Pt. 089.h — Day 10 Claire Challenge

The roof of the Excelsior Foundation shuddered beneath Claire's boots. For one confused second she thought the transport had gone wrong. The Hall had vanished, Van was at her side, and a low boom rolled across the city hard enough to rattle the safety railing. Then she recognized the buildings below.

The broad-winged administration tower. The row of training halls with their reinforced roofs. The communications mast she had once been made to climb under observation while a dozen instructors argued about safety regulations. Across a wide courtyard stood the Halcyon buildings, smaller and rather less impressive, where she'd spent years being told that the first responsibility of an Empowered was to keep one disaster from becoming two.

Excelsior coordinated hero response across the country. Halcyon trained the next generation on the same campus.

Smoke rose beyond the campus walls in several thick columns. She could see orange flashes among the office towers to the south and the intermittent blue of defensive batteries around the communications center. Somewhere to the west, a road bridge had lost a section of its span. Traffic had piled against the remaining approach, and tiny figures were abandoning vehicles and running between them.

Van stood at the railing, one gloved hand resting against the steel. A glowing notification screen faded into life before them.

BEST GIRL POLL - FIRST PLACE

TEMPORARY TRANSFORMATION BOON - STAR PERFORMANCE

Gold light poured from the screen and swept over Claire. Her boots lifted an inch from the roof before settling again. The fabric of her uniform drew itself into clean, flattering lines, its familiar colors brightening to a polished luster. A fine shimmer traveled through her hair and gathered around her shoulders like the edge of a spotlight. Small planes of gold tinged force fluttered around her in a swirling column. She reached out with her power instinctively and felt it respond with an eagerness and ease she had never felt before.

Van stared for a second. “Okay. That's new.”

Claire looked down at her uniform, then touched the smooth fall of her hair. Even the movement seemed a little too graceful. “Apparently I'm the audience's idea of Starling.”

A smaller line appeared beneath the title.

POWER AND PRESENCE ENHANCED

DURATION: CURRENT CHALLENGE

“I forgot about that poll,” Claire said, frowning down at the shining fabric. “We can work out what it does later. Right now there are people down there who need help.”

Van nodded, still looking a little startled by the change.

From this height the damage reached farther than she had ever seen this far behind the front lines. Alters moved across the practice fields below, and a section of the campus perimeter was already breached. A heavy security vehicle crawled backward through the east entrance, firing bursts of electric-blue light at something following it.

“I've seen major incursions before,” she said. “Not like this. Nothing deep enough in secure territory to reach Excelsior itself.”

She had practiced on that field. Her parents had watched her from the seats beyond it. The same benches were now overturned, and a creature with too many joints was climbing the observation stand.

Van looked at her. “Can the academy hold?”

“The emergency command network can call in half the country. Assuming half the country isn't answering its own emergency right now.” She shook off the thought and lifted a hand. “I need a better view. Stay with me.”

“Wait, we're—”

The roof dropped away beneath their feet.

Claire rose on a cushion of telekinetic force, taking Van beside her in a second, separate grip. He made an indignant noise and spread his arms for balance, although there was nothing for him to balance against. She steadied his position relative to hers until his shoulders relaxed.

Below them, the campus came into a clearer pattern. The western training buildings still stood. The command complex was trading energy fire with several Alters at the central gates. Emergency vehicles were making for the perimeter, and high above the northern district two Empowered defenders darted through a cloud of airborne debris.

Farther south, near the waterfront, a column of vivid orange smoke climbed almost straight into the wind.

Claire caught her breath.

“There's our job.”

Van followed her gaze. “A fire?”

“Orange smoke means mobile assistance requested. Someone's isolated or the regular evacuation route's failed.” She banked toward the waterfront. “I'm good at that.”

“You're good at a lot of things.”

“Compliments already? We haven't even started.”

She smiled and increased their speed.

They were high enough now to pass above most of the falling debris. Normally when carrying a passenger, she held herself well below the speed she could comfortably achieve alone. Van wasn’t difficult to lift but keeping someone stable while they turned and pulled consumed attention she'd rather have available. This time, it felt different. The usual drain on her attention and management of her power was simply not there. Her intention colored the expression of her power through desire alone and they sailed across the city in a gold-tinged arc.

He kept looking down.

“There are giant stuffed animals attacking the campus,” he announced.

Claire almost lost her rhythm. “What?”

“Those things. They're giant plushies.”

She looked below. An Alter had vaulted onto a personnel carrier and was tearing its turret assembly apart. Its arms were long enough to reach around the armored shell, and the black ridges along its spine moved as it worked.

“You have a very strange definition of a stuffed animal.”

“Felt claws. Little stitched mouths. One's got button eyes, Claire. Actual black buttons.”

She stared at him. The earnest outrage in his voice was so completely at odds with the scene below that an unwilling laugh escaped her.

“Oh. The filter.”

“You think?”

“Verena said it would keep you from panicking. Apparently she decided terror needed better merchandising.”

“You're laughing.”

“I am. I'm sorry. It's a terrible situation and that is a terrible solution.”

Van looked past her shoulder. “Don't get comfortable. Two more of the stuffed animals are coming after us.”

Claire turned to see two winged Alters rising from the torn roof of a warehouse a few streets behind them. They flew by beating narrow, leathery wings in hard strokes, their tails streaming like whips. The first had a low wedge of a head and a hooked spine at the end of its tail. The second was larger through the shoulders, its mouth hanging open around a cluster of pointed teeth. They were gaining.

“Oh, that's inconvenient.”

“Apparently the first one is saying it's going to catch us and put us in the naughty corner.”

Claire didn't laugh a second time. One of the creatures folded its tail and snapped it forward. The sound cracked through the air like a rifle shot.

Crowning Glory gave her the warning before she saw what had happened. A thin, fast shape crossed the outer edge of her awareness, and her hair flared from her shoulders as the mapping field sharpened around it.

Claire thrust out two fingers, her reflex driven by her expanded awareness. A translucent gold plane flashed into existence. The bony spine struck its edge and skipped away, passing close enough to her cheek that she felt the displaced air.

“Was that a tooth?” Van demanded.

“Tail spine. Keep your head down.”

She drew a portion of her power from their forward momentum and wrapped it around the leading Alter. The cloud of force planes gathered across its wings and hind limbs, spoiling its next beat. It lurched downward, fought the invisible restraint, and kicked against the air hard enough that she felt the resistance through her own chest.

Claire pulled harder. Van drifted a fraction behind her before she corrected his position. The second Alter surged closer and another whip-crack split the sky.

Claire rolled. Her body turned tightly around its long axis, but the cushion holding Van swept him through a much broader circle beside her. His boots passed above her head as she felt the spine streak between them and vanish toward the rooftops.

“CLAIRE!”

“I know!”

The first Alter broke her hold in a wrench of wing and muscle. Both creatures adjusted their approaches, one climbing to the left, the other dropping below and to the right. They were learning how she defended them. A moment later they'd reach her from opposing directions.

She could shield them, perhaps. She could also hold their flight and try to force both attackers away. The weight wasn't the problem; she had too many moving demands and too little time to satisfy all of them.

“Van! Get behind me. Grab on and don't let go.”

He looked at her, then at the distance to the street.

“What are you about to do?”

“Drop us.”

He made a sound that did not qualify as a word, but he moved. Claire drew him toward her. His arms closed around her middle from behind, securely below her shoulders, and his chest pressed against her back. He was tall enough that his chin nearly reached her shoulder.

She stopped flying.

The air rose around them with a savage rush. The rooftops seemed to jump upward. Van's grip tightened, one forearm locked across her ribs, the other below it. Claire's stomach lurched into her throat.

Above them, the two Alters lunged toward the position they had occupied an instant earlier.

Claire spread both arms. Without the continuous work of holding two bodies in independent flight, her telekinesis answered more eagerly. Two clouds of gold-tinged planes shot past the creatures, curving around them like the wings of an enormous invisible bird. She hooked one beneath the left Alter's wing root and the other across its companion's upper back, then pulled across their opposing lines of motion.

The creatures met with a sickening crack.

Their wings tangled. One folded against the other's chest. They spun together, shrieking, and fell toward the roof of an empty commercial building. Claire felt both minds of movement, sensed the helpless tumble through Crowning Glory, and watched them strike hard enough to break the roofline.

Two golden panels flashed through her falling field of vision.

ALTER DEFEATED

+1 VP

ALTER DEFEATED

+1 VP

“Wonderful,” Claire said, mostly to herself as the street became alarmingly close.

She caught them in midair with a broad cushion of force. The fall ended so smoothly that her boots scarcely moved against Van's thighs, but he gave a short, disbelieving laugh against her shoulder.

“We're alive.”

“We are.”

Claire angled them toward the orange smoke, the height and speed now under control. Her heart was pounding, and laughter rose out of her before she could decide whether it was appropriate. Van's breath warmed her neck.

Her hair, which had been streaming straight behind her during the fall, began to turn in the wind.

One thick lock gathered itself into a short, curling tail and slipped against Van's cheek. Another followed, resting gently along the side of his face.

“Oh, don't you start,” Claire muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

His hands were still clasped across her stomach. His broad chest radiated a pleasant warmth across her back and around her ribs. She didn’t need him to hold on anymore, but she let the sensation linger a beat too long.

A third golden panel appeared at the edge of her vision.

CLAIRE MERCER

HUGGED THE MASTER

+1 VP

Van saw it too. “I didn't—”

“I know.”

“Does it count if you're preventing a fatal fall?”

“Apparently the judges find danger romantic.”

He laughed into the back of her shoulder, and that made it more difficult for her to keep an appropriately stern expression.

They continued in the same position for another block or two. Claire let the flight become a gentle glide. Her hair had curled around his jaw, making a small contented loop at his temple. Through that impossible sensory organ she could detect the light drag of his cheek against the strands, a contact that gave her enough of a thrill to make her blush.

The orange smoke grew larger. Beyond it, water flashed between rows of warehouses.

Claire straightened slightly. “You can let go now.”

Van's arms opened at once. “Sorry.”

She floated him back to her side and gave him an injured look. “I'm telekinetic. If I wanted you moved, you'd have been moved.”

“Right. Of course.” He looked at her hair, which reluctantly withdrew. “Tell that to your ponytail.”

Claire opened her mouth, thought better of it, and turned toward the smoke.

---

The harbor district opened beneath them in a clutter of warehouses, cranes, mooring structures, and narrow roads. A main pier reached far into the water from an industrial loading yard. Near its end, a helicopter lay across the approach at an angle, broken rotor blades scattered around it. Fire climbed from its engine housing, and the smoke pushed toward a crowd of civilians trapped beyond the wreck.

Four police officers had formed a thin defensive line with energy pistols aimed toward the mainland. Several Alters prowled at the far end of the pier, circling the burning helicopter and waiting for a clear approach. The civilians behind it were backed almost to the water, some crouched among cargo crates, others standing and trying to see over the people in front.

An adjacent pier ran parallel to the first, separated by a channel too broad for anyone to jump. That second structure connected to a service road leading inland. It was clear for the moment.

Claire swept her telekinetic senses through the area. The fire distorted her view, but Crowning Glory mapped the heavy geometry through smoke: intact pilings, the central span of the damaged pier, shipping equipment, a container resting on a maintenance platform a short way inland. She couldn't simply carry the entire crowd out. She had no secure way to lift that many individual bodies together, and people would panic if she tried to scoop them off a burning dock.

Van hung beside her, looking down at the trapped civilians.

“Can you fly all of them out?”

“No.”

“What are you going to do?”

Claire studied the gap between piers, then the cargo container. The officers' firing line was about to lose its last usable angle as a broad-shouldered Alter moved behind the helicopter wreck.

She smiled. “My job.”

They landed behind the officers.

A woman in battered police armor swung toward them with her pistol raised, then stopped. “Starling?”

“Yes, ma’am. What's your situation?”

“The evacuation chopper was brought down before it touched the deck. We can't get the civilians past the wreck, and the Alters are waiting us out. Our launch is gone, and the road behind us is compromised.”

The officer glanced across the water. “We can't get these people across to one of the other piers.”

“We can now. I need your officers to direct the crowd. Keep them calm and moving. Put the injured between people who can support them.”

The policewoman was already turning to call the orders. Behind her, the crowd had begun to press against itself at the sight of another Alter moving through the smoke. Claire stepped forward, her uniform catching the firelight in a bright, clean outline.

“Look at me,” she called. Her voice carried over the helicopter's burning engine without becoming a shout. Faces turned, one after another. “I'm Starling and I’m going to make a bridge. Follow the officers, keep your eyes open, and help the person beside you. We are getting you out.”

She could see fear still written across their faces, but the crowd stopped surging. A woman who had been crying straightened and reached for an older man's arm. The change was so immediate that Claire felt a little thrill of satisfaction. She had calmed crowds before, but never this easily. The Hotel’s grace had reached out and enhanced her, what had it said “presence”?

Claire lifted a hand toward the cargo container. Its frame groaned as the whole length rose from the maintenance platform. A broad rectangular shadow crossed the water. She drew the container toward the gap and set its ends upon the structural beams of the two piers, wedging it against an intact bollard on one side and a concrete loading ledge on the other.

It settled with a metal boom that sent a wash of spray through the pilings.

Claire tested the span, pressing down in stages until she was satisfied neither end would roll. She didn't like its narrowness, but the walls and reinforced corner posts made a solid crossing once anchored.

“Across there,” she called, indicating the crossing with an open hand. “Walk. Help the people immediately beside you. We've got time so nobody needs to make a race of it.”

A man at the front hesitated. Van stepped onto the container, stamped once with enough confidence to make Claire want to reprimand him, and offered a hand to the nearest injured civilian.

“It’s going to hold,” he told them. “Come on. I'll help.”

The first woman crossed. Then a father carrying a toddler. The police officers began directing the line, sending people in small groups and keeping the entrance clear.

Claire scanned the mainland approach. The Alters were watching. One circled the burning wreck and started toward the other pier. The others shifted with it, looking for a route to cut off the fleeing civilians.

“Van. Behind me when you finish that group.”

He helped an injured man onto the span, waited until another civilian took over, then moved back to Claire's side. She kept him within arm's reach while she reached toward the crashed helicopter.

The machine protested under her telekinetic grip. She tore the remaining rotor assembly loose, then ripped free a burning section of the engine housing. With a sweeping motion she hurled both into the advancing Alters.

The rotor spun in a shower of sparks. Flaming panels struck the pier and bounced among the creatures, scattering fragments of glass and burning insulation. The wreckage broke apart in a stinging spray, but none of the parts were large enough to injure one of the superhuman monsters. The leading Alter flinched backward, shielding its face from the burning spray.

The hesitation had bought them an extra moment, but soon the Alters advanced again. The beasts’ limited minds still seeking the shortest path to the nearest human victim. Now that the helicopter was torn apart, that path lead directly through Starling.

“Persistent,” Claire said.

Van bent and picked up a length of metal strut from the wreckage beside a bollard. She gave it one look, not pleased, but the nearest creature was already charging the mouth of the crossing.

Claire caught it telekinetically. It was heavy and moving quickly. Her force gathered beneath it from behind and then below, angling its own momentum up and over her position. The creature flew overhead and overshot the end of the pier, striking a steel mooring frame hard enough to bend it and plunged into the water several dozen yards away.

A golden panel shimmered.

ALTER DEFEATED

+1 VP

“One down,” Claire said. She couldn't help herself. “I hope it likes swimming.”

The remaining three were suddenly too close for another broad attack without endangering the line of civilians. Two rushed along the damaged pier while the third sprang across a scattered row of cargo boxes toward her exposed flank.

Claire spread her hands and raised a dome of layered force around herself and Van.

Golden planes overlapped like a flock of starlings settling into a single protective shape. The first Alter struck the barrier and slid sideways. The second slammed both claws against it, shaking Claire's arms with the impact. She adjusted the overlapping planes, folding them across the gaps while keeping enough space behind her for the last evacuees to pass toward the container.

The third creature forced a long forelimb between two plates. Its claw slashed towards Van's shoulder, but failed to catch him.

Van swung the metal strut, connecting with a jarring crack. Something in the creature's arm gave way, and it screamed as it withdrew, shaking the limb in fury.

“What did it say?” Claire asked, straining to keep the other two outside.

Van grimaced. “It said its stuffing is all crooked and we should be ashamed.”

“That's one way to take a hit.”

She glanced at him. His hands were shaking around the metal, but he remained in position beside her.

“Don't make yourself their target. If one of those things gets a real hold of you, I don’t know what will happen.”

“Gladly.”

The dome bowed inward under another strike. Claire reinforced the damaged side, spreading the load across several overlapping planes. Her upper arms ached from holding that much sustained force, and the fight was consuming attention she needed for the bridge.

Behind them an officer called, “Last group! Almost there!”

Claire turned her head just enough to see the final few civilians entering the container crossing. One man was limping badly and being half-carried by two others. Van shifted as if to help, then checked himself when another Alter hit the dome.

“Stay,” she said. “They're moving.”

He obeyed, jaw set, while Claire counted the people who remained on the span. The officer brought up the rear, energy pistol held toward the pursuing creatures.

“Clear!” came the shout from across the gap.

Claire looked at the last pair of boots reaching solid decking.

Then she let the dome narrow around herself and Van, freeing the force she'd kept spread over the wider defensive envelope.

She reached behind them. The shipping container rose clear of the piers, leaving the escape route empty over the water. Its steel length rotated slowly, catching the reflected fire along one battered side.

The Alters started to spring away as Claire dropped the container.

It struck the closest creature across the shoulders and drove it hard against the pier. The second and third Alters leapt in opposite directions just before the metal hit, and the collision shook the entire structure. Rusted fastenings snapped along the decking; planks splintered under the container's weight.

The trapped Alter stopped moving.

ALTER DEFEATED

+1 VP

Claire drew a sharp breath, then pulled Van upward. “Come on. We're done here.”

She lifted him alongside herself and started toward the adjacent pier, where the police were urging the civilians inland.

A shadow burst from below.

One of the surviving Alters sprang from the edge of the damaged pier and caught Van by the ankle.

He jerked downward in her field. Claire felt the creature's weight on him and turned to drag him free. The Alter's claws tightened through the reinforced boot.

Van cried out in surprise and shock, but the Hotel's substitution intervened. It translated the crushing force into an intense, unwanted flood of sensation that struck him without warning. His whole body arched against the pull of her telekinesis.

The gold screen flashed beside them. Claire felt the lost protection point register, sharp and unmistakable, but kept her attention on Van.

MASTER PROTECTION: HIT REGISTERED

Protection Award Remaining: 2/3 VP

Claire fired a concentrated telekinetic blow straight down. The creature's grip broke. It crashed onto the pier below, rolled across the scorched planks, and struggled to its feet.

She didn’t stay to finish it.

“Van! Look at me.”

His face was bright with embarrassment and strained concentration. He swallowed, then forced his eyes toward hers.

“Can you move your foot?”

He tried. “Yes. That's not the problem.”

“Ok, take a breath. We're leaving.”

She took him higher, well beyond the creature's reach, and flew toward the evacuees.

---

The second pier led into a service road bordered by warehouses and high chain-link fences. Beyond that, the street network curved inland toward Cross Dynamics Tower, visible through the smoke in the distance.

Claire landed beside the policewoman as the last civilians cleared the waterfront.

“There's a protected refuge at Cross Dynamics,” she told her. “A little over a mile if we take the east service roads. Keep the group together. We can get them there.”

The policewoman looked past her at the weary line of civilians, then back at Claire. “We'll follow you, Starling.”

The officer looked at Van, who was flexing his ankle with a strained expression. “Is he Empowered?”

“No,” Van answered before Claire could. “I'm just here to help.”

The officer nodded and went back to organizing the group.

They moved through the industrial district in short stretches. Claire flew just above head height whenever she needed to see the next junction, lifting Van with her so they never risked the ten-meter boundary. Crowning Glory spread her awareness into corners and alleys where smoke obscured her ordinary sight.

At one blocked intersection she held a broken truss upright while the civilians passed beneath its fallen supports. At another she jammed a wrecked delivery truck in a narrow alley, blocking an Alter that had begun following them from the waterfront. The creature struck the truck twice, then lost interest when a distant police siren drew it away.

Van moved from one end of the line to the other with Claire keeping pace alongside him. He carried a woman's overloaded bag while she supported her father, then gave the bag back when the street widened. He lifted a boy with an injured knee over a broken curb, took an armful of bottled water from one of the officers, and started handing it to people who were showing their fatigue.

Claire knew Van wanted to help. He didn't have the background for this, or maybe he did if she counted his own rescue. The new outfit Verena had given him caused several strangers to assume he was part of the rescue team. He answered their questions, moved wherever another pair of hands was useful, and quietly refused to accept any credit from the grateful crowd.

“Are you one of the old Empowered men?” a woman asked as he helped her over a fallen signal post.

He blinked. “I’m sorry, no.”

“But you're fighting Alters?”

“Not if I can help it.” He offered his hand to the next person. “I can help in other ways, though.”

The woman laughed, a little too breathlessly, and accepted his help.

Claire caught herself watching him longer than she needed to. She had witnessed his protective anger during the training gauntlet and had seen him react to danger with speed that surprised her. None of that could tell her what to make of the question still sitting unanswered in her phone.

At the next corner he limped briefly, more from distraction than an injury. Claire slowed beside him.

“Is it still bothering you?”

“Yeah. It keeps reminding me it happened in a very strange way.” He looked mortified by his own answer. “I'd rather it didn't.”

“We're almost there.”

He looked toward the tower. “Good. Because I'm beginning to think my ankle has been taken over by a very inappropriate fire alarm.”

Claire hid her smile behind a quick inspection of the next street.

The civilians were slowing as exhaustion replaced panic. She let them take a minute under the cover of a reinforced loading bay. An officer distributed the remaining water. A mother sat on the curb and cried quietly with her daughter in her arms.

Claire knelt beside them. “You've done the hard part,” she said. The little girl looked up, wide-eyed, and asked whether Starling was really going to stay until they were safe. Claire promised she would. Her smile came without effort, and the girl smiled back. Claire stayed another moment, enjoying the relief in the child's face before returning to the road.

Claire stood close to Van while the group rested. Her hair drifted toward him, touched the side of his sleeve, then tucked itself behind her shoulder when she caught it.

He noticed but said nothing.

Eventually the policewoman signaled they were ready to move again.

They approached Cross Dynamics through streets now guarded by security patrols and the occasional flash of automated energy fire. The tower's plaza was receiving evacuees through an open checkpoint. There were stretchers near the main entrance and a growing line of injured people moving toward the interior shelter.

Claire brought their group within sight of the gate and pointed the officers toward a corridor marked with blue emergency lights.

“Take them the rest of the way. That approach is clear and the security detail is expecting new arrivals.”

“Thank you, Starling,” the policewoman said. She lifted her hand briefly in salute before going back to her people. Several civilians echoed her thanks, and the little girl from the loading bay waved with both hands. Claire waved back, pleased to see her safe.

Van watched the refugees move toward the entrance. A boy he'd carried across a section of broken pavement turned and waved at him. Van returned the wave, surprised enough that Claire almost smiled.

The shouting at the gate was beginning to sound more like organization than terror.

She surveyed the surrounding buildings. There were still Alters in the district, but the worst of the attack appeared to be drawing away from this sector. Distant blasts sounded near the eastern roads, where other Empowered responders were engaging the remaining heavy targets.

“I want a look at the whole area,” she said.

Van glanced up at the office block beside them. “From there?”

She lifted them both.

---

The roof was mostly intact. A communications dish leaned across one corner, and a broken window had scattered safety glass among the air-handling units. Claire set them down well away from the edge, then approached the parapet.

From here she could see across the downtown approaches. Smoke still rolled through the roads, but the broad movements of the fight had changed. Police lines were pushing outward again. Emergency vehicles were reaching intersections they couldn't have approached earlier. Several Empowered defenders moved between the remaining pockets of resistance.

Cross Dynamics Tower held its perimeter. Beyond it, the waterfront reflected the fading orange of the last fires.

“Looks like they're getting it under control,” Van said.

“Locally. There's still fighting farther east.”

He stood beside her for a while, watching the movement of distant rescue teams.

“You were incredible today,” he said at last.

Claire glanced at him. His voice held the tentative excitement he'd shown in the air after the two flying Alters went down.

“That's a generous review.”

“I mean it. You saw that whole situation at the pier and got those people out while holding off four monsters and carrying me around like extra luggage.” He paused, scratching the back of his neck. “I knew Starling was a big deal before I met you. I guess I just hadn't understood what that actually meant.”

She could have made a joke of the luggage. She usually would have.

Instead she heard the sincerity in his voice and remembered Van speaking with Verena. The secret. The offer of a loan. She'd spent days waiting for a better moment to ask him what he'd done. After the ease with which she'd handled strangers all afternoon, the prospect of one difficult conversation no longer felt like a reason to wait.

“Van, please. Lay off the compliments.”

His smile faltered. “Sorry.”

She heard her own tone a moment too late.

“I don't mean you can't say I did well. But when you start talking like you know me—”

“I didn't think that was what I was doing.”

Claire folded her arms. Her hair drifted in the wind and reached lightly toward him before she pulled it back.

“You've spent some time with me. We've had one date, a few conversations, some training. You're very kind, and I appreciate that. But there are things about each of us we don't know. I don't think we're close enough to make grand declarations about what kind of people we are.”

Van turned from the parapet to face her.

“Grand declarations? I said you were amazing at your job.”

“I know what you said.”

“Then I don't understand why you're angry.”

The exhausted honesty of the question made it harder to maintain the cool tone she'd chosen.

Claire looked toward the city. After a day when Van had shown real bravery and a good heart with the victims, she was standing on a rooftop using his compliment to start a conversation badly. She could hear that much for herself. But now that she'd begun, she couldn't bear to retreat into another evasive answer.

“I thought we were friends,” Van said. His voice turned it into a question.

She faced him again. “I thought we were becoming friends.”

“Then why does being honest about how I feel about you upset you?”

“It doesn't. Being honest is exactly what I want.”

Van stared at her.

Claire wished she could call the words back before the silence gave them another meaning. She could see him working through the implication. His shoulders rose slightly and his hands opened at his sides, that familiar posture of someone bracing for a judgment he couldn't avoid.

“Oh,” he said.

“Van—”

“Okay. You know.” He took half a step away from her. “Please don't tell the others.”

The urgency in his voice startled her.

Claire's stomach sank. “Why should I promise that before you explain what I'm being asked to keep secret? You've been talking with Verena about a change you think we won't accept. You were prepared to borrow BP from her to get it. If it affects the rest of us, I need to understand what you've done.”

Van rubbed the back of his neck and stopped when he caught himself doing it.

“How much do you know?”

“I heard some of the conversation in the locker room. When you were talking about a burden she could remove.”

“You were listening to me and Verena?”

“Accidentally at first. I was outside the door.”

“At first?”

Claire's cheeks warmed. “I stayed longer than I should have. I'm aware of that.”

He looked at her with sudden, genuine anger. “You eavesdropped on me, and now you accuse me of hiding things?”

“I tried to ask you about it.”

“You told me you were fine. You never said you were spying.”

“I wasn't spying on you!” The denial sounded weak the moment she heard it. “I heard a private conversation. Then I made a bad decision about when to leave. I admit that. But I didn't hear the end, and I've been waiting for you to tell me.”

“It was personal, why would I just decide to tell you?”

Claire drew a breath, then let it out through her nose. The rooftop seemed far smaller than it had when they landed.

“I went to Nixie after I heard you,” she said. “I wanted to know what you'd purchased. She refused to tell me.”

Van stopped pacing.

“Good.”

The single word stung.

He walked toward the communications dish, then turned back so abruptly that Claire felt her hair lift in alarm.

“Are you following me around? Asking people what I've been doing? What else have you been doing?”

“Don't make this into a conspiracy. You're the Master of a Hotel that can permanently alter all of us. We're the contestants. If you make some private arrangement with Verena, I have a reason to worry.”

“And I have a reason to keep something about myself private!”

Claire's mouth opened, then closed. He was right about the privacy; Nixie had already told her as much. She didn't appreciate being confronted with that fact while he refused to say what his bargain involved.

“You're asking me to choose your privacy over the safety of seven other women,” she said. “At least tell me whether the change affects them. That's the part I can't ignore.”

