Chapter 2 ~ Hidden Depths


By the time Dick made it back down to the main floor, Koriand'r was already rummaging in the kitchen, humming a strange, off-kilter melody in a soft voice.

He frowned, sniffing the air cautiously as he approached. Just a few weeks of experience living with the alien, and he had learned to be extremely wary of anything she was cooking.

She turned towards him, still only wearing that bright pink sports bra and leggings, and dumped the random assortment of food she had gathered onto the island counter. Her face lit up with a beatific smile as she saw him coming towards her.

"Hey Star." He grinned back, and the rest of the room seemed to fade slightly out of focus around her, his brain momentarily short circuiting. Struck dumb—again—by the sight of her. He mentally shook himself back to reality before she realized he was just standing there gaping at her, and slid into one of the stools on the opposite side of the counter.

"Greetings! You missed the end of our training time, Garfield and Raven both preformed exceptionally."

"Well, I knew you could handle it, and I'm sure they did great."

She beamed again, brilliant eyes dancing with emerald light, and grabbed one of the jars she had brought out from the fridge. He glanced down at it suspiciously as she twisted the lid open, recognizing the little bottle of whole-grain mustard.

"What did Victor wish to see you for?" she asked, reaching for a spoon.

"Huh?" Dick said absently. He watched in horrified fascination as she scooped out a huge glob of the thick yellowish-gray goop like it was peanut butter—and stuck it straight into her mouth.

He tried very hard not to gag."Oh…yeah…uh—Bruce stopped by."

"Bruce?" She immediately stiffened.

"He already left," Dick said quickly, and she relaxed again. "And he's not as bad as he seems, he's just…" He let out a heavy sigh, shaking his head with a small smile that felt more like a pained grimace. "We have a…complicated relationship."

She hummed, catlike eyes narrowing slightly as she watched him, her distaste for the man clear.

"But, he had good news." Dick smiled at her, leaning in towards her across the countertop with a little flourish of a bow. "Congratulations, your highness, your request to remain on this planet has been approved. You are now, officially, a legal resident of Earth."

"Oh!" Kori gasped, her whole face lighting up. The soft glow of her eyes and hair flared brightly into brilliant, flaming color. "Really?"

Dick nodded.

"So that means that I may leave the Tower now!"

"Well, yeah, but—"

"We could go to the restaurants, or the bowling, or—" she gasped again, putting a hand over her mouth, her eyes going wide and her feet lifting up off the ground in pure excitement— "the mall of shopping!"

"Uh…I don't know if that's a good idea…"

"What? Why not?"

Dick winced, sincerely regretting having introduced her to the TV and its lessons on pop culture. "You're going to draw a lot of attention—"

"Why, I do not look so different from you."

"Star, your hair glows."

"Oh." Her face fell, her flickering hair dimming, and her feet dropped back into contact with the floor. But then she perked back up almost instantly, "Then I could wear a disguise!"

Dick met her excited, hope-filled eyes, his resolve crumbling. The bright green irises shone with neon color, surrounded by a lighter shade of glowing green instead of white—the color absolutely remarkable and very obviously not human.

Sunglasses, then, dark ones, and a hat big enough that she could tuck up her hair. It might work, if they were careful, and made sure to stay outside in the sunlight.

Kori saw the acquiescence on his face, and she broke into a wild grin, her hair and eyes flaring with color and light and heat. She skipped out to join him on the other side of the island, bouncing up and down with barely containable glee, her long ponytail swinging madly behind her.

Dick sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Alright, but we are going to have to be really careful." He pointed up at her hair seriously, narrowing his eyes. "You light up like a Christmas tree whenever you get excited or—"

"You have luminescent vegetation on this planet?" she asked in surprise.

"What? No—"

"Raven!" Kori called excitedly, bounding past Dick as the other girl exited the stairwell.

Raven froze in her tracks, back in her normal outfit of an ill-fitting black jeans and oversized hoodie, a large book open in her hands as if she had been reading as she walked down the stairs.

"We are journeying to the mall of shopping!" Kori flung her arms out gleefully. "You must accompany us! And we may engage in the female bonding rituals of the painting of the fingernails and the application of earthly hair ornaments!"

A look of absolute horror crossed Raven's face.

She stepped back, trying to distance herself from the alien, clutching the book to her chest like a piece of armor. Shadows stretched out under her black boots, her skin prickling all over with energy as Kori's excitement charged the air like a pulsing electrical current, saturating the entire room in an overwhelming flood.

"You guys are going to the mall?"

Garfield emerged from the stairwell just behind Raven, green hair wet and tousled from his shower, an odd tone sharpening his voice. He had changed out of his skin-tight suit into casual clothes, his hands stuffed casually in the pockets of a pair of loose, washed out jeans, the green cartoon dinosaur on the front of his faded gray t-shirt matching the shade of his skin exactly.

He looked between the two girls, his brows pinching slightly together, looking almost…pained.

A tiny flicker of cold brushed against Raven's skin.

She might not have noticed it if he hadn't been standing so close—if she hadn't first caught the odd note to his voice or the strange look on his face—Kori's glowing, thrumming excitement covering up everything else.

"No," Dick said firmly.

All heads turned to him as he marched over.

Koriand'r's face fell. "But—"

"No, we are not going to the mall. Not for your first time interacting with civilians, that's just too much of a risk." He shook his head, trying to explain truthfully without completely crushing her. "Humans don't react well to…different," he said gently. "I know you wouldn't mean to, but you would scare people, Star."

"Oh." She bit her lip. "But…we can still go out?" she asked hopefully, looking pleadingly back at him.

He nodded reluctantly. "We can go out, maybe walk around downtown, but we are going to start small. You need to practice blending in and staying inconspicuous in everyday society first."

She nodded, her smile brightening again, glee radiating out of her every pore.

Another, deeper wave of cold brushed against Raven.

She twisted to the side as the dischordant energy hit her, and her eyes narrowed on Gar, her focus zeroing in on him. His shoulders slumped slightly, the corners of his mouth turning down, and cold bit into her skin, turning frigid and knife-sharp. His despair washing over her.

Green-flecked eyes flicked to hers, and he straightened up instantly, his usual cheerful smile fixing back into place, trying to hide the emotions underneath. But no laughter or joy danced in his eyes, the color completely flat. Empty.

"Okay," he said lightly, his voice back to normal, and he started walking again on his original path, winding around them towards the kitchen. "Well, have fun."

Raven frowned after him.

Dick and Kori didn't seem to have noticed anything strange, they just kept talking, oblivious. She ignored them, following Gar, trailing in the wake of the cold dripping off of him.

He made it all the way into the kitchen before he drifted to a stop, not really sure where he was going. He gripped the counter, staring blankly at the cabinet door in front of him.

He should have seen this coming.

It didn't make sense for the others to stay cooped up in here all the time, they had nothing keeping them inside. Raven and Dick both looked perfectly normal, and Vic could easily cover enough of his cybernetic modifications that the prosthetic on his face became relatively dismissable. Kori would be able to blend in well enough once she got the hang of it, all she had to do was cover her hair and wear a pair of dark glasses. But him…well…

His fingers flexed on the countertop, green skin standing out vibrantly against the black granite.

He would just have to get used to being left behind. Again.

He sighed, shaking himself mentally, refusing to wallow. Kori was so excited to finally get out of the Tower, he didn't want to ruin this for her, and he didn't hold it against the others. He would want to get out and go to the mall too if he could. But he couldn't.

He had just forgotten, for a while, that there were certain worlds that he would never be able to be a part of again.

He reached up listlessly, opening the cupboard he had been staring at, and pulled down a glass. He turned back towards the sink, not really paying attention, and jerked to an abrupt halt, finding himself suddenly face to face with a pair of very pissed off violet eyes.

Gar froze instinctively, Raven's glare pinning him in place like a cornered animal.

The smell of her filled his senses—the lavender in her soap, the old leather and paper of the book in her hands, the herbs from whatever tea she had made lingering on her breath—his heightened senses unable to focus on anything else with her standing so close to him. Just normal, harmless, human smells, but his brain latched on to them, his instincts tingling at the back of his mind that there was something hidden beneath that unassuming exterior that was not quite as human as it appeared.

She looked down, her gaze trailing over him from his beat-up sneakers to the neck of his faded t-shirt, then across his arms and neck, scrutinizing every inch of exposed green skin.

"Uh…"

She made it back up to his face, studying him intently, her eyes flitting all over him, and he had to fight not to fidget or step back.

Then her eyes finally met his again. She stared at him for another moment, leaning in even closer, the two of them practically nose to nose, a small frown on her face.

"That should work," she muttered.

He blinked, leaning back from her, trying to remind himself that he had not actually done anything this time to piss her off. "Sorry?" he asked nervously.

"Raven?"

The other two finally noticed her absence, and Dick stopped dead at the opposite end of the kitchen, Kori behind him, their eyes wide as they took in her and Gar standing so close together.

"Is everything okay…?" Dick's voice trailed off uncertainly.

Heat rose to Raven's cheeks. She stepped back quickly, pressing her book tighter against her chest, the shadows in the kitchen stretching out around her. "Sorry, I just—" She looked back at Garfield, his mouth hanging slightly open as he stared at her. The coffee cannister slid away from her across the counter. "I just thought, if you wanted—I mean, it wouldn't be that difficult of a glamour to make…" She bit her lip, looking down.

"What's a glamour?"

"You can do that?" Dick glanced at Raven in surprise as he walked over, completely ignoring Gar's question.

"Do what?"

She nodded, reaching up with one hand to fidget with something at her neck. A thin gold chain glinted under the collar of her black hoodie.

Dick's eyes brightened, and to Garfield's horror, he moved in just as close to him as Raven had, staring intently at his face.

"Wha—" Gar jerked back away from him, scowling.

Kori peered over Dick's shoulder with a puzzled expression, obviously just as confused by what they were talking about as Gar.

"I've only tried it a few times, for…simple things. But it should work." Raven's attention turned back to Garfield. "I wouldn't be able to maintain it myself though, it would have to come from him—"

Gar looked back and forth between the two of them in frustration. "What the hell are you talking about?" he demanded.

Finally, someone answered him. "It's an illusion," Raven said softly. She held his gaze, her expression unreadable once more. "I can make a spell that changes what you look like. Skin tone isn't that difficult to change, color is just what your brain perceives anyway. The glamour would have to be powered by you, though. It'll take some energy to keep it going, but it should be a relatively insignificant amount."

Her words hit him slowly, settling one by one on his brain like bits of gently falling confetti, and his mouth dropped completely open as he stared at her, dumbfounded, trying to comprehend what she was telling him.

"You—" his voice broke, and he cleared his throat hastily, trying to swallow past the lump suddenly in his throat. "You can make me look normal again?"

All eyes turned to Raven.

She nodded slowly.

Garfield felt the air leave his chest in a rush. To be able to go out in public again…after all these years…he couldn't even imagine.

A brilliant glow of energy built underneath his skin, his aura lighting up with sparkling effervescence. The unexpected, quiet sadness that had overwhelmed him a moment before faded into the background, sinking within his chest.

"The spell needs to be tied to something," Raven said evenly, frowning softly at him. She released the necklace she had been fiddling with, slipping it smoothly back under her shirt. "Something that has some sort of emotional connection to you, or a strong memory attached to it. Jewelry would work, or anything small, something that you can keep on you."

Gar blinked at her mutely, his brain not working. He looked down at himself, trying to think of something he could use, then lit up with sudden excitement. He jammed a hand in his jeans pocket, tongue poking out between his teeth as he fished around, then straightened up again, holding his hand out to her.

A small coin sat on his palm, the copper rubbed to a bright sheen from countless touches.

"Lucky penny," he murmured.

Raven stared at him in mild surprise. She looked down at the coin, then back up, her eyes narrowing slightly. Carefully, she reached out and took the small bit of metal from him, setting her heavy book aside on the counter.

Immediately a memory hit her, curling up off the trinket, and she was back on that moonlit street from three weeks ago, shards of glass glittering on the pavement, the remnants of the alien ship that had crashed into their lives scattered behind her. Four figures looked back at her, standing beneath a broken street light, her own pale face set beside Kori and Victor and Dick, smiling back at Gar through his memory.

She blinked back to reality, coming back to the modern kitchen.

Gar watched her hesitantly, nervous energy twisting and coiling inside of him, that flicker of cold reemerging from within his chest. She considered him again, looking down to his shoes and then back up—taking in the gangly limbs that had begun to fill in with muscle since he had started training with Dick, his lean frame looking slightly less awkward, already an inch or two taller than he had been just a few weeks before—and it was suddenly like she was looking at a completely different person.

At the real person, hidden beneath the facade of constant jokes and laughter.

She nodded slightly. "Give me your hand."

Gar jumped forward, putting them almost nose to nose again, and grabbed her hands with both of his.

She balked, flinching back, the sudden contact a physical shock—like he had touched her skin with a live wire.

