An Imago of Rust and Crimson
Arc 5 – Surge
Chapter 5.01
When I woke the next morning, I felt good. The glee bubbled in my veins, leaving me feeling almost like I could float away. I'd slept a dreamless sleep, without the nightmares haunting me. I couldn't remember when I'd last felt this rested.
Then recollection hit, and the peacefulness was tinged with the taste of rust. Groaning, I yanked my covers up over my head. I'd gone after Ryo and he'd gone crazy and nearly killed me and then I'd done something with the Other Place that I hadn't done before and…
.. and in retrospect, I'd been sort of loopy all through yesterday. I screwed my eyes shut, trying to think about my own patterns of thought. I still felt kind of floaty and happy and good. I hoped that wasn't because of whatever I'd taken from him, but honestly; me feeling good? It was more likely that it was because of yesterday than anything natural.
Just looking at people's powers felt great. Feeding off them was over-the-horizon better than that. I should have guessed I could do that - after all, I'd got a similar rush from how I'd drained the beauty from that bit of tinkertech I'd taken off those Boumei thugs. Similar, in the same way that a candle flame was similar to a burning house.
Well, at least Dad didn't need to worry about me going up and hooking up with someone unsuitable, I thought morbidly as I rolled out of bed and realised I'd apparently been so out of it that I'd forgotten to get changed and had just been sleeping in my clothes. I doubted some sordid affair in the backseat of a car would give me anywhere near the same rush. Hell, heroin probably would seem bland and prosaic.
Groaning faintly, I peeled off slept-in clothes and tossed them into the laundry basket. My stomach growled as I changed into my pyjamas. Breakfast.
Luck was on my side for once. The car was out. Dad was already up and about. Then again, it was eleven. I'd slept much longer than usual. Because I'd actually slept. Most mornings, it was a relief to be able to stop pretending.
I was nursing a glass of OJ when I heard the car outside. I forced down my worries about how my power made me feel. I still had some of my residual happiness left over, and once I'd nailed my anxiety to the door I was smiling again and felt able to actually make myself breakfast and eat properly.
"Hey, Dad!" I said chirpily when he came in.
He looked tired. His face was pinched. He'd lost weight, I realised - and it wasn't like he'd been overweight to start with. Was it just the light making him look worse, or had he lost it recently? He sagged down, leaning against the fridge with a newspaper in his hand.
"Hey Dad," I said again, pouring milk onto my cereal. I plonked myself down at the kitchen table. "What's up?" I said, starting to eat.
"Don't talk with your mouth full," he said, but it seemed an automatic response installed by fatherhood. He ran his hands over his balding scalp, and sat down next to me. "Have you seen the news?" he asked.
I shook my head. "What's up?" I asked.
"There were riots last night. Bad ones. A Patriot rally went sour." He rested his hands on the table, looking at me. "It was a Japanese kid behind the murder at your school. They had a march ready to go as soon as the news broke. Probably the cops leaked it to them. They did one of their marches through Little Tokyo - only this time a bunch of people got killed. On both sides." Dad wrinkled his nose. "Me, I'd bet that the skinhead gangs went in looking for a fight and found one."
The bottom dropped out of my stomach. My anxiety gibbered, its whispers audible even when I was in reality. "But I…" I began, and bit back on what I'd about to say. 'But I didn't mean to' wasn't what Dad wanted to hear. "But I thought finding the killer would make things quieten down."
Dad laughed, and not in a very happy way. "Taylor, it's not really because a kid got shot. That's the match tossed in the barrel of gas. It isn't about just one person anymore. It never is." He waved the newspaper at me. "And look at this. 'Japanese Killers In Our Schools!' The damn Brockton Bay Times is selling a story. They were waiting for something like this."
"Um," I said. Not um anything specifically. Just 'Um'.
"Every time something like this happens, it's going to be more and more likely that a Patriot hardliner Republican gets in for the recall election for the governor. That'll be bad for everyone," he grumbled. I knew how much he worried about the union-busters. "God, I hope the Tribune gets off the ground so we can escape this trash. If something doesn't rise up to stop the Times and the way it's just a Patriot mouthpiece, we can kiss the next mayoral election goodbye too." He gripped my forearm. "Just stay safe, Taylor, got it? Keep away from anyone involved in this kind of thing."
"Guess not having any real friends is paying off," I said. I tried to make it sound like a joke.
