the rest of her group. She seemed most problematic to have in the network,” Rain said.

“Good,” Tristan said. “Good man.”

“And we figured some stuff out. The same principle that I used to communicate, it applies in reverse.”

“The… hitting every related note thing?” I asked.

Rain nodded. His breath fogged around the edges of his mask.

“The destruction. The point we destroyed,” Rain said. “Colt thinks it was on purpose.”

“Who did it on purpose?” I asked, tense. “Contessa?”

He nodded.

How? We’d targeted an area with the most communication flow.