Up, away, clear of the immediate fight, until the figures on the battlefield were specks. I stopped there, at a height I was pretty sure the clairvoyants couldn’t track me, where the phone I held still had two bars of signal.

Comfortably away, secure, and private. Close enough to see if the reinforcements appeared.

“Scary, being up this high,” Sveta said. “Scarier that you aren’t answering my question.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be sorry. Answer me.”

I nodded. The sick feeling that had hit me when Spright had commented on the wretch’s existence hadn’t gone away. It was worse, if anything.

Mayday’s power hit. Two shots, barreling in from the horizon in a matter of seconds, each half the size of a house. The red balls were more oblong than before, where the last one had only appeared that way because of its arc. The shape might have been why they traveled further as they hit, carrying people away. While villains scrambled to get to their feet. Lines spread out, forming overlapping triangles, circles, squares, and stars, extending in a pattern around the woman who had been shielding Mayday.

I pressed the phone down against my chest.

“You’re being weird,” Sveta said. “And weird can be allowed, believe me—”

She let out a small, hollow laugh.

“—But bad weird isn’t. You’re not just pulling away. You’re pushing away. Throwing me away, literally.”

“That’s not—”

“You threw me aside, Victoria. Literally. You didn’t warn me.”

“I wouldn’t throw you if I couldn’t catch you, okay?” I asked. I wanted to put my thoughts into words without blurting them out, but I couldn’t do that while defending myself and simultaneously making sure I didn’t leave the heroes down below undefended.

“It’s not okay,” Sveta said. “I feel shitty for bringing this up now, but it’s really not okay that I barely recognize you sometimes, and it just got shoved in my face twice.”

“I don’t want you to recognize me.”

“Not that. Not—mostly not that. Not—I’m glad you’re you again. I’m glad I can communicate with you without you bringing every conversation back to the topic of your sister.”

I flinched. I didn’t blurt, but I did voice something safe and reliable, something I’d already said, because it was safer than that. “It’s the wolf.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything. Spright told me more than that. I really, really don’t want to find out stuff from other people instead of you, Victoria.”

“It’s— My forcefield moves with a mind of its own,” I said.