"Sorry!" He yanked his hands back, wincing. "Uh…here…" He offered one hand again to her sheepishly, but didn't move forward, this time letting her come to him.

She took a deep breath, calming herself, the words of her meditation mantra echoing through her head, then stepped back up to him.

She placed the penny in the center of his palm, his green skin contrasting brightly against the copper, and very gently cupped both her hands under his. Wide, hope-filled hazel eyes locked onto hers as she stared down at his hand, her mouth moving silently, her pale hands steady beneath his. Dick and Koriand'r moved in closer to watch.

She closed her eyes, focusing on Garfield—on the warmth from his skin, his quickened breaths, the beat of his heart pounding frantically in his chest—and the sensations from the rest of the room faded away into the background. His pulse thudded softly through her, filling her with a nauseating mix of excitement and trepidation with every beat, and she willed herself to calm, not fighting it, letting herself sink into the emotions.

He glowed brightly in her mind, his energy, his soul, a beacon in the darkness. She pulled gently at it, at the source of energy inside of him, that was Garfield, teasing out a tiny strand of his light. It snaked down his arm, following her summons, a luminous thread visible only to her lighting up the veins under his skin as it made its way down to his hand, to the little coin resting in his palm.

The penny lit up with a tiny, mirroring glow of his aura, connected to him, the newly created talisman ready to take the image she wanted.

But she didn't know what to make him look like.

As soon as she thought it, images immediately bloomed behind her closed eyes, the energy flowing beneath their connected hands creating a direct link to Gar's mind, his memories.

She looked down through his eyes from just seconds before, watching a pair of green hands flex against a dark granite countertop, the color standing out so starkly in his mind. So different, so wrong.

Then she flashed backward, staring into an ornate, antique-looking mirror, feeling small and alone, the face looking back at her familiar, but also not. Dark circles swallowed Gar's dull hazel eyes, his skin sallow and sickly looking, somewhere halfway between the rich olive green she knew and the human color it had been before. The faded, wallpapered walls of the old fashioned, opulent room around him seemed to close in, oppressive and constricting, his chest squeezing beneath the pressure. Everything ached. His ears, his eyes, his teeth and gums, his very bones, every muscle straining and twitching under his skin. His human body shifting into something…else.

And then she faced a little boy—no more than four or five years old—brushing his teeth in a small dirty mirror, propped up on the back of a chipped sink. The memory had faded, blurring with time, but there was life in it, the whole world seeming to hum and buzz with wild energy around him, drenched in the glow of happiness.

Green-flecked golden eyes smiled back at her through the glass, surrounded by messy blond hair and freckled pink cheeks and blue toothpaste smeared across a lopsided smile too big for his youthful face.

She grabbed onto that image, shaping the energy to it, imagining him now as he was then. Tan skin rather than green, nose and cheeks dusted with brown freckles, dark golden-blond hair tousled in his short cut, sticking up at the top, the tips of his slightly pointed ears turning round.

"Wow," Dick muttered

Kori gasped and clapped, and Raven opened her eyes.

Gar's wide hazel eyes flicked back and forth between hers, his cheeks flushed a faint shade of pink with desperate excitement, light brown freckles splattered across tanned, perfectly ordinary, sun-kissed beige skin.

She smiled gently at him, just one corner of her mouth picking up, and removed her hands from his.

He looked down—at the hand still held out in front of him—and his mouth fell open.

He just stared for a moment, fingers twitching slightly, then he brought his other hand up, turning it over and examining it from every angle.

He twisted to the side, facing the reflective surface of the microwave, and gaped at the face staring back at him. His hand flew up to his cheek. "Oh my god…"

"Holy crap—that's like, insanely useful." Dick stared at the reflection over Gar's shoulder in awe. "Do you think you could change other things? Like facial features? You could basically craft new identities for people."

Raven blinked at him. "I…suppose? I'm not very skilled with this—and the bigger the changes the less realistic it would look, especially on a face with so many tiny muscles and small movements, but from a distance it would probably work…"

"Huh. Well, that's still amazing." He shook his head, eyes once more tracing over the shapeshifter, unable to see find any flaw in the spell over him, his appearance rendered perfectly beneath a new color pallet. He grinned, and turned to the alien next to him. "Okay, Star, your turn."

"Oh! Um…" Kori frowned, thinking. "Oh, I have something! Give me several moments!" She took off towards the staircase, her feet leaving the ground in her excitement.

"Put a shirt on!" Dick called after her hurriedly.

Gar laughed brightly, his aura a brilliant, golden glow around him, happiness radiating out of him like a tiny sun. "Yeah, she won't stand out on the street at all…"

He looked down at his hands again, shaking his head as he held up the little copper coin, squinting at it. "I—I can feel it." He turned to Raven in awe. "The spell, I guess—it's warm."

She nodded. "It's tied to your energy. Focus on that warmth, and think of it going out, that will deactivate the spell. Wake it back up whenever you need it."

He closed his eyes, frowning in concentration, his hand clenching around the coin, and the glamour vanished. His hair and skin turned green again, his pointed ears poking through his hair.

He squinted one eye open, peeking down at his hands, then closed it again and re-activated the spell.

The elevator dinged softly behind them, and Vic walked out, his arms full of a jumble of electronics and tangled cords. "Hey Gar! I found my old games—" He spotted the three of them standing huddled in the kitchen, Gar's back to him, and stopped halfway down the stairs, frowning. "…What's going on?"

Garfield spun around to face him, grinning like a fiend.

"Holy shit!" The electronics tumbled out of Vic's massive arms onto the carpet, his face frozen in shock.

"Pretty sexy huh?" Gar waggled his eyebrows, clutching the tiny coin in his hand while Dick laughed softly.

Raven just rolled her eyes behind Gar's back, her hands on her hips, but she couldn't help but smile slightly, one side of her mouth twisting up. She leaned around him to look at Vic, still gaping in shock at the newly-not-green-imbecile. "It's just an illusion spell, I could do one for you too if you want."

"Are you kidding!?" Victor raced forward, the video games forgotten, and practically shoved Garfield out of the way to get to her. Gar elbowed him back playfully, his eyes bright, rosy color high on his cheeks.

She explained the spell to Victor, feeling the same electric rush of excitement course through him as he took in her offer.

"Will this work?" Victor held out his large hand, the metallic prosthetic a brutal contrast to the deep brown skin on his face. On his third finger sat a plain, battered ring, camouflaged against the silver of his second skin. "It was my Grandfather's."

She nodded, taking his heavy hand in hers.

She didn't need to peer inside of him like she had done for Gar, she could see his original skin—pieces of it, at least—the remnants of a body that had been replaced with cybernetics, and she just let the magic shape itself to him.

The spell took form immediately, the metal visible on his hands and face and neck disappearing beneath an illusion of human skin. The red optic sensor on the left side of his face vanished, turning back into a warm brown living eye, his face appearing fully flesh and blood once more.

She released his hand and he looked down in amazement, the silver band of the ring now standing out starkly against his dark skin.

He mimicked Gar's movement, twisting to find something reflective so he could see…

His eyes looked back at him. His face. A face he hadn't seen since he was fifteen.

He unzipped the front of his hoodie, staring at his bare chest—apparently whole and unaltered—beneath, and Gar slapped him on the back, laughing, his hand hitting with a muffled metallic thunk.

"Victor your disguise is most excellent!" Kori flitted back into the room, beaming at him, a pastel pink tank top now over her sports bra.

Vic looked at her numbly, his face appearing strangely off balance without the heavy silver prosthetic on one side, then back down to his hands, watching the illusion shift and move like real skin as he flexed his fingers. "This is…amazing…" he whispered.

"Here—"

A multifaceted, bright green gemstone nearly two inches across suddenly swung in front of Raven's face, snapping her attention off of the swirling cloud of jumbled, confusing emotions radiating out of Victor.

The stone hung from a long silver chain, tangled in Koriand'r's fingers as she held out the necklace excitedly. "This was one of the only things I was able to take from my home world." She smiled down at the slowly spinning stone, then back at Raven. "It is an ornament of the royal line—will it be sufficient?"

"Uh…" Raven gaped at the jewel, "Sure…"

Koriand'r bounced forward, beaming, holding the necklace out to Raven.

She carefully took Kori's heated hands in hers, taking a deep breath, closing her eyes as the alien's fizzing, buzzing rush of exuberance shot into her.

She tried to concentrate, to visualize the fiery, explosive personality of the being in front of her contained within anything other than ethereal, glowing, golden-orange skin.

The spell took shape out of that energy, muting the living, flickering flames of Kori's hair down to a bright scarlet, the incandescent strands tinging soft orange at the ends. A bronze tan spread over the orange light shining out of her skin.