"That's not true," he said, sounding defensive on my behalf. "There's… there's… what'shername? You mentioned she's in your classes and you study with her and…" He looked at me expectantly.
"Luci." I wouldn't say she was my friend. She was an acquaintance, nothing more.
"Yes, her! And then there's Sam and you two get along well. In fact, you should do something with her!"
I shook my head. "I talked with her yesterday," I said, blurring the truth. I had been a little busy to do that. "She said her mother's not letting her out until her APs are finished. Arcadia's put her in for four, can you believe it? When she's missed a lot of the year from illness."
Dad tried to grin. "Hmm, good idea – the 'not letting you out', that is. Her mother might be a rich b… business type, but that's smart. It'd keep you safe and stop you getting caught up in the violence. And you can spend the time studying."
"Dad!"
"Taylor, I'm serious. These exams matter!"
"I know, I know." I didn't tell him that I could do them in my sleep by now. In fact, I did them instead of sleeping. God certainly knew I'd be skipping more sleep after the sight of Ryo's father and the feeling of ice-cold fingers around my throat. It was better to give my mind things to distract itself with. Things that didn't come from the Other Place.
"Because you need good grades and you need work experience and you need…"
"Dad! I know!"
He tossed the papers down on the table, and ambled off. I flicked through the papers as I ate my cereal.
And there it was. Right in front of my eyes. In the tattered Other Place reflection of the newspaper, entire sections of text were covered up with large blocky black stenciled words. Words like REDACT and CONTAIN and CONCEAL.
I knew what that meant. It meant that the Grey Men and their bosses were interfering with the papers. I guessed that it meant that they'd told the journalists what to write. Or maybe they'd used their powers to force them to write a certain thing.
"Anything weird about the riot?" I called out to Dad.
"What do you mean, weird?" he asked.
"Like, parahuman involvement or anything?"
"That damn Purity woman - the so-called war hero one - was leading the march, but thank goodness, she didn't seem to get involved. The last thing we need is her throwing down with that dragon gang lord. Lung or however you say it."
"Yeah," I said, reading it again. Yes, there was no mention of parahuman involvement at all. And that was kinda suspicious in its own right, 'cause the news really liked talking about parahuman fights and if the riot was as bad as it was talking up, you'd think there had been something.
I tapped my spoon against my teeth. Hmm. Hmm.
"Don't do that, Taylor. You'll chip your teeth."
Huffing, I stopped. "That's just a myth," I grumbled.
He sat down in front of me. Dad was sitting straight upright, and his eyes were uneasy. This looked like a formal talk.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
Dad took a breath, and put a phone on the table between us, along with a charging lead. "Listen, I… I got you a cheap cell. It's a pay-as-you-go, so every call will cost money, but all the contracts weren't worth it. You're nearly sixteen and… and I'm worried about you. What with everything that's going on. You might wind up in trouble and need to call the cops or… or something."
I stared down at the small rectangular cell. It was clearly pre-owned, and its black plastic casting was scuffed. Dad had spent money on it, but not very much money. But that wasn't what made it special. It was that it was a phone at all. Dad didn't like cells. Not since Mum had died.
"Um." My voice came out as a squeak. "Uh. I'll… I promise I'll use it responsibly."
"I'll pay five bucks a month for credit, but any extra will need to come out of your allowance. And in return, you'll need to keep it on and with you. I want to be able to check and see if you're safe."
My eyes widened, and I tried to work out what to say. Oh. So that was what it was. He wanted to keep more of a track on me. This wasn't good. I tried to hide my wince from him. I needed my ability to vanish from him for a few hours. He wanted to strip that away from me, so he could call me up and find out where I was any time.
Was it because I'd come in yesterday all happy? Did he think I was on drugs? Oh God, had I not cleaned myself up properly and trailed plaster dust and dirt into the house?
"Yeah," I said, trying to sound normal and not at all like I was panicking because I'd just been rumbled. "Yeah, I will." I reached out and squeezed his wrist. "I… I promise I won't be frivolous with it or anything. It's just an emergency backup cell, after all. Yeah?"
"Yeah," he said.
I finished breakfast, and went up to have a shower to wash away the sweat from yesterday. As if my life needed to get more complicated.
