Within those cupped hands was Eidolon. One of the strongest capes in the world. He had once dwarfed Valkyrie in power. There was no reason to think he didn’t have that power now. The colors of him had been changed around. A black hood with a reflective emerald face beneath, glowing with a white light. Black sleeves. A body suit of emerald, muscular.

A great, long-fingered hand of silver with bone-white nails reached out. The shadow of Eidolon stepped down onto the fingertip.

Titans appeared from clouds of darkness, arranging themselves in a formation around their new center and commander.

Other things stepped out of clouds of darkness.

Not Titans, but scary enough in their own way. Especially considering what all of this meant.

Endbringers. One tall and narrow, of a size to rival any Titan. One small, a knot of formlessness, with faces periodically flashing out. One with a great chrome orb for a midsection, a black, whiskered head, arms, and feet mounted at different positions around that orb. There were other shapes that stood in the dark clouds, but they didn’t emerge or seem consistent. Still taking shape.

Almost twenty Titans, and on shoulders, on heads, on ground, on rubble, on clouds, or just floating in the air, shades like Eidolon appeared, suspended in the air. I couldn’t count them—the scene on the wall changed too much.

“Oh,” I said.

The others were wordless.

The Simurgh folded her wings around herself, forming a ball shape, or treating her entire body as a closed fist.

The wings swept out, unfurling and extending longer than they had been. All across the city, it seemed, snow and wind were pushed out and away from a center point.

A hundred thousand images flickered into existence, across every part of the chasm around us. What had been largely red and black was almost blindingly bright, comparatively, crisp and clear.

Capes, people, animals, all cringing in pain. Where able, hands went to heads. Knees buckled, and those fighting stopped. Everywhere.

“We lost,” I breathed the words.

“We’re about to lose,” Rain said. “It’s a vision of what’s about to happen. We figured out we could ask about the future. This is—”

“Soon,” Sveta said.

“It might be her, Fortuna, trying to communicate with us,” Byron said.

“Then we need Kenzie,” I said. “So we can actually communicate. That box.”

“We don’t have Kenzie,” Chicken Little said, his voice small behind me.

Infrared 19.f

“French fry me,” Peep said, though ‘Peep’ was only a name Imp was holding onto for the sake of stubbornness.

Candy picked up a french fry from the big bowl at the center of the room. They were cut fat, oily and salty, and still steamed with heat, so she used her fingernails, and held it out in front of Peep’s mouth. “It’s hot, be careful.”

Peep moved to bite it, and Candy pulled it back.

“Be careful, I said.”