Though I had to admit, I'd wanted more than that. After so many years of getting almost nothing, the surge in cash had enabled most of our superhero families to move out of the Alliance building. They were buying homes, cars, better lives for their kids; the whole American dream, thing.
With them managing that, we'd been able to offer rooms to the needy within the Alliance building. We were finding more people than ever that had powers, thousands of them avoiding the rest of society because they didn't want to hurt anyone. Cassie's class had been almost all older superhero families.
These people were the sorts who had never had so much as a whiff of superhero lineage in their family tree; oddities that had sprung from nothing and been treated like they were the worst among us. I was happy to help them; and so was everyone else.
I expected the alarm to go off at some point today, I expected the clocks to chime again and annoy me. I hadn't expected my phone to ring. I frowned at the unknown number and paused. The last time I'd answered one of those, it'd been bad news on the other end of it. Sure, I sometimes got those robocalls like everyone else does, but they usually used a fake number.
People who blocked their ID only did it for one reason; they didn't want to be responsible or tracked down. I let the call fall off to my voice mail.
Only for it to immediately ring through again. I sighed and sat back down, picking up the phone and answering it. "Noll."
"Surprised you haven't changed your number after all this time."
"Wreckless?" My frown deepened. I'd been able to keep tabs on Lexi, more or less, since Logan and I were friendly. But I hadn't thought she'd call me after so long.
She chuckled. "On my good days. You and Nate and all of them still with Cassie?"
"Of course." How could she ask? I couldn't imagine a life without my Blitzer making it interesting.
"Mmm. I know I've been out of touch. And I wasn't a very good friend very often-"
"You only seethed at us constantly," I said. "I didn't know you counted all of us among your friends."
Lexi paused, then coughed. "Yeah. Well. Things were bad, okay? I wasn't in a good place and I wasn't thinking very clearly. It's been a while. I've changed. I'm sure you've all changed."
"Not particularly. Nate's still a cat-wolf-bear thing. I still shuffle paperwork. Adam still gets nosebleeds. Nishelle almost blew up the kitchen once trying to light the gas stove. Cassie still puts people through walls."
The gas stove thing had been a problem. As soon as we'd finishing paying off the house, collectively, we'd replaced it with an electric number and gotten rid of all the gas fittings. Nishelle was the best Pyro I'd ever seen and had plenty of control, but accidents happened. And that bit with the stove had scared us all into realizing that maybe explosive gas wasn't the best idea in a house with a Blitzer who could accidentally throw herself through the walls and a Pyro who might ignite something by snapping her fingers idly.
"Regardless. I'm getting married and I wanted to know if any of you wanted to come."
I blinked. Several times. "Congratulations?"
"Don't sound so shocked."
"I'm... Well. I'm not exactly shocked. Just. Who's the lucky person?"
"Kharmia."
That threw me. I'd seen that woman's body laying on the floor of my office, then Scribe's. I'd known she was dead, apologized to her parents when I'd been named my mentor's successor. My mouth worked for a few minutes, then I pulled the phone away from my ear and hit the speaker option. "Uh. Congratulations?"
"You already said that."
"You just said that you're marrying a dead person," I told her.
A laugh sounded across the line. "Cassie's trying to do the same thing and all I see on the news is you supporting her. You got a problem with me marrying a dead girl, too?"
"This is way too creepy. What's going on?"
There was a long, sweet pause in which I didn't have to hear Lexi laughing at me. Then Kharmia, the superheroine who'd lost her life trying to help us, sighed through the receiver. "It seems that I wasn't dead enough to be dead. James was doodling one day and I just sort of sprang back into existence. As far as I know, he's the only person with Scribe's powers in the world."
"Scribe could have brought people back from the dead?"
Lexi called from somewhere in the distance behind Kharmia. "It seems like he did. Cassie probably actually did kill Nishelle. He just wrote her heartbeat back and brought her back around. It's the only thing we can figure out over here."
My eyes drifted to the book that lay on my desk. I glanced sideways at the pen sitting in my inkwell. Don't look at me like that. Ballpoints are fine for typical day-to-day use. I want something fancier when I'm writing to the mayor or trying to set certain acts into motion. A man is only as good as his stationary and I wanted to be the best. Nothing wrong with that.
"I'll get back to you about the wedding. Maybe I'll bring it up over dinner tonight if I get a chance. When do you need an answer, Lexi?"
Kharmia answered for her. "Within the next week is fine. Just so long as we know what to tell the caterer to plan for and how much cake to get. We'll talk to you soon, okay?"
She hung up, leaving me alone with a pen, a jar of ink, and a book bound in leather as soft as-
I halted that thought. Only nightmares led that way. I refused