While the water warmed up, I examined myself in the mirror and made an unpleasant discovery. My scars were pinker, rawer, fresher. They hadn't looked like that in months. Gingerly, I felt one on my face. The skin was taut under my touch, and felt warm. Not infected-hot, but how they'd felt when they were still healing.
I really hoped that they weren't opening up again. It must have been the freezing touch of Ryo's parahuman powers. Hopefully the inflammation would go down soon and they weren't going to get worse. Just in case, though, I sunk into the Other Place and examined myself, seeing if there were any deeper injuries I'd suffered there.
There weren't any fresh wounds, but there was something else. In the cracked and filthy bathroom mirror of my nightmare world, the lighting on me wasn't quite right. I seemed slightly too well lit, slightly more there than the world around me.
It was the exact same thing I'd seen with the bird lady.
"Oh no," I breathed, hands going to my face. I almost glowed. Like how those fake photos of supermodels glowed. I wasn't a model. Not in anything other than the dreams I'd had as a kid. But here, compared to the rot and decay of the Other Place, I was. Hand trembling, I felt up my too-smooth, scarred face. There wasn't the same intensity as the beautiful glow of a parahuman, but it must have been what I'd taken from Ryo. It had sunk into me.
The bird lady had been the same. So she must have done it too. Kirsty didn't have it, but then again, she was in a mental hospital. She didn't have a chance to feed off other parahumans.
So. I chewed on my sore lip. The bird lady had similar powers to me – but not the same. If she'd had the same powers, she would have caught me. Kirsty could also summon angels – different angels, but still angels. This was a leap, but I suspected that meant that all three of us had the same need. And I hadn't seen any beautiful glow from any of us normally. So the glow was probably how my power told me about the… the something I needed to take from other parahumans.
Damn it all. I slumped down, head in my hands. Screw my life. Shedding the Other Place, I reached out and rubbed my hand on the steamy glass of the mirrors, my fingers squeaking as I did it. My reflection remained slightly blurred. Of course it did. I could only see properly in the Other Place and my glasses were back in my bedroom.
Sometimes I wondered why I didn't need glasses in my personal hellscape. It didn't paint a pretty picture. I was short-sighted because my eyes didn't bend the light right, which meant that it might not be light that I was using to see there.
And if that was the case, did I need eyes to see the Other Place? If someone cut out my eyes, would I just see it all the time? Only if that was the case, I wouldn't be able to close my eyes. Brr. Scary thoughts.
However, before my morbid contemplations could continue, I heard the phone ring.
"Taylor! It's for you!" Dad called up. "It's Sam!"
"Uh… I'll take it upstairs!" I yelled down, turning off the water and grabbing for my bath robe. "Just keep her talking, I won't be a minute!"
What was she calling for? And, huh, should I give her the number of that cell Dad had got me? Or would that be embracing the unwanted parental intrusion on my life?
Questions for later, I decided, as I picked up the upstairs phone. "Hi, Sam. Dad, you can put the phone down." I waited for the noise from the other line to stop. "Yeah, sorry, I was just about to get in the shower,"
"Oh, I can call back later if it's a problem?"
"It's fine. I'm just here in my bath robe. So…"
"Oh, right." Sam cleared her throat. "I was mostly just calling to see if you're okay."
"Okay?" I echoed, wrinkling my brow.
"Well, you know, I heard about the riots on the radio and you do live in a rough area and…"
I pinched the bridge of my nose. That was Sam in a nutshell. Meaning well, but a bit clueless. It was nice that someone cared enough to check that I was okay, but I didn't live in a rough area! Who said 'rough area', anyway? "I'm fine," I said, before she could carry on. "They were more over near the docks. I didn't hear a thing."
"Oh! Right! That's wonderful! I was literally so worried!"
"And before you ask, no, I didn't know the kid who died," I added quickly before she could ask that. "Not personally, at least. He was part of a skinhead gang. A bully."
"Huh. Guess someone bullied back," she said flippantly.
"Yes," I said, through gritted teeth. Ryo hadn't been a bully. He'd just been a mess. "I guess he did."
"Well, at least it's good to hear from you again." Sam made a clicking noise with her tongue. "How've you been?"
Well, yesterday I took down a dangerous and disturbed parahuman in a ruined building in Boston, I didn't say. "Could be worse," was what I actually said. "Things are pretty stressful right now, with the exams and everything else." That wasn't a lie.
"Yeah, talk to me about it. Are you doing anything today?"
"Uh… nothing really planned," I said.
"Have you seen Maleen yet? The new Disney movie, that is. My dad is letting me out of the house if I'm with a friend, because… well, I'm fucking stressing out. I think he's worried."
I blinked. I hadn't. But I remembered my promise to Kirsty. "I've already told a friend I'll take her to it," I said.
"Ah, damn."
"I didn't say I wouldn't go," I said, before she could shift topics. I needed a break too - and I still felt happy and floaty enough that the normal stomach-churning discomfort of going out with someone wasn't there. "From the reviews, it's probably good enough to see twice."
"Cool. Thank you, really. I'm going to go crazy if I'm cooped up in here any longer with my mum. Don't worry - it's nowhere near where the riots were. Does the 14:30 showing sound good?"
I glanced at a clock. "Yeah," I said.
"Great. I'll pick you… uh, what was your address again?"
I gave it to her, and went down to tell Dad about that. He seemed pleased, but did tell me that I needed to get my studying done before I went out. Dad also made me do it in the kitchen, so he could make sure I was actually studying. I knew he'd been trying harder since the whole locker incident, but that was just inconvenient.
Sam was looking even more tomboyish than usual when she picked me up that afternoon. She was wearing cargo pants in the cool weather and had her brown bomber jacket done up. Still, the face under her pixie haircut looked exhausted. She was wearing make-up to cover up acne, but it wasn't enough to hide the dark bags under her eyes. For once I wasn't the most tired-looking person in the room.
Just in case, I made some tweaks to her Other Place self to help her out, patching up the pill-chains that tied down her issues. I hoped she wasn't so stressed she was forgetting to take her meds.
We got dropped off by one of the cinemas on the Boardwalk. There was no chance that the riots made it here. The police wouldn't let a march where there was any risk of violence go through here. Still, there was a distant scent of smoke in the air. It was acrid, like burning plastic or rubber. Maybe the rioters had been burning tires. The corporate security was out in force, patrolling the private streets. As we pulled up, I saw a cluster of them dispersing a small group of Japanese teenagers, batons at the ready.
The ticket area of the cinema was full of the noise of the arcade next door. Games machines blared their theme songs through to the open space, in a cacophony that became just a solid wall of noise. Red light streamed out, painting the sticky floor crimson. The air smelled of stale popcorn, and just a hint of unwashed human bodies. I didn't check the Other Place. I wanted to take some time off; avoid trouble for a little bit.
No sooner had I thought that than I realised there were skinheads lurking just inside the arcade. Great. At least Sam and I weren't the sort of people they went after. Huddling up, I ignored them and we went to buy our tickets.
Since the world hated me, we were greeted by whistles when we passed back by them. I reflexively shrank back. So much for private security. Or maybe they just didn't care about this. I'd be a lot safer under Isolation
"Ignore them," Sam muttered, glancing in that direction. She grabbed my hand, pulling me away. "I've got half a mind to report them to security. I don't know why boys think they can act like that. God, they're such pigs."
I distinctly heard the phrase "fucking dykes" as we hurried away, and that was enough for me to squirm loose of Sam's hand.
"You alright?" she asked, narrow face crinkled up in worry. "Look, we can just set the rentacops on them."
"It won't make a difference," I said.
"Of course it will. That's the job of the security here."
"They won't listen. It's our word against theirs and…" I shrugged, shoulders hunched over. "They'll just get angry and might wait for us or something. Better to just ignore them and they might get bored - and they won't remember us on the way out."
Sam paused, tilting her head back to stare up at me. The red light played across her face. "What kind of rubbish is that?" she said, crossing her arms. "Look, this is clearly worrying you, so let's go find a guard and tell them we were harassed by the skinheads hanging out in the arcade."
"There's no time before the movie."
"There's plenty of time. Urgh. You're just like Leah. If you don't kick up a fuss, nothing happens. That's how it goes. And always make sure they have your complaint in writing and direct it to their manager if possible - that's what my mother always says."
I shook my head. Sam was very naive, all things considered. I guess going to Arcadia shielded her from how the world really worked. "I'm fine," I said. "Really. I'm just not used to it. I don't get it much. They were probably after you, anyway."
"Now you're just fishing for compliments," Sam grumbled, but acquiesced. "Fine. But if they're still out there after the movie, I'm reporting them. Back me up if that happens, okay?"
