“He’s either pulling something or he’s worried someone else will,” I said. “He’s taking possibly unnecessary steps.”

I felt Sveta’s arm move, where it was wrapped around my back. Tightening.

“I don’t like this,” she said. I could barely hear her.

“Me interpreting things like this? Tristan? Rain? The awful puzzle analogy?”

“Any of it,” Sveta said. Her voice grew louder, so I could hear her properly again. “I don’t want to make this mistake again.”

I wanted to ask, but I heard another scream. I could see a distortion in the air, as colors pulled away from trees and buildings as if they were watercolor or the color was multiplying, casting the surroundings into shades of red and purple. The effect was brief, and the distortion faded. No damage had been done to the surroundings.

I could feel the effect of it, even from a distance. My heart rate picked up, and for a moment my thoughts and feelings spooled out. There were a hundred things I was holding in my heart and head that had to sit there. There were worries, irritations, traumas, and causes for outright fucking fury that I couldn’t do a damn thing about. Just being on the periphery of the effect made them swell up and jostle together.

Sveta’s arm tightened around me. I could hear the thump, thump, thumpthump of her tendrils against the inside of her body.

I met her eyes. I could instantly tell that she’d been affected more than I had.

I was resistant to emotion effects, because I generated them. Snag had hit me hard because he’d hit me where it hurt the most.

My rage? It was there, beneath the surface, but it wasn’t a weak point. It was a regular point.

Changing course, I flew straight for the nearest rooftop. Sveta let go of me and dropped down the moment we were close enough. She was unsteady on landing, and after her legs didn’t keep her upright, she landed on her hands and knees on the roof’s surface, which was covered in black shingle-like tiles, four feet across. Puddles of water settled in the parts that were lower than others, waiting to be evaporated by the sun.

I kept my mouth shut as the emotion effect subsided, and walked over to the roof’s edge.

Love Lost had joined the chase, running alongside Nailbiter, who had extended her limbs. They made a racket as they ran. Love Lost’s claws scraped the road and kicked up sparks, and she was faster than an ordinary person.

Nailbiter, though, had extended her limbs, but they got narrower as they grew longer, and had become black and gnarled in the process. Her jaw hung low, the joints on either side extended, her jawbone made longer and narrower, and the teeth extended further.

She looked like something half-crocodile, half-scarecrow.