One shot, larger than the others, fired so high it had disappeared into the clouds. Now it came down, and the descent was guided by my favorite space warper.

Cradle put a hand over his head.

The stone became water at the last moment, but the impact was still enough that the hand came dangerously close to the top of Cradle’s head. Water filtered between the fingers in streams—and then froze, like the bars of a cage around him.

I flew in, straight for him.

He hurled himself at the bars, at the same moment hands moved apart and the stone shattered. The bars had broken just in time that he didn’t collide with them. A hand moved to provide footing below him as he descended, bobbed to absorb the impact of the fall.

Was that intuitive sense of how to stay steady on his contraption his mover power?

It had cost him time, and he was purely on the defensive. Chris was climbing up one arm—something Cradle could have easily dealt with, if he wasn’t dealing with all of us.

I glanced at Operator, thinker-one bird’s eye view at work, and saw that he was at the edge of Vista’s wave-shaped crest of earth. A few more steps and he’d be able to walk around it and charge them. Vista had been too distracted guiding the stone from above to keep tabs on the guy.

“Operator incoming!” I shouted.

An arm moved—not the hand or the arm itself, but the elbow that came at me. I deflected.

Every second we couldn’t end this was a second Rain was bleeding. I was worried at how long it had been already. I could have flown, but I would have been leaving the others at Cradle’s mercy.

I renewed my efforts, taking more risks, as I flew in closer.

“Don’t dodge,” I heard another report. Looksee.

Don’t dodge?

Capricorn and Sveta hurled another projectile. A hand blocked it, then shook off the stone. Other hands were warring with Chris, who was slowly climbing, stabbing, and doing a better job than I was at keeping tabs on everything immediately around him. It was another distraction for Cradle, but I doubted our changer would manage to get in close if I couldn’t, situational awareness or no.

Speaking of—what was I not supposed to dodge?

“Looksee?” I asked.

“One second, fiddling!”

Fiddling.

I got within ten feet of Cradle, only for a hand to block me. I flew around it—and he wasn’t there anymore.

He’d hopped down to another hand.

The whip hand moved, and I moved to counter. I struck it, closer to the elbow than the hand, and the hand slapped down toward the ground.

I went straight from that hit to flying for Cradle, to keep him on his toes and create room for a mistake.