There wouldn't be much chance of that, so I felt safe in telling her, "Okay."
She didn't let it go, though. As we were settling down in Screen 3, Sam said "Seriously, though, I should have told security. We could probably have even got a discount or something. For the emotional distress."
"Like that would happen."
"No, seriously, it works. In fact," and then she got distracted, when her phone chimed. "Sorry, got to take my meds," she said, rummaging in her bag.
"I hope you turn that off," I muttered. At least she was still taking them. A thought struck me, and I remembered I now had to care about turning off my phone. I did so with no small amount of relief.
We survived the endless adverts, and the Disney logo came up. But I found I couldn't focus on the movie. My mind wouldn't shut down. Thoughts of the catcalling skinheads and the Japanese kids who the private security had been hustling away swirled in circles in my brain, like water down the drain. I still felt good, but that thought was worrying enough that I felt a twinge of fear through the happiness and fuzziness. I'd really fucked up with Ryo. He'd had it coming because of the whole 'trying to kill me' thing - which I really wasn't a big fan of - but it wouldn't be okay to do that to someone who wasn't a threat.
And I still had an obligation to him. They'd find his dad's body when they searched their apartment, but I had hurt him. I had to know if he was okay. I stared up at the movie screen, clearing my mind. It was barely any effort at all to sink into the Other Place. The film was warped and twisted, and the language the animated characters were speaking wasn't English. The sappy Disney romance number was nonsense-glossolalia, just on the edge of understanding. It was almost enough to distract me, but I concentrated and exhaled Watcher Doll.
"Find Ryo," I whispered to the floating doll. "Show me him."
Drifting backwards, Watcher Doll sunk into the screen, its CCTV-head watching me all the way. The image on the screen fuzzed, shifted, and started to unfog. I leaned forwards, peering through the electronic mist.
A bird slammed into the back of the screen from the inside. I yelped and shrank back in my seat. It was a crow! Its beady eyes didn't look right, but it wasn't a monster - and yet it was in the Other Place. Inside the movie.
And then another one.
And another one.
And then a whole flock, pounding against the screen like feet on a busy staircase. They pecked at the screen. Tap. Tap. Tap. Burn lines covered the projected image, and the rotting substance of the screen twisted forwards, pushing out. The cawing of the birds drowned out the twisted sounds of the movie.
My heart hammered in my chest. Phobia clenched my stomach in her fist. She'd found me. The bird lady had found me!
I rammed all my fear and my panic into a silent scream, forcing out Needle Hag. A spider-like hunchbacked woman made of wire with long sewing needles for fingers took shape, oozing dark water from her cloak. She grew and grew, a twisted wire monster as large as the flock trying to push its way out of the screen.
"IDENTIFY," the birds croaked, in a mechanical buzzing chorus. Their beady eyes caught the light of the projector. "LOCATE. DETERMINE."
Needle Hag drew back her hand, and stabbed it through the screen. It didn't break, but her sewing needles stabbed into the birds. Black blood splattered through the screen, covering her hands. Again and again, she stabbed, until the only thing that could be seen in the movie was their stacked bodies. They had to be dead. Only - what if they weren't? I wasn't going to stop her. The lights in the cinema blew, shattering glass down on the Other Place, and the projector cut off. I could smell smoke.
I slumped back down on my seat, breathing deeply. The Other Place chair squelched and was cold and damp. Shit. Shit. Shit.
"What the hell was that?" the pill-chained monster-form of Sam demanded. I forced myself back to reality, and blinked. The lights were off, and the emergency lighting painted the isles a dull crimson. "Oh, fuck. A brownout?"
"Yeah," I gasped. My heart was beating like a drum.
"... what's up with you?"
"I… I just got a shock. With the way it cut out." My words were falling over themselves. "It's… I don't react well to surprises and it's like stepping on a stair that doesn't exist and…" God, I hoped it didn't sound as false to her as it did to me.
Sam fortunately was too distracted to notice. "Wait here," she ordered. "I'm going to find someone. They better go fix it."
She marched off and I was left alone. Those were the bird woman's crows. The Grey Men probably had Ryo. Or at least, had one of their agents watching over where the government had him confined. And they'd tried to trace me. That was what the birds had been. A way of tracing people who used things like Watcher Doll.
