Carina wasn't in their room when Tibs returned from his training. She'd either left before he'd returned or, more likely, hadn't spent the night. After waking he walked the roofs, looking for her again. He didn't hide himself as he did so—roof walking didn't break any rules—which meant attentive guards followed him. Roof walking didn't break rules, but the usual reasons a rogue would walk the roofs did. Let them watch him when the sun was up. Once it was night, they'll never see him.

The height helped him find holes in the town's landscape, places without buildings. If Carina was still practicing, she'd be in one of them. Some were planned, houses arranged to create an isolated yard they shared. Others were places left vacant for more expansions. Those tended to be where the shops were located. Space for more of them as the town prospered.

What it also showed him were places where construction of buildings stopped before it was finished. A half-finished building on the side of a large space with lumber stacked at various heights. The workers gone as there were no coins left to pay them. The guild no longer took a hand in controlling the construction of most buildings. The only ones they cared about were those destined to support the Runners in some way. Housing of various quality, one slop house for those who didn't want to pay the coins for good food. For the rest, the guild created parcels they sold and the new owner could build what they wanted. If they could afford it.

Why someone would buy a plot to build on when they didn't have enough funds, Tibs didn't understand. Or simply the buying of the plot, since there were suitable housing available already. But people in the inn and the taverns talked, and Tibs listened. Not that what he heard helped. Investment? Future gain?

Harry glared at him anytime the guard leader caught him, but Tibs wasn't doing anything against the rules, so he was left alone.

It was in one such place he found Carina, dancing about the open space between stacks of lumber and the half-constructed foundation. As Tibs watched her, he noticed that the air moved not only in reaction to her steps, but to her entire body. A wave of the hand sent a wave of air away, picking up sand. A roll of the head and another wave intersected the first one, the sand mixing into a small storm.

He climbed down from the roof, amazed at what she did, the ease with which she did it. None of the other sorcerers he'd seen train could do this much. Once he was close enough, he sensed the essence within her and thought it was denser, or that the tint of blue that marked her essence as being air was darker than the last time he'd sensed it. What he watched her do now certainly showed she had improved.

She noticed him, stumbled, and the sand fell—a lot on her. Tibs tightened his lips to keep from snickering. With a huff and a stomp of her foot, the sand blew off her in all directions as her long hair flew with it before falling back. He used the time to set his face into something resembling a neutral expression.

"Tibs," she greeted him, tone professional. The joy that had been on her face moments before was gone. "How did you find me?"

"I asked around. Someone said you wanted a place with a lot of space. I can see those from the roofs. I've been walking them for a while now looking for you."

She frowned. "Why are you looking for me?"

"Because you're my friend, and I don't like that you're avoiding me and the others."

"Tibs," she said in annoyance, "had it occurred to you there are reasons I'm not spending time with anyone right now?"

He nodded. "You're angry at me. Jackal pissed you off, and Khumdar's comments about you having white blood scared you."

She stared at him. "I forget how observant you are sometimes."

He shrugged. "I have to, to stay alive." He hesitated. "I can't do anything about the others, but I'd like to fix things between us. I don't have a lot of friends."

She sighed, then looked around. "I don't know if it's something that can be fixed. I'm not angry anymore," she added as Tibs felt his hopes crumble. "It's more annoyance now. In part toward you, but at me, too. I think I'm expecting too much from you."

"With the letters," Tibs said, feeling miserable.

She nodded, then waved a hand at a pile of lumber stacked to sitting height and the sand flew off it. She sat and patted the space next to her, and he joined her.

"You're so curious about so many things, it's frustrating you aren't the same about reading."

"Letters are hard," he said, the admission not helping how he felt.

"It gets easier." She smiled at him and her voice became bright as she continued. "And they open so much for you. Think of the books you'd be able to learn from. I explained about contracts and how the guild uses them."

He didn't respond until she looked at him, then he took his time. "I'm not a sorcerer. What I do isn't in books, it's out there." He motioned to the town. "A book isn't going to tell me how to get in houses. It wouldn't tell me how to get through the traps in the dungeon. I know they're important to you; but to me? They're mostly something valuable too heavy to take."

"What about the contracts? What are you going to do when you're offered one if you can't read it?"

"I think the guild will make sure I know enough so I can do that before they send me out."

She studied. "And you trust them to do that, right? To not teach you things in a way they can then take advantage of you?"

He made a face. She was right. He depended on the guild, since he didn't have a choice, but he couldn't trust them.

"Tibs," she said in the stretching silence. "What if I could find you a book that had information on traps? If I can show you that books aren't just for scholars and sorcerers, would that change your mind?"

He shrugged, not believing she could find such a book. Thieves didn't talk about what they did, certainly not to someone who would then write it. Even the guild rogues wouldn't talk about things like that to anyone outside the guild.

"I guess I shouldn't expect you to change your mind just because I tell you so."

"So we're friends again?" he asked, doing his best to mask his hope.

She pulled him against her. "We never stopped being friends, Tibs. If someone stops being your friend just because they're angry at you, they never were."

He hugged her, relief making it tight. "What you were doing was impressive," he said when they let go of each other.

She beamed. "It was so fun!" she laughed. "When you got Jackal to push his essence out without the earth; when you said that essence isn't the element, I thought about it." She rolled her eyes. "I wasn't letting Jackass be the only one who could do it. Then something happened. The storm inside me stilled."

