The girl in the mirror wears my cape

The raygun bolt hits you mid-leap, and it doesn't hurt. That's the first wrong thing. Vespera doesn't get hit — you've dodged lasers, missiles, a falling satellite — but this one catches you square in the chest like a warm hand pressed flat against your sternum, and you land on the Halloran Tech catwalk with all the grace of laundry falling off a chair. Dr. Kestrel stares at her smoking weapon, then at you, and does something no villain has ever done in your presence: she looks confused.

"That's... not supposed to happen," she says, backing toward the service door. You lunge. She slams it behind her, and by the time you wrench it open there's nothing but an empty stairwell and the smell of ozone and, weirdly, burnt sugar. You feel fine. Better than fine, actually — you feel hungry. Famished. When did you last eat?

You fly home over the glittering city, and your whole body hums like a struck bell that hasn't stopped ringing yet. In the window glass of your apartment, your reflection looks exactly like it always does. Exactly. Probably. You tell yourself that all night, right up until you fall asleep at nine-thirty, drooling on your couch cushion, still half in costume — and dreaming, for the first time in years, of nothing at all.