A book lay open on the floor in front of her, the words on the page just a distraction. To her left, Theo sat with a whiteboard and a pair of dry erase markers, all too eagerly talking to her computer.

  “I’ve been doing some research on the competitors,” he said, leaning closer to her laptop. “At least the ones I can find, and I think we have some potential good pairings.”

  “Oh yeah?” Florence asked from the other end, more attentive than Pip usually saw him. He lay on his own bed, wearing far too little for her tastes, a low cut tank top and a chain necklace that dangled down in front of him. “Tell me about them.”

  Theo started talking and Pip made a face, though no one could see it. This was supposed to be her hangout session with Florence, except he’d walked in wanting to talk strategy, and ended up speaking with Florence instead. If Pip didn’t know her brother better, she’d have thought it was planned.

  No, she thought, he’s just an opportunist.

  As their voices droned on, Pip flipped to the next page in the book, sketching quietly as she did so. The book of armor was filled with more ideas than Pip thought possible, containing illustrations of ancient armor from the past, along with more modern types. From gladiator style armor, to modern military armor, to the armor superheroes often wore today.

  There were so many options for what to do with her glass armor.

  Pip knew one thing, though. She didn’t just want it to work. She wanted to look fucking cool.

  It needed to be functional of course, but she was gradually getting better at that. Joints were still a problem. The main problem, actually.

  Pip leaned over, shoving Theo’s big ass head out of the way to look at Florence. “Did you ever take an anatomy class in school?”

  “No? Why would I? I don’t plan on becoming a doctor. Sounds like a lot of work.”

  Pip sighed and sat back, letting Theo pick up the conversation again. God, why was her brother so annoying?

  Maybe Vivainne had taken an anatomy class? She needed someone who knew what they were talking about when it came to movement.

  Khione knows, Pip thought before dismissing the idea. They hadn’t fought since Pip gave her the snowglobe, and she didn’t want to start a new one now. Not to mention, she had no idea if Khione was going to join the rest of the club today. She’d done good not bringing up the hero thing, or the moving thing, or really anything lately.

  A groan escaped her as she slid back onto her back, stretching out on the hardwood floor. She kicked back the book and her computer with one foot, making Theo cry out and Florence shout at her from the other side of the screen.

  “What gives?”

  “Where’s my phone?” Pip asked, staring up at the ceiling. Pieces of glass hung from the tented ceiling like stars, stringing between the wood pillars left exposed when the house was built. When she turned on the overhead light, light split and scattered between them, lighting up her ceiling.

  “Why would I know?” Theo asked.

  “Well, give me my computer then,” Pip said, reaching out a hand and grabbing for it. “I need to talk to somebody.”

  “Hold on,” her brother grumbled. He shuffled around the room, then crawled over on one arm, handing over her phone. She took it and at a glimpse of her face, it unlocked and opened up to her last messages.

  Pip: u coming today??

  Pip: mum made cake

  Khione: maybe.

  Chest tightening, she exited the messages and put it out of her mind. Khione had already said she wasn’t going to join them in the competition because of her parents, so why would she show up at training?

  Besides, she knew plenty of other people she could talk to, even if Theo was currently hogging Florence. There were his two friends whose names she didn’t quite remember, and Vivainne, of course.

  Finding the girl’s contact, she quickly read over their messages. They hadn’t gotten a chance to talk much, though that didn’t really mean anything. Pip was bad about remembering to text people, and Vivainne had that whole trial thing going on with her mom.

  Maybe I shouldn’t message her.

  Instead, Pip tapped on the call button and brought the phone up to her ear. Her stomach twisted as the ringer vibrated. Vivainne was probably too busy, she really shouldn’t be bothering her.

  The line clicked. Fuck.

  “Hello?”

  She sat up sharply. Vivainne hadn’t hung up?

  “Uh, hi,” Pip said, tucking her knees up to her chest. She sat back against the bed, suddenly unsure what she’d really wanted to talk to Vivainne about. She just wanted to talk to somebody, and, oh right, anatomy. “Are you taking an anatomy class?”

  “Huh?” Vivainne breathed hard into the phone, gasping like she was out of breath. Silence swallowed the line for a moment before she answered. “Uh, I graduated in the spring.”

  “Oh. Really? Well, did you take an anatomy class?”

