“It’s better if you sit this one out entirely,” Grue said.

“It’ll take three seconds.”

“Three?”

She disappeared, somehow taking that as permission.

She reappeared in four seconds. She reached through the door, holding something out.

The flash gun.

“Turn the setting down all the way. Flash Rain. It’ll override the visual centers.”

“How long?”

“Five minutes.”

“Everything might be over in five minutes,” Tattletale said.

“Oh.”

I took the gun anyway. I grabbed Rain’s chin, and he thrashed.

I lifted his chin, aimed the gun, and twisted my head around, shielding my eyes as I fired into his face.

“Good luck, Rain.”

“It won’t help his ears,” Tattletale said. “Or skin. The giant’s strong. You just need to see her and she gets all five of your senses. We’ll need to be careful.”

I looked at Grue, and he nodded. I looked at Sveta, and saw her concern.

“Come,” I told her. “Master–stranger protocols very much in effect. I trust you.”

Sveta followed. Tattletale did as well.

Back to the fighting. To the Giant, and to the Simurgh.

The room had taken a beating when we’d made it a staging ground in the raid on Teacher’s base. Now… there was a hole in the floor that a house could have been dropped through. Chevalier still fought.

He struck the Simurgh. She caught a power out of the air with telekinesis, a crescent that shimmered. She threw it to one side, and gore splashed up against the wall.

“How do we do this?” I asked.

“I’ll darken the way. You fly. If you’re close, I’ll give you your shot.”

“I’ll be helpless.”

“We’re helpless anyway,” Tattletale said, behind me. “Grue will be affected by Mathers if he sees her. Be careful, I’ll do what I can to guide.”

“What do I do?” Sveta asked.

“Back me up!” I called out, flying forward with more speed, breaking away from the group. “If they get me, get the syringe!”

I tapped my chest to indicate where it was.

He pumped out darkness.

And I threw myself into the most dangerous battlefield I’d ever been on, utterly blind, unable to orient myself in the air, and unable to hear a thing.

Just me, and the aches and pains I felt.

I used my best judgment to estimate where she might be, and to get closer.

In an ideal world, the darkness would dissipate. I could inject, and the Simurgh would lose control. Dinah would gain some leverage, we’d get some more people back into the fight, and we could fight.

The world was not so ideal. Something hit me, hard.

Forcefield down, and I was spiked down into the ground, hitting concrete and sliding on a thin layer of grit and gravel for what felt like forever in the oily dark.

Until I was no longer in the dark.