Spright still had a vestige of Prancer’s power, even though Prancer was nowhere nearby. I could see him running along a rooftop. He leaped from the rooftop’s edge, to the building face next door.

The building was Prancer’s headquarters. A stone building with a clocktower on the top.

Touching fingertips to toes, as his feet pointed straight forward, Spright passed through an open window and landed at a run. For Sveta and I, we had to get there first, and then we had to maneuver ourselves through the window. I supported Sveta so she could climb through and then looked around to make sure we weren’t being observed.

Well, if the clairvoyants were awake, and they had to be with the day still young, Chris still screaming in the distant background, and various other noises and chaos, then we were being observed.

But I couldn’t see anyone who could follow us into the building.

The things inside were… not especially nice, even though attempts had been made. It made me think more of a parent teacher conference room and my mom’s office when she was really deep in work. Budget desk, budget chairs, budget stuff in general, with the doors being wood that hadn’t even been polished down that nicely before being painted, and some signs of domesticity, with a jacket on the back of a chair, signs of eating at desks, and personal touches littering the space.

Spright was already across the floor. A binder was open in front of him.

“Spright,” I said.

“The heroine who was Glory Girl, and a friend,” he said, sounding pleasant, even casual. He picked up the binder and turned our way. “I heard you were around.”

I stalked toward him, reaching for the top of the chest-plate that served as the closest thing I’d get to a collar. He scrambled back, staying just out of reach, turning to flight when his feet failed him. He dropped the binder.

Failing to get a grip on him so I could shake sense into the man, I settled for pointing a finger accusatorily at him.

I could hear Chris screaming in the background, a distant sound I couldn’t place, that might have been a giant tinker device going off.

This entire thing had been about taking a topsy-turvy world and making it topsy-turvy for the bad guys, unseating them and breaking their hold. It had been about sanity, and they’d pulled the most insane fucking stunt, and they’d upended it.

But I couldn’t burn bridges. They were… how would Ashley have put it? Blithering idiots? And I had to get along with them. Heroes needed to cooperate, the team needed it, and I wanted to be diplomatic.

“Fucking why?” I asked.

Shadow 5.4

“You’re pissed,” Spright replied.

“Why?” I asked, again, stabbing my finger in his direction. He stepped back out of the way of it. “What the hell is Advance Guard doing?”