  “No.” She gasped again, and then a sound like chugging water filled the line. What exactly was Vivainne doing? “I’m not really a science person. Why?”

  “I’m trying to work on my suit of armor.”

  “That doesn’t explain your question the way you think it does.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Exercising,” Vivainne said. “Though it feels more like torture. I didn’t know I had this many muscles in my body.”

  Pip let out a small chuckle. “You’d know if you’d taken anatomy.”

  “All right, Carter. Just because you’re built like Adonis doesn’t mean you can—”

  “Oh my god, you think I’m built like a Greek god?”

  “I’m going.”

  “Wait, say it again so my brother can hear.”

  “Bye.”

  The line went dead, leaving Pip with a smile as she lowered the phone away from her ear, even if she had no answers. Built like Adonis. Damn straight, she was. Even if Adonis was a dude.

  Feet pounded down the hallway toward her open bedroom door, Emelios sliding into the doorway and catching himself against the frame. “They’re here!”

  He darted off before anyone could respond, racing to the next door along the corridor.

  “Okay, I’ll talk to you later,” Theo said, reaching to close the computer.

  “Hold on, don’t hang up on him.” Pip shooed her brother out of the way, crawling into his spot as he took off with his whiteboard and his plans, following their youngest brother down the stairs.

  “You’re smiling like an idiot,” Florence commented.

  “You know my brother’s too young for you, right?” Pip said, grabbing the top of the laptop.

  “It’s not like I’m doing anything,” Florence said. “We’re talking strategy!”

  “Sure.” She rolled her eyes and shut the laptop, grabbed her notebook, and followed her brother downstairs.

  The Losers waited in the kitchen like a pack of lost puppies, the Carter kids staring at them from the dining room. Khione stood apart from them, sticking out like a sore thumb, but the sight of her made Pip light up.

  “Khione! I didn’t think you were coming.” She rushed over, throwing her arms around her girlfriend’s neck.

  Khione embraced her, somehow cold as she squeezed Pip back. The fluttering in her stomach evaporated. “Your mom made cake.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “It’s carrot cake,” Pip said, leaning back. It was an effort to keep the smile on her face as her stomach turned, the desire to fix everything rearing its head. What could she do to make everything okay again? “The best, right?”

  “It’s good,” she said noncommittally.

  I just have to do something to get Khione’s mind off of New York and to assure her that I’m not going to abandon her. What could that be? A date? It was hard to plan a date when it was freezing and icy outside half the time, and whenever it wasn’t, they had school, or Khione had work and Pip had training. Plus, working as much as possible on the losers before the competition. January was flying by; March would be here before she knew it. Then prom and then graduation.

  Fuck.

  Why did time insist on being so fast? Couldn’t she have a power like Uncle Orion’s and slow it down, even just a little bit?

  “When can we have cake?” Lilly asked, face half hidden in the hood of her black jacket.

  “After training,” Pip said. “Which I think Theo has a plan for.”

  “I do indeed,” he said, stepping forward. He held up the whiteboard, reading off pairs and tasks in rapid fire speech. When he finished, he lowered the whiteboard and clapped his hands together. “Now, get outside.”

  “Outside?” August demanded. They threw a hand toward the windows surrounding the back door. “It’s like, zero degrees outside right now.”

  “Trust me,” Theo said. “It’s fine.”

  He opened the back door, heat puffing out in a cloud as he stepped into the cold. Despite it, he stepped onto dry ground, no snow finding a home in their training arena. Pip followed him out, the air crisp and dry around them, but not as could as it should have been.

  “Protective field,” Pip said, pointing upward as the teens followed them outside. Above, snow drifted down from a grey sky, lighting up against the usually invisible force field around the house. The tech wasn’t so far off from what the Unity Tower had surrounding it, constructed by super tech and genius. Like so much of what supers could do, it defied the laws of physics. At least, Pip thought it was physics. She’d started taking the class this semester, but still didn’t understand particularly well. It seemed to be more math than science, so far. That, and rolling balls down slopes. “Keeps out a lot of the cold.”

  “Plus, you won’t be standing still long enough to feel the temperature,” Theo said. “No time to waste, people, get out there!”

  At his order, everyone split up and took off into the arena. Emelios and Dyiona joined.

  “You sure that’s a good idea?” Khione asked, nodding at the younger two.

