Cold air burned Third’s lungs as she perched on the roof of the local StretSec building—StretSec being the public security agency, and which was responsible for both resolving crimes and for answering any problem featuring freaks. It was the last thing she could think of to try to find Second—and it would work, it had to work, because Third would end up in a cage nearby Second as the woman and her baby died—

Third focused on taking slow, deep breaths.

The lungs had always been a weak point of hers—of Third’s, not of any of the other versions of her that she was aware of—but that was likely from all the spores she’d breathed while destroying Infested. Or so she guessed. Nev would have been the one to know, but Third had always found it healthier to avoid her older sister. The ‘god’ mods found in some universes reached a point wherein the mods themselves produced the hellverse, because the modifications themselves triggered instincts that made people think of others as threats.

That ‘kill’ instinct was strongest among biological relatives. Opposite gender was okay; same gender was really bad. Third had some theories as to why, but Nameless were discouraged from being inquisitive. Ultimately, Third had always sought medical treatment from amateurs before she got it from her sister.

She flinched and hoped nobody had seen it. Someone from this somewhen might comment on it; someone from another might helpfully mention it to someone from her universe; and someone from her universe would have to punish her for the breach in composure.

Mistakes could get you Infested. Nobody wanted to face an Infested Nameless.

Third had tracked Second’s bio-identity all over town, but she had yet to find the woman herself. Jumpers could hop into another somewhere or somewhen and leave you wondering where in reality they’d gone. As a navigator-class jumper, Second could easily Jump through time and space, but she couldn’t hide her bio-identity all that well. Merger-class jumpers had the opposite balance—able to Jump, but far better at hiding bio-identities, which was necessary if you wanted to blend in to some universe or somewhen other than your own. Third—all versions of her—was a merger, though some versions of her were more practiced with it than others.

Being a merger was handy for hanging out on top of a local security building without the scanners picking you up. Third surreptitiously stretched her shoulders.

The StretSec operative currently leaving the building wasn’t from this universe.

Third hopped back, reflexively hiding the curiosity that Nameless weren’t allowed to display. She checked her surroundings again and dropped to her stomach to elbow-crawl to the edge to peek over. She hadn’t noticed any mods in the man, not in the glimpse she’d gotten—but hiding mods was standard, in some universes. Even Janni could do that.

A taxi stopped, the driver calling out a promise to get the operative to his destination fast, for cheap. The operative shook his head and turned away from the street, rubbing his eyes as if he had a headache, the motion letting her see more than the back of his head and recognizing—

TamLin.

Third shoved herself back from the edge, her entire body cold. A TamLin. This universe’s StretSec had a TamLin working for them.

Curses ran through her mind. Most sensates wouldn’t be able to pick out a single should-be-there bio-identity from a crowd, but most sensates weren’t him. Third knew all too well how keen his abilities actually were—though he’d hidden that, in her universe, because otherwise he would’ve been bound to Nev, who would’ve then made sure to kill Third before—

The quick double-blink didn’t suffice to keep the tear ducts clear. She quickly shook her head, trying again, and scurried away from the fire escape, where she heard someone climbing up—

“Third, right?”

She froze, feeling like a taut bowstring, as the soles of his boots hit the roof. He’d swung himself up the last few steps, by the sound of it.

She needed to move, to get away from him—

She needed his help to find Second.

Third took a deep breath. She wasn’t supposed to engage in niceties—and asking for help defeated the point of Nameless—but…TamLin was a very good ally to have. Or at least her universe’s version of him had been.

She didn’t let herself flinch. “You’re looking for…”

Second had a name, in Janni’s native universe–which was the same as his, she saw, now that she was looking for it—but she couldn’t remember. It had been a word, an odd one to use as a name.

“Dasher?” he supplied, with the same polite frankness that her TamLin had—

No, Third told herself. She would get his help to try to save Second, and then she would be a good little Nameless and return to the shadows to protect the Named until she earned the right to claim a name of her own.

He studied her, forehead still creased with the headache that would linger as long as she was hiding herself from the scanners, and she realized this TamLin was observant, too. More so than Janni. Maybe as much as her TamLin had been.

Not that her universe’s TamLin ever had been hers. But he could have been. Maybe.

“I’m actually looking for Janni,” he said.

Of course he was. Third knew her façade was good enough that her flash of envy didn’t show, not even to someone who was watching for hints to what she was thinking. “I don’t hear her.” Not that she necessarily would, not without opening herself to resonance, but she knew better than to admit her handicaps.

TamLin looked away, studying their surroundings with a relaxed thoroughness. “Any ideas where she’d be? I’d like to find her before your Nev does.”

“I’ll be caged.” Third forced herself to watch his reaction as she realized she’d spoken as if he were her TamLin, who knew about her Jumping and could follow when she—

“Inside thick mesh or thin?”

The question was her TamLin, but the tone was…brighter, though only a little.

