“I think I’d appreciate the distraction,” he said. “I’ll warn you, I might hit a point later where I freak out a lot. I haven’t even begun to think of how I’m going to break this to my dad, or, fuck, my mom, I—”

“Distraction?” Rain prompted him.

“Please,” he said. He pulled off his helmet, apparently to improve his field of view, and I could see the emotion in his eyes. “This is Contessa?”

Kenzie shifted position, striding over to Byron. He jumped as she grabbed his wrist, the eyehook breaking alignment with her arm, the projection fuzzing out and showing artifacts around the point it stuck through. She tugged, with zero strength behind the tug.

“Scared me,” Byron said. “I thought it was actually you.”

“Come,” she said. “Over here. I want to try stuff. Test, so I can make sure.”

“Kenzie…” Byron said. I saw his expression change twice, while he looked down at her masked face. “I’m pretty sure. My power even changed, again. Even when Tristan… his power has always taken a while to change.”

“Come on!” she exclaimed, sounding eerily amused. Her voice echoed off the walls of this crevice, which extended thirty feet up. “Let me try.”

He obliged, walking over while she failed to exert any strength at all.

“Did you get healing?” I asked.

The scenes on the walls changed to people drinking vials. Some were in hospital rooms. Others looked ill.

Sveta broke the hug. I watched her wipe at the corner of one eye with a fingernail. The tears were clear.

In a way, small as it was, I felt worlds better, noting that tiny detail. No tears of ichor, running down her face like bad mascara. I was already doubting myself, but that, at least, was a small victory. This was one unadulterated win, for someone important to me.

Sad to see her cry, but… the fact I could see her cry like she wanted to…

“From Chris,” he said. “It’s not total, but… I fucked up, because I was too slow, I couldn’t risk doing that again. I—I’ll get into it later.”

“Okay,” I said, glancing back at Chris, who was studying images of Contessa walking down hospital hallways. He looked at me through the corner of his eye, without moving his head, then returned his attention to the walls.

“Stay there, try not to move much,” Kenzie said. “I need to change settings.”

Byron looked down at her with sad eyes. He took a breath, and I thought he was about to break some hard news on her. Then he looked up to ask us, “Is there a weak point? Weakness?”