I… thought I'd stopped it before the bird woman found me. If it'd got through the screen, they would have known for sure. That wasn't fair. That wasn't fair at all! My powers were for finding things! Not… not for other people finding me!
Cupping my hands over my face, I hyperventilated into them. I needed to move. What if she'd pinpointed my location? What would have happened if I'd tried this at home? I didn't want to find out. Lesson learned. No using Watcher Doll to poke into things that the Grey Men were involved in.
"So," Sam said, when she returned, "they said part of the power circuit for the entire building blew, and they'll be giving us vouchers for a later showing. But I told them that, no, I had to be back to study for my exams and made them redeemable any time in the next month. So, here." She handed one over to me. "I guess this becomes a post exam celebration, right?"
I forced myself to smile. "Guess so," I said, leg bouncing up and down nervously.
"I have to say, this place is falling apart," Sam said. "Did you notice the smell when the fuses blew? It was like hot metal. I wonder what caught fire? And there was also some sewage in there, too. Yuck."
Swallowing, I took a long sip of my drink to give me time to think. "Yeah," I said. "It stunk." Except… that was the Other Place. She'd smelled it too. But, no, she didn't have powers. I'd see that on her - and she couldn't remember Kirsty.
Keep out of reality, Other Place, I ordered it. Fortunately, it didn't reply. I would probably have screamed if it had.
"So, yeah, I wasn't kidding when I said that there's no way I can make the later showing," Sam said as we emerged back into the atrium of the cinema. The power was all out, and the arcade was dark. "So I guess we've got some time to kill. Want to go shopping? I need some new jeans anyway."
For my part, I wanted some more books. Not sleeping like other people meant I burned through them, and nights were boring. "Sure," I said, looking around nervously. We had to move, before the cops showed up.
I didn't see a single Grey Man in all the shops we went to, which was a relief. But of course, novels weren't the only thing I bought. Between Sam going to pricey electronics shops and clothing stores - and how did she have a credit card of her own? - I went to a nearby hardware store. There, I bought a cork board, a tin of push pins, some string and some Post-It notes, and picked up a newspaper.
"Stuff for studying," I told Sam. "Mind-mapping, you know."
"Urgh, don't talk to me about that," she grumbled. When she called her parents to pick her up, I had her drop me in a park near my hidden base. I needed to think, away from Dad.
The Other Place had a warning for me. Even though in the real world it was sunny, thick rusty clouds hung overhead. The streets were choked with a thin mist of suspicion and fear, which chilled me to the bones. Or maybe it was smoke, because the monstrously deformed people burned with anger. When they spoke with one another, their fires merged and strengthened one another. The air felt thick and oily, like it was before a thunderstorm.
What was a thunderstorm in the Other Place? What happened when all the built up tension unleashed itself?
I paused for a breath, sitting on a low crumbling wall that oozed dark water. Rusted cars drove by, driven by monsters. I wanted to scream at them, to tell them that it was the skinheads had made Ryo into more than just a scared refugee. The only thing their fear was doing was making things worse.
Why couldn't they see? Why couldn't I make them all see?
… but of course I couldn't. One, two, maybe. I could force Ideas into their heads and open their eyes. But there were too many people just as scared and stupid as Ryo had been, and they didn't need powers to be a threat. Too many people for me to change the minds of. I'd fall over and start coughing up blood if I tried to fix the world that way.
I sighed, running my hands through my hair. I must have burned through my euphoria from what I'd done to Ryo protecting myself from the crows. I wasn't thinking happy thoughts.
Down in my base, I propped up the corkboard against one of the walls. Biting my lip, I glared at it. Peeling off the first of the Post-It notes, I wrote 'Ryo' on it, then stuck it in the middle of the board. I pinned a news article about the murder next to that note. The second Post-It note said 'Skinheads', and the third said 'Waiting Fours'.
Then they came faster and faster, in a flurry of yellow leaves in the dusty air.
There was a pattern here. There was something that connected Ryo and the skinheads and the locker room and the bird woman and the Grey Men and SIX and… and everything. It couldn't be all for nothing. Maybe I couldn't solve it in a day. Maybe not a week, or even a month. Maybe I'd need to be scared of the birds that the Grey Men had that could backtrace my powers.
That didn't matter. I was going to get to the bottom of this. I had the parts of a puzzle, and if I kept digging, I'd eventually find a corner piece.