“Thick or thin, Third?”

“Gaps three fingers wide.” She indicated three of her fingers, to be clear.

He leaned back against the pillar that supported the building above the roof they were on, pulled a console from his uniform jacket, and started typing, still keeping an eye on their surroundings. “You see Janni, holler, would you?”

Third stared at him. He kept tapping his console as if he’d just asked her to do something normal. She glanced around, but she didn’t see or sense anyone else, and she sidled back against the pillar to stand beside him and peek at his console. He was running a…cybsearch, they called it, in this somewhen.

She needed to treat him as a Named ally who was aiding her to get a specific job done. Not as if he were the man she’d loved enough that she’d misbehaved on purpose just so he’d be allowed to touch her, even if that touch would have to leave bruises behind.

He’d loved her, too.

“Holler?” she murmured anyway, then looked away. She’d driven her TamLin to suicide—she was honest enough with herself to admit that much. She wouldn’t sabotage Janni’s life, too.

“Well, you know how I get, when focused on solving a problem.”

So battle-ready that a dropped pin could get the dropper shot—unlike most Named, who tended to let their interests and focus distract them to the point that many a Nameless had died because they couldn’t get the Named’s attention in time to save both. Regardless of his home universe, TamLin was evidently fond of irony.

Third clenched her jaw to prevent a smile. “My job.”

She heard him pause; felt him study her. The few seconds it took him to follow her meaning was a chilling reminder that, as much as he reminded her of her TamLin, he wasn’t—he was Janni’s, and she needed to remember that.

“Ah,” he said quietly. “Hellverse.”

Well, they didn’t make Nameless in utopias.

“Nameless,” she reminded him, her tone something that her TamLin would’ve had to strike her for—backhand, his right hand to her right cheek, which would sometimes even crack the bone.

This TamLin didn’t even lift his hand to hit her, but the sharpness that entered his gaze said he knew the laws. He wordlessly showed her his console—which featured a surveillance image of the room she remembered seeing for those brief moments, hours earlier.

Her breath caught. This is happening. She would watch Second die. “How did you know?”

He tapped something on the settings, adjusting the camera or maybe moving to another one, and showed Third.

A cage was hanging from the ceiling by a chain. Inside it, keeping her balance by crouching as she glared at her captor who napped out of reach, was Janni.

“Any particular reason your Nev would go for Janni?” he asked, his tone too casual to be anything but feigned.

Any reason other than the natural Nev’s-mods-threatened-by-sister’s-mods, Third assumed he meant, but she found herself unable to look away from the security feed. “Second,” she murmured.

“Hmm?”

She tore her gaze away and checked their surroundings once again. “Pregnant.” Was pregnant, when she died, and First might not have even known, before Nev called Second a Breach.

Silence answered her.

His lack of answer meant that he understood—or, possibly, that he didn’t. Third didn’t want to know which it was, but she needed to.

She held her breath and looked at him.

As if that were the signal he were waiting for, TamLin frowned. “What were they thinking?”

He understood, then.

And Second being a Breach was something else that Third could be blamed for. “Nameless at thirty?”

That tilt to his chin was all her TamLin. “Twenty-six?”

Not quite. First and Second had waited so long for Naming. Why couldn’t they have waited just a while longer before they consummated, so they could do so legally?

Third found that easy to answer: Probably thought themselves safely hidden, in this universe. They’d wanted children. Second was older than First. With all that Nameless went through while destroying the Infested…

She blinked quickly, twice.

If Second hadn’t conceived soon, she would’ve lost all ability to have children.

First and Second had waited to officially join the Named so they wouldn’t abandon Third again. They should’ve been selfish.

TamLin sighed heavily, evidently knowing Janni well enough to realize that she might’ve put herself in that position—gotten herself captured by Nev—to interfere with Nev’s ability to find Third.

Janni had probably masqueraded her bio-identity as Third’s. Mergers could do that, if they wanted, and Nev was particularly susceptible to that kind of deception.

TamLin studied his console once more. “Your Nev looks scarier than mine did.”

Did? “Dead?”

He shrugged. “Still in our home universe, so… Same effect. Not as though we’ll see her again.”

Third needed to back away from the man, to keep her distance—for her own sake as well as his.

But she missed him. “Your Nev isn’t scary?”

“Scattered, more like. She’s a medic, grade green, so she can get a little scary when you do something stupid and she decides she has to to keep you from getting yourself even more screwed up—but if handed a Nameless and told to apply the laws, she’d squeal and pass out.” He gave her a stern stare. “I will keep you in line, if I have to. Please don’t make me.”

The polite tone was one person asking another, and cooler than what her TamLin would have used—but the attitude, the willingness, the adherence to duty…

It was her TamLin, all over again.

No, Third ordered herself. She wouldn’t steal her own fiancé.

Even if she succeeded, she’d just be the death of him, anyway.