Kori squealed in excitement as she felt the small tingle of warmth from the spell flutter over her body.

"Hmm—" Dick peered over Raven's shoulder, examining Kori critically, head tilted to the side. "Her hair's still too pink—it should be a little darker—"

Raven twisted around to glare at him.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she snapped. Shadows darkened all through the kitchen around them, twitching as they copied her movement, stretching towards her. "Would you like to do it?"

Dick took an immediate step back, putting his hands up. Gar and Vic sniggered.

Raven turned back towards Kori, taking another deep breath.

The alien watched her, trying to keep still, fighting the smile attempting to break across her face. Her green eyes burned like neon bulbs, anticipation bubbling up within her.

Raven flexed her shoulders, scowling, and closed her eyes again, attempting to sink back into the feel of the illusion.

And when she opened them, the new, human version of Kori stood before her.

She smiled weakly up at her, dropping her hands as she stepped back, and Koriand'r burst into an exultant grin.

Star lunged past her, not even bothering to check her reflection, and grabbed Dick's shoulders, putting her face right in his, her eyes intent. Only the barest hint of light shown through the glamour, her irises colored a brilliant, deep green by the spell, the surrounding tissue a perfectly normal white.

"Now, I may pass as a human," she demanded, "yes?"

He nodded, eyes open wide.

"Then we may go to the mall!"

"HELL YEAH!"

Before Raven could react, a pair of huge, strong arms grabbed her around the middle and lifted her fully off of her feet. She gasped, desperately scrabbling to hang on to Victor's shoulders as he spun her through the air in his steel grip, his elation shooting through her.

He set her back down, and before she could get her bearings enough to shove him away, another pair of smaller, warmer arms wrapped around her, and Garfield hoisted her up, spinning her just as enthusiastically. His laughter ricocheted through her in waves of sparkling, effervescent euphoria, the room swirling into a dizzy, giddy, golden blur around her.

"Okay, okay!" Dick chuckled, "let her breathe!"

She swatted at Gar as he set he back on her feet, still laughing as he released her, smile stretching from ear to 's hand pressed gently against her back to steady her.

The two boys beamed at her, golden light suffusing the air around them with warmth, their appearances rendered completely ordinary beneath her spells.

"Come on, come on, come on!" Kori trilled.

She grabbed Gar and Vic and yanked them into motion. They raced up the short set of steps towards the elevator, skidding to a stop in front of the shiny metal doors, and gaped again at their reflections, the boys playfully shoving each other out of the way to try to get a better view of themselves, excited voices carrying back through the room.

Dick stayed by Raven's side, trying not to laugh as she cursed darkly. "You good?" he asked.

"I'll let you know when the room stops spinning," she grumbled back, running her fingers through her short hair, attempting to comb her bangs back into place.

He continued to watch her, his scrutiny building in a gentle hum against her skin, and she shot another dark glance up at him. "What?"

Dick pursed his lips, blue eyes narrowing, and the humor and brightness thrumming through the kitchen faded away. Replaced by cool, calm focus, the barest flicker of an uneasy concern lurking beneath.

"Any more…surprises hidden up those sleeves of yours?" he asked quietly.

Her face went blank, all emotion wiped away in a second, the violet of her eyes going gray and cold. She turned away from him, trying to hide it, moving towards the elevator as the doors opened and the others piled inside.

"When I find out," she said in a flat voice, "you'll be the first to know."

"Raven."

She stopped, but didn't face him.

He caught up to her and stepped into her path, putting his back to the elevator so he could see her face. "We have to trust each other," he said firmly. "We're a team now—all of us—and if there's anything else we need to know about—"

"There isn't."

He studied her intently, bright blue eyes piercing into hers, trying to see past the impenetrable wall she had put up.

"No lies." His voice stayed even and calm, but it carried a sharp edge underneath. A warning.

Something dark and oily tried to claw its way up her throat, and she clamped down on it, shoving it back with a will of iron, locking in the energy threatening to rip out from inside her skin.

"No lies," she repeated hollowly.

Dick nodded at her, satisfied. The tension melted out of the air, a smile returning to his face.

"Guys come on!"

"Richard!"

He turned to look at the elevator—Kori waving impatiently at them, bursting with excitement, Gar and Vic grinning as they held the doors open—then back to Raven. He moved aside with a resigned sigh and a shake of his head, gesturing for her to pass him.

"Well—then, I guess we're going to the mall."