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"Not in the technical sense, although she is creating a ical phenomenon" Catcher put his elbows on the table, linked his hands as he leaned forward "That’s the thing I don’t get, don’t understand Why snow? Chicagoans have seen snow before We’ve lived through blizzards"

"And yet" Ethan said

"And yet," Catcher growled

My grandfather’s phone buzzed He pulled it out, looked at the screen, frowned

"What’s wrong?" I asked

"Message from Jeff It just says, ‘Look at Towerline’"

We all looked to the northeast, but couldn’t see that far in the tangle of skyscrapers

"I guess we’re going for a walk," Catcher said We rose, tossed our trash, and set out on our next journey, dread collecting around us

• • •

We zigzagged east and north toward the river My grandfather was on the phone, having called in the CPD to cordon off the building, just in case

The te to stick on slick roads and sidewalks It still had no obvious in--the sky was clear above the snow--but that didn’t seem to matter

"Does Reed still oerline?" I asked I wasn’t entirely sure what happened when you became a supervillain Were your assets forfeit?

"I don’t know if he had a will," randfather said "He died before Sorcha, and she probably would have been the beneficiary of his assets But since she killed hi They didn’t have children, so I’ his parents would be next in line"

"Either way," Ethan said, "Towerline and everything else he oill be tied up in probate for years to co it anytime soon"

I wasn’t sure he wanted to We hadn’t talked about it, but I had the sense he considered Towerline a personal failure, even though he’d given it up for good reasons, and that wasn’t the kind of thing my father wanted to co was cursed, but I wouldn’t want to own real estate with that ed fros at the corner of State and Wabash, the State Street bridge in front of us, the corncob-shaped Marina Towers to our right And to our left, in the prian, was the Towerline building Or what relass panels in the tall lobby had been boarded over It was an ugly solution the city didn’t like, but until the courts resolved the issue of ownership, there were no funds to repair it

And given the sight in front of us, I doubted those funds would be co anytime soon

A colu white and brilliant purple against a sky otherwise as dark as pitch It looked like a cyclonic stor from these clouds, or any others