  “They could kick any of their asses,” Pip said, shaking her head. “They’ll be fine.”

  Khione didn’t respond, watching as everyone began their exercises. “Why aren’t you paired up?”

  “I’m going to be working on my armor,” Pip said, holding up the sketchbook in her hands. The tie dye cover was scuffed, ripped at the corner, and covered in creases. Her name had been written across the front in black permanent marker, in the huge blocky letters a six year old could write. She’d been using the sketchbook since she was small, so long the early pages were falling out and clipped in with paperclips. Every page held an illustration, some in crayon, from her earlier years, up to now, a careful sketch done in the fancy colored pencils she’d gotten for Christmas.

  Khione held out a hand. “Can I see?”

  “Uh…” She stared at the girl. Was this… a compromise? She handed over the sketchpad, cheeks growing warm as Khione opened up to the first page, a childish sketch of a tall, muscular hero with a bright pink, purple, and orange costume. “Ha, sorry, ignore that.”

  “Didn’t know you could draw,” Khione said, dry as the air nipping at Pip’s skin. Why couldn’t Khione accept that this was a child’s drawing, and was pretty damn good, for a six year old?

  “I can, actually,” Pip muttered. She flipped quickly through the book, stopping a little over halfway in on a set of two pages. One held the sketch of a basic suit of armor, while the one on the right had been filled out in her signature colors. Pink, orange, a splash of purple. Very lesbian of her, if she did say so herself. Younger her had picked good colors to love.

  Khione nodded. “You can. Is this the design you’re thinking?”

  “It’s just an idea,” Pip said, shifting from foot to foot. “I’m still having trouble with my joints, primarily. I think I have the majority of the composition down. But I need mobility. That’s, like, my biggest strength.”

  “What about speed?”

  “I don’t think speed will be a problem,” Pip said, shaking her head. “None of the weight of the armor is actually on me. I can move it around with my glass-kinesis.”

  “Why can’t you do the same with your joints?”

  “Actively shifting glass takes more focus than just lifting it around me,” Pip said. “Because it’s less shifting glass, which makes it fragile, and more… constantly summoning and unsummoning glass to be in the exact position I want it to be.”

  Khione nodded, biting against her lip as she returned her attention to the page. “Can you show me how you’re currently doing your joints?”

  “Yes.” Pip took a step back, exerting her will and summoning her armor. The glass built up around her, from boots on her feet to a statue-like construction of orange glass. The weight of it pressed down around her before she picked the construction up with her mind, minimal pressure against her core compared to the summoning and construction of her glass.

  Khione walked over, tapping the glass in front of Pip’s eyes. She flinched, the noise echoing around her.

  “Ow,” Pip said, banishing the helmet back to the realm of glass or wherever it came from. “Now I know how fish feel.”

  Khione chuckled. “You’re going to need to fix that too.”

  “I will,” Pip promised.

  As the group around them trained, Pip and Khione worked together on her suit of armor. She wasn’t certain she would end up using it in the competition—it could very well be overkill—she wanted to have it ready and usable by the end of the school year. Months away, but time kept moving too fast for her to keep up, and she needed to get ahead.

  “What you need are ball joints, I think,” Khione said.

  “What?”

  “Like dolls have,” she said. “Wait, get out of that, let me show you something.”

  With a huff, Pip banished the armor back into nothing and followed Khione back to the porch. She sat down on the cold wood, back aching as Khione remained cold and unbothered. With deft ability, Khione summoned a creature of snow and ice more delicate than anything she’d seen from her so far. It stood like a tiny woman, hands on its hips, feet pressed up onto their toes. Crystalline hair fell down its back, and when Pip brushed against it, it moved beneath her finger.

  “Woah.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been practicing,” she said brusquely. “But that doesn’t matter. Look here.” She pointed to the arms, where instead of a solid melding, the arm was instead wedged inside the chest piece.

  Khione grabbed the arm, twisting it gently around and demonstrating its movement. “It’s two different pieces. You need to make your armor out of multiple pieces of glass, not just one. Layer the glass so it fits together perfectly, so it can move without falling apart. You’ll need it to be very smooth, and a very tight fit. I don’t know if you can do it.”

  Pip scoffed and stood back up, planting her feet against the ground. Summoning was just easier that way. “I can do it.”

  Rather than summon her entire suit of armor as a whole, she summoned it piece by piece. This time, she started at the chest, summoning her breastplate. It sat over her shoulders and down her chest and back in one piece, thicker across the front and thinner along the sides where they connected to each other to form a tight shirt. With a twinge of annoyance, she realized she still wouldn’t have the mobility she wanted when it came to twisting or moving from side to side, but one problem at a time.

  Being able to functionally move her arms and legs and not waddle like a block figure was more important than being able to twist or jump or do a flip, at the moment. She’d get there eventually.

  From the chestplate, she summoned her right arm. Plates of glass interlocked beneath the solid formation of the breastplate, shifting against each other as she built the rest of the arm.

  The elbow brought her pause. It shouldn’t have, considering the shoulder was technically the more complicated of the two, but it did.

  “Do you need help?”

  “I’m thinking,” Pip murmured, keeping her focus on the arm. It needed to be able to bend inward without obstruction, while not leaving her elbow exposed. But, she needed to be able to straighten her arm and not have a piece of glass in the way preventing her from doing that. What could she do to stop that?

  She formed the glass around her forearm first, continuing to leave the elbow exposed. Then she went back, summoning a small disk of glass beneath and between both pieces, over her elbow joint.

  When she bent her arm, it got stuck.

  Pip growled and banished the little piece, straightening her arm out again. Khione stepped around to the side, brushing a finger along the gap between the two pieces of armor.

  “You could just leave it like this.”

  “That would mean leaving my elbow exposed,” Pip said, the words coming out harsher than she intended. “Anyone who knows how to fight would know those to be weak points, and leaving them to be exposed would be like circling them in red and pointing giant arrows at them.”

  “Right,” Khione said. She hummed quietly to herself before meeting Pip’s eyes again. “Could you try making the glass really thin?”

  Pip sighed, only barely holding herself back from snapping. “Making glass thin doesn’t make it flexible, it makes it brittle. I need to…”

  “Make the pieces bigger,” Khione blurted out.

  “What?”

  She flicked the glass around Pip’s bicep. “Make the pieces bigger. Give yourself more room between the armor and your skin, then you can fit this piece beneath that piece, and make joint pieces, without exposing it.”

  Pip stared down at her arm for a moment before smiling. That might work. “And it makes me look super buff.”

  “Shut up. Just try it out.”

  Pip banished the pieces of armor and resummoned them, enlarging them with focus. It was harder than just crafting pieces that fit perfectly to her skin, until she imagined herself a few inches taller and a bit broader, more like her mother. With Athena in mind, she summoned the pieces. By summoning them larger, she already had given herself more room to maneuver, and then she added the joint pieces. Multiple pieces of glass, shaped like crescents, slotting together around her elbow. They bent inward slightly at the tips on either side, each one the tiniest bit smaller, so when she straightened out her arm, they all pressed together like a shan.

  She smiled at the thought. Mum would be glad I’m putting my culture to use.

  She bent her arm inward, and the pieces fanned outward, protecting the gap around her elbow. It bulged outward slightly, like one of those old fashioned shirts with puff sleeves, but at least her elbow wasn’t exposed.

  “I’m a genius,” Khione said, lips set into a smug grin.

  Pip tipped up on her toes, moving to kiss Khione when the weight of the glass caught her by the shoulder and dragged her forward, gravity suddenly off center.

  She caught the glass in her mind, righting herself even as her face began to burn.

  “Careful.” Her brother clucked his tongue as he walked over, not so much as offering a hand. “It looks better, though.”

  “Thanks,” Pip said, straightening up once more. With the armor firmly in her grasp, she could move with minimal effort, no longer at risk of gravity taking hold anymore than any other human. “I’m hoping to get it all shored up in time for the competition.”

  “Sounds like overkill.”

  “I’m going to stomp those kids,” Pip said, pounding her fists together. “Or adults.”

  “Might not need you to,” Theo said, glancing back at the group of training supers. “They’re doing pretty good.”

  “Really?” Pip tried and failed not to sound surprised.

  Theo shrugged. “Guess I’m a better teacher than you.”

  “Hey! If I hadn’t instilled the basics in them, they’d still suck now,” Pip said, stomping her foot. “Be grateful. And leave me alone, I need to work on my knees now.”

  “Work on them after cake,” Theo said, peering past her through the kitchen window. “I think Mum’s about ready to serve it.”