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me, and I’d have been willing for him to come. But he’d asked to stay back, to my surprise. It took me a few minutes to realize that he was actually intending to keep an eye on Gog and Magog, but I was grateful when that realization hit.
    ‘Should we get down to business?’ Ryu asked, casting a fastidious gaze around his surroundings. The baobhan sith wasn’t really a mud person.
    [Yes. Let us commence,] rolled the creature’s sonorous voice through my mind. I could tell from everyone’s startled reactions that he was speaking to all of us, and I suppressed a smile.
    Despite what all the fantasy books might lead you to believe, psychic phenomena were actually unheard of in the world of magic. We could manipulate energy, but thought was something entirely different. I’d been more than relieved to learn that fact, as I’d always been rather frightened of the idea of psychic phenomena. Maybe it was so much time spent in the loony bin, but I had a certain respect for the idea that our minds were our own, no matter how fucked up they were. So psychic stuff had always struck me as frighteningly external – like a lobotomy, or really strong drugs like lithium.
    Things coming in from outside and wiping out my mind scared me after my stay in the hospital.
    Which brought me back to Anyan. We had to save him. I couldn’t imagine being trapped in my own mind, and yet I hoped that’s what he was. Because if he was just gone, if the White had managed to eradicate Anyan…
    I couldn’t even consider that outcome.
    I also realized that everyone was staring at me expectantly, waiting for me to begin. That was a huge change from our normal modus operandi, in which I was mostly listening to the other supes talk. It struck me that the tagger-along had become the leader.
    So I’d better lead.
    ‘I’d like to start by thanking all of you for coming. I know that sounds lame, but I mean it. I now feel like we can actually do this.’
    Everyone nodded, acknowledging my thanks but also, I think, affirming my words. My father, standing next to me, squeezed my shoulder in support.
    ‘I’ve been scared this whole time that our only option was to go after Anyan and destroy him, to get to the White. But Ryu had some really good reasons why working to save Anyan is actually a smart course. Ryu?’ I said, turning to my ex.
    Ryu stepped forward, squaring his shoulders.
    ‘Jane told me that Iris already touched on the ideas that I had, but I’ll share them with you anyway. In my thinking, the Red and the White aren’t physical, which is why killing them never worked.’
    Iris nodded manically, her eyes wide with excitement.
    ‘They’re not bodies!’ she hooted triumphantly.
    ‘They’re not bodies,’ Ryu repeated. ‘We’ve always been so focused on their physical selves – their bones – that we never stopped and asked how they could keep resurrecting themselves. But it’s because they’re souls, or spirits, or something else. As long as they could animate their own bodies, they chose to do so. But when that was no longer an option…’
    ‘They went incorporeal,’ Caleb said, his gaze turned inward as he thought through what Ryu was saying.
    I cast a glance at my dad, Grizzie, and Tracy. Tracy and my dad looked a bit lost, if I was honest, but Grizzie just looked … blank.
    Every once in a while, Grizzie’s Grizelda mask dropped, and we would catch a glimpse of the outrageously clever woman who lurked beneath. That woman loved being Grizelda, but she was something both of and apart from her persona. She’d also lived as many different personas, all with very different interests. So I was used to looking over and seeing Grizelda look like somebody other than Grizelda. But I’d never seen this. She looked … empty.
    Creature?
I asked.
Is someone spying on us?
    I felt a tingle in my head, an acknowledgment of my question telling me the creature had understood and would investigate.
    I kept an eye on Grizzie as Ryu