“Geez. You had three tries to get one right, and you got two right in two tries. What’s the fun in that?”

“Oh no,” Foil said.

“You know March?” Snag asked.

“Did you invite her?”

“No,” he said.

“Yeah. I know her,” Foil said. “She’s been after me since… forever ago. She turned up in Brockton Bay twice, after the portal, before the end of the world. She kidnapped Parian once.”

“She wanted to recruit me, months ago.”

“She collects multi-triggers,” Parian said.

Cradle, Love Lost, and himself, then?

Snag frowned. “Let’s go.”

⊙

Snag was silent as he stared out at the other group.

Everything had gone still and quiet as the small band of heroes, March, and March’s coterie approached from the settlement. The Undersiders were circling around to talk to the heroes that had cut off the Fallen’s retreat, Foil’s old teammates included, and the battle lines held.

March saw him, then saluted.

He didn’t return the gesture. His focus wasn’t on her.

Every night, he dreamed. Every night, he saw the others. He heard them, and he talked to them, saw their reactions.

Kiss and kill. He could understand it, even if the dreams were unique to his own particular group. He knew these people as well as he might know any person he’d been married to for a year. He spent hours every night locked in a room with them, separated by invisible dividers.

What started as a seed of an idea became something more when his eye fell on the one with the hood, draping sleeves, and the faux-machine mask.

The way he walked and held himself—the fact that his presence could explain both the presence of March and the inexplicable intervention of the heroes…

“It’s him,” he growled.

“What?” Cradle asked. He sat on a mechanical hand, one leg dangling.

“With the hood, near March. It’s him.”

Cradle had goggles as part of the suit that networked with his robot. He adjusted one.

“Be subtle,” Snag murmured.

The Fallen were surrendering, now that their leader had been caught. They seemed pretty reluctant to do it. The various groups Snag had hired were talking among themselves, or figuring out what role they needed to play in this cleanup stage of things. Nursery ventured into the no-man’s land, drawing closer to Cradle and him, because she didn’t have a role to play in this. She had a bandage around her burns at her arm and leg.

“Some privacy?” Cradle asked, looking down at her.

“Hmm. Okay.”

“She can stay,” Snag said.

“If you say so,” Cradle said.

“What are you two murmuring about?” Nursery asked.

“We found the one who killed Love Lost’s child,” Snag said.

Nursery fell quiet.

“We would like some time alone with him. Which we can’t do, because this is wrapping up too neatly.”

“It’s not okay,” Nursery said. “I’ll help if I can.”