I held out my arm. I could feel it on my skin, in my muscle, and in my bones. A thrum, like the point something vibrated to the touch but no longer made a sound or moved with that vibration.

Semiramis had wound back the clock for parts of my body. It was localized, incomplete, but it kept me going enough to see this through. I hoped. The pain in my collarbone and ribs wasn’t as severe. Fractures instead of breaks. Bruising around the bones instead of fractures. If it weren’t for that, I worried that vibration would have been unbearable, or it would have shaken me to pieces, like an earthquake and a derelict house.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Rain echoed me. “We don’t have much opportunity to convince people to get on board.”

“I don’t know if it’s our job. Unless we’re talking about specific people,” I said. “The Wardens are on it, I think.”

We reached the fourth floor. I saw Crystalclear partway down a side hallway and raised my hand in greeting.

“Victoria,” he called out.

I flew closer to him, because flying was better than walking, and even though I was better, walking hurt.

He was with two capes. I recognized them as Typhlosis, who had been at the broken trigger event before I’d joined Breakthrough, and Ratcatcher.

Crystalclear extended a hand my way.

“I can’t exactly return a handshake right now. Not without giving you the lowdown.”

“Word’s gotten around,” he said. Only his mouth betrayed any expression, as crystals jutted from his eye sockets, forehead, and upper face, forming a craggy look atop his head where hair would be. Some of the crystals were bloody.

“You got the full rundown?” I asked him. “I don’t want you to go into this… blind.”

Dumb line, when two of the people present didn’t have proper eyes. Crystalclear had his crystals, and Typhlosis had eyes with concentric rings of glowing irises, each rotating in different directions, periodically, flipping around on some axle or another. There were no pupils, only small holes through which I could see the inside of her head, illuminated by the soft glow. Her blindfold hung around her neck.

Typhlosis snorted a bit, at least. Her reaction might have been different if I hadn’t winced at my own wording.

“We got the rundown. Last in, first out. Spread out. That there’s no guarantee this works, on multiple levels.”

“It won’t work,” Ratcatcher said. “Thorry.”

“We don’t have time to dwell too much on every single person,” Rain said.

“Just… the Norfair thing was a turning point for me,” I told Rain, before I turned to Crystalclear. “I respected what you guys were doing.”