Van stared at her for a long moment. The anger remained in his face, but it began to lose the direction it had a few seconds earlier. He dragged one hand down his cheek.

“This is stupid,” he said quietly.

Claire didn't answer.

“We're fighting about a thing you don't even know. You're afraid I did something bad. I'm afraid you'll find out what I did and hate me for it. And now I'm standing here more upset about you finding out than how you did it.”

He took another breath, visibly steadier.

“I shouldn't have yelled at you. You were wrong to listen, and I'm still mad about that, but I shouldn't be acting like the only person allowed to have a fear is me.”

Claire let her arms fall. “I shouldn't have gone to Nixie. She said much the same thing, incidentally, and I didn't like hearing it from her either.”

Van gave a tired, incredulous little laugh.

“Are you ready to tell me?” she asked. She kept her voice lower this time. “I won't pretend I'm not worried. But I'm asking, Van. Not ordering you.”

He stood by the parapet, looking at the ruined city. A security helicopter crossed the distance above the plaza, its rotors a faint chopping sound beneath the wind.

“I bought Page Turner.”

Claire blinked.

“Page Turner?”

“Yes.”

“My Page Turner? The reading transformation?”

“A copy of it. I needed the effect badly, so I asked Verena to arrange the BP loan.”

She searched his face for the rest of the explanation. “Why would you hide that? Everyone knows I bought it. It's a useful transformation, Van. It’s not something to be ashamed of.”

“I know you think that.”

“You made it sound like—” She stopped. “You were that ashamed of buying something to read faster?”

Van looked down at his hands. His gloves were scarred from the fight at the pier.

“When we met, I could barely read well enough to get by.”

Claire's first impulse was to contradict him. She had seen him read menus, messages, signs, notices. He watched her searching for the objection and shook his head.

“Yeah, I can read simple things. But I make a lot of mistakes, especially when I’m feeling pressured. I could tell you what a street sign says or read the instructions on a box, even though I usually have to read it twice. It's really the longer stuff. The complicated stuff. I get through a page and I've lost what the first paragraph was talking about. Half the time I don't know which words I'm missing until it's too late and I'm already pretending I understood.”

Claire remembered how quickly she'd devoured the first pages in the Archive after purchasing Page Turner. How she'd wanted to go back and compare the next season, and the next, and the next. She'd thought of the effect as acceleration. She'd had an education to accelerate.

“My family died when I was twelve,” Van said. “I was homeless after that. I had about a sixth-grade education, and I never really caught up. There wasn't a school waiting for me when things finally settled down. I learned enough to work, pay rent, fill out forms when I had to. Mostly I got good at looking like I knew what I was doing.”

He rubbed his thumb along the seam of one glove.

“Then I got here. All of you are so smart. You can talk about politics, science, emergency response, magic, worlds I've never even heard of. You all read these books like it's nothing. I sit there and understand maybe half of what somebody says, and the rest of the time I'm hoping no one asks me a question.”

Claire opened her mouth, but he continued.

“And you bought Page Turner. You were already smarter than I knew how to deal with, and then you made yourself better at something I'd been struggling with for a decade. I was happy for you, Claire. I really was. I just kept thinking that sooner or later somebody was going to ask me to do something, and then everyone would see what was wrong with me.”

“Van—”

“I know it's not a good reason to hide it. I know that. But I thought you'd look at me differently. Like I was broken, or stupid, or some sad project everybody would have to take turns helping. I couldn't stand that. Especially not from you.”

The wind tugged at Claire's ponytail. For once Crowning Glory didn’t reach for him. A few loose strands floated beside her face, then settled against her shoulder.

She had spent days trying to discover what he feared she might learn. She'd entertained possibilities that could endanger the group, violate someone's choices, compromise their escape. The answer stood before her in a scratched uniform, embarrassed by the help he had needed to become ordinary.

Van finally met her eyes. “Are you going to tell the others?”

A golden light unfolded between them before Claire could answer.

CHALLENGE COMPLETE

ALTERS DEFEATED: 4

MASTER PROTECTION: 2/3 VP

CHALLENGE AWARD: 6 VP

The letters remained for a breath. Then the roof, the city, and Van's waiting face dissolved into white.