"Your reserve?" he asked, confident it was what she meant.

She nodded. "My air always acted like a storm. Anytime I used it, I had to fight with it. Pull when it pushed, push when it pulled. Corral it into the shape of what I wanted. It was exhausting, but I accepted it as part of being a sorcerer. We all have to deal with elements who have minds of their own."

"Didn't your teacher explain about how your reserve isn't the same as your element?"

"The world isn't what you see, it is what you make of it," she quoted in a deep voice. "Like that makes any kind of sense."

Tibs chuckled. As obtuse as Alistair could be when explaining things, he tried for an explanation of some sort. First Mez, now Carina. It sounded like other teachers just repeated what they had been taught without thinking about what it meant.

She extended a hand, and a funnel raised off the ground a few paces away. "Now, it's almost effortless, and I know how much I'm using, but it isn't just that." She lifted her hand, and the funnel grew. "With being able to sense the air essence around me, I can move that too. I don't have to use up all my reserve to do what I want. I can take what's already there and let it do the work. Tibs, if I'd known about this when you tripped, you wouldn't have fallen off the mountain. I would have been able to catch you, get the air around you to bring you back."

He stared at her. "You can do that? Feel the essence and move it?" That was so unfair.

"Yeah," she answered in wonder, watching the funnel, then she looked at him. "What's wrong?"

"I can't do it."

"But you can recharge faster; like I can because of it."

He shook his head. "It's not the same. It's not like I'm getting the essence to do anything. It's like I'm tilting a table toward the reserve and it just falls there."

"You're like a magnet," she said.

"I don't know that word."

"You would if you knew how to read," she replied lightly and he rolled his eyes. "It's a metal that attracts other metals. People with metal as their element can do something to iron that makes it do that. It even keeps doing it after they've stopped what they did to it. It's not like imbuing according to what I read. They don't leave essence there to make it continue. The iron just changes so it can keep doing it. Some scholars think that it means iron could always do it, instead of the essence changing something."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Tibs rubbed his temple. "I'm getting a headache just listening to you. If it came from letters, I'd die."

Now she rolled her eyes. "What happens when you try to do both, move essence and feel it?"

"I lose the sense of the one I can't focus on as much."

She nodded and looked at the still flying funnel. "Maybe it's because of how hard it was for me to control my element at first. I always had to divide my attention between what I wanted to do and keeping the essence in control. This feels like that." She hugged him. "You'll get there. I have no doubt."

He nodded, feeling better knowing it hadn't just come naturally to her, that it was the work she had to put into getting her element to behave that had helped her get there.

"Now, how about you tell me what's going on between you and Jackal?"

"Nothing," he replied reflexively.

"Tibs, he's been avoiding you the way I have, and you haven't gone looking to fix things."

He sighed. "I'm just getting tired of how he doesn't take him and Kroseph seriously."

She stared at him. "Tibs, you do know Jackal is thoroughly in love with the man, right? If he isn't with us, or training, he's with him."

Tibs looked toward the funnel, but didn't see it. He remembered Jackal after his morning with his man. "I told Kroseph that the reason Jackal trains so hard is that he doesn't want to die and cause him pain. That made Kroseph all loving, and he took Jackal for a bath and them time. Then, after you stormed out of the room, Jackal asked to tell Kroseph whatever I had that morning so they could do it again. He doesn't get how much Kroseph cares. He thinks it's just about having fun."

"He gets it, Tibs," she said.

"No, he doesn't," he snapped. "If he did, he wouldn't act like it's just for fun. He'd be more careful. He took on three golems! What if we hadn't been able to help him? He could have died and Kroseph would have lost him. It would have hurt him so much. How would he continue after that?" He wiped at his eyes.

"Ah," she said, looking at him and nodding. "I think I get it now."

"Then explain it to me, because I don't."

Carina pulled him against her. "You aren't going to lose him Tibs."

"It's not about me," he replied, trying to push her away. "It's about what he's doing to Kroseph."

"He's the first teammate you've had who didn't die during a run, right?"

"So?" he demanded, giving up getting away from her.

"I came after him, then Mez and Khumdar. So long as he's around, we aren't going to die either."

"But he's going to die! We all are! He keeps doing stupid stuff that's going to get him to die sooner."

"It's okay to be afraid, Tibs."

He stared at her. She'd just said the same thing Jackal told him in MountainSea. And he wasn't afraid. He was angry.

"When Jackal dies," she said. "You're going to keep going because that's who you are. You didn't let any of your other teammates' death stop you."

"None of them were around as long as Jackal," he finally admitted in a grumble. "You're my family now and it's going to hurt more."

"But you aren't going to let that stop you. What you're going to do is keep an eye out for Jackass to make sure it isn't something stupid that's going to kill him."

"We should tie him up and leave him in the room to make sure he doesn't hurt himself."

"Kroseph might have a problem with that."

"We can ask him to help. Some people enjoy that kind of stuff."

She stared at him and asked in disbelief. "How could you ever know people like that?"

He shrugged. "The danger with breaking into houses is that you don't know what you'll come across. Sometimes people will be there and they'll be… busy."

"Sweet purity," she whispered. