I finished my recounting of my observations of the team. Jessica finished eating.

Rain was in a bad spot, and he’d revealed himself to be Fallen. Kenzie and Houndstooth. Ashley and her outbursts. Chris and his lopsided dips into one emotion. Sveta’s worries. Tristan and Moonsong.

“No team name, a lot of missing cape names. I know you don’t like the cape name thing—”

“It’s not that I don’t like it,” Mrs. Yamada said. “I think it can make sense to take a hero name as an adult, but for someone younger, it can be one part of a greater issue. It’s hard enough for a teenager to decide who they are without the icon, the mask, and the name taking so much focus.”

I wanted to argue the point so badly, and I was too tired to do it. A passionate debate about powers, identities and costumes with Jessica, outside of the bounds of a therapy session? It would have been great.

“There’s going to be a war,” I said. “Rain is going to be swept up in it, if he hasn’t already. They’re hoping to kill him in the chaos. The others might be swept up in it.”

“We’ll try to keep that from happening.”

“If it happens, we can try to make sure it happens in the safest, most controlled way possible,” I said. I saw the look on her face, and hurried to add, “I know you want to keep it from happening, but they want to protect each other, and they do want to stretch their wings and flex their powers. It’s part of being a cape.”

“It is,” Jessica said. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“Will you be swept up in it? Do you want to stretch your wings and flex your powers?”

“I don’t want to flex my powers,” I said. “I do want to be involved. I… see this as a snowball rolling downhill. It’s chaotic and it has the potential to do a lot of damage, some of it inevitable. But for all their flaws, I think they are holding onto what you wanted to impart on them, for the most part they need… nudges.”

“Nudges?”

“To change the course of the snowball. Reassuring Sveta. Redirecting Ashley or giving her an excuse to do what she wants to do anyway. Keeping Kenzie from overcommitting herself. Tristan gets into things and needs a bit of a shake, and he’ll step back from the headlong charge. Rain—more complicated, because it’s not him, exactly. Self doubt, but it’s external factors pushing in on him that we need to worry about.”

“And Chris?”