Stops Cradle from getting accurate reads on her

Cradle's voice was haunting, become it carried, and it came from different places even midway through a word. "I can see you so clearly. You think you're better."


"I don't, but-"


"You do. I see it. All of the weak points. The flaws, the stains. You actually think you're better."

*****

"The boss? The guy who's out there, cutting people to pieces, targeting the tired and the distracted? He's too self centered to give. You learn to work around that. It's all take. Himself."


"I have something of his I'd like to give him. Knock out his teeth and make him swallow them."


"You stupid bitch," Lionwing said. "He can draw it in. Read your weaknesses in chemical code, running through your head and your veins. He earned money blackmailing people by targeting them. He got more ground with people by sensing how far he could push them before they gave. And all of that was before. When he woke up tonight, he was strong. What he's been doing? He's been gathering what he needs."


Reading us? Hanging back and drinking it all in?


"Now," Lionwing said, "He's using it."


Soldiers to keep us busy, maybe to force us into situations where our emotional landscapes were closer to the surface.


I knew mine was.


*****


I closed my eyes. I was aware that Cradle probably wasn't keen on picking a fight with me because Lionwing had called his emotion power a kind of emotion reading or feedback response. If my resistance to emotion powers factored in, I might seem a little fuzzier.


*****


I flew, and as Sveta grabbed for every handhold, I threw caution to the wind. No Wretch, no problematic air resistance. I knew what I was getting into here.


But for the rainfall patter of Sveta's tendrils on the walls of the station, we were silent, as we darted after Cradle.


He stood at the threshold to the portal, and he seemed genuinely surprised to see us. If Cradle wasn't as quick or effective in assessing me and how to target me, it might have had to do with my emotion resistance.

- Heavens 12.8