“Great stuff, and he likes it,” Kenzie said, quiet. Her legs kicked, just barely scuffing the plastic rim that the wheels of the computer chair stuck down from. “Now I get to see Houndstooth on camera. Wooo.”

Her voice was so quiet it might have sounded unenthusiastic, but the speed her legs kicked at doubled with that last utterance.

“We should get people out there in case things go bad and we need to extract,” Tristan said.

“I can fly out,” I said.

“I’ll go,” Sveta said.

“I can be there in ten minutes if I need to be, maybe as few as five,” Tristan said. “I’ll hold down the fort here until then. Ashley—I’d rather keep you in reserve. If everything falls to pieces, we’ll bring you in to great effect.”

She nodded, and then she walked away, approaching the empty whiteboard that was supposed to be hers. Some of her things were in a bag at the base of the board.

Sveta and I stepped out, and I used my flight to lift up off the fire escape.

“I’m worried about them,” Sveta said. “And I wish there was a flagpole or tree close by I could grab.”

“I can help a bit with that last part,” I said. I rose up and away, then extended a hand.

She shot her hand and arm at me, and I caught it. She pulled herself my way, not at her fastest, but fast enough I felt my heart jump in my chest.

I flew back and away, as she hauled herself in, and matched her general direction. It made for a tiny bit more slack.

She let go of me, and she pulled herself to a tree. From there, she moved to a roof.

Like a frog’s tongue, snapping out, seizing something. But the frog went to the fly, rather than the other way around. To the branch, to the railing, to the fence, then to the chimney.

She was faster than me for short distances, and only a bit slower for the sustained movement. We didn’t have far to go, so she did pretty well at getting ahead of me. Only the escape from the fire escape had slowed her down.

“Hold up,” I called out, as she started to move northward. “Here’s good.”

We parked ourselves near where I’d been the day prior, on a rooftop with the water separating us and Cedar Point.

“I’m glad it’s you and me,” she said.

I bumped her shoulder with mine.

The phone rang. I pulled it from my pocket, connected my earbuds, and put one bud in my ear, one in Sveta’s.

“One camera on H.T., one in Moose’s general vicinity,” Kenzie announced. “The valiant H.T. is leading his team in. Five of them.”