By the next day, I was hauling a suitcase filled with various ‘permanently borrowed’ supplies onto a ship bound for the Satellite.

The trip itself would only take about two minutes, but once we got there I had no idea how long we would have to stay. All I knew was that we weren’t returning to Earth unless Knell was returning with us.

That wasn’t enough for Blare, however. “So what’s your plan?” she kept asking.

“This rescue was originally your idea,” I finally replied. “Don’t you have a plan?”

“I dunno…how big is this kid?”

“He’s just over three feet tall. Although I don’t see what that has to do with anything…”

Blare winced. “Yeeeah…that’s gonna throw a wrench in the gears…”

“What do you mean??”

“Well, I don’t think I can use the slipping-through-walls thing on a person that big,” she said sheepishly. “I mean, I can do it with my clothes and with small stuff, but with big stuff, things can get dicey…like, literally. One time I tried to “borrow” a pack of golf clubs, and when I went through a wall, the whole thing got sliced into ribbons. It was nuts.”

I stared at her in disbelief. “Why didn’t you tell me your ability had that kind of limitation?!”

“Well, I mean, I thought I could handle a little kid…”

“Knell IS a little kid! If he were any smaller a newborn could look him in the eye!”

“Hey, don’t diss your boy behind his back like that…besides, he’s a shapeshifter, right? It’s all good.”

“Assuming he’s in any condition to shapeshift when we find him,” I grumbled. “This is supposed to be a rescue mission. We should be fully prepared for him to be unable to do anything.”

“Alright, Mr. ‘WE should be prepared’, what’s YOUR role in all this? Or were you expecting me to do everything myself??”

“And what if I am? If I could have physically done anything to help him, I would never have let anyone take him in the first place!”

A tense moment of silence followed.

In the end, Blare was the one to break it. “Look, I…I’m sorry, okay? I know I’m the one with the powers, and I’m the one who told you I could get him back. This whole thing isn’t actually 50/50, so there’s no point in pretending like it is. Let’s just both…do whatever we can.”

She had more maturity than I thought. “Fine,” I replied.

By the time our little spat was over, the ship had pulled in to the Satellite docks. Most of the humans onboard were shuffled off to tourist attractions by angel officials. We went in the opposite direction, trying our best to be inconspicuous.

“So, where’re we meeting your contact?” Blare asked.

“At her house, I suppose. While you were out robbing the town blind, I was doing research, trying to find a way to reach her. Fortunately, I found her address, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything else.”

“Oh. So it’s a ‘she’.”

“…Yes, it’s a ‘she’. What of it?”

“I dunno. Is she hot?”

I knew it. “This may be hard for you to believe, but I have the remarkable ability to be acquainted with someone who identifies as female without worrying about how hot she is.”

“But is she, though?”

“If we’re lucky, you’ll never know,” I answered, pulling Toll’s card from my pocket. “We’re going to check the target address first, just to see what’s going on there. We may be able to find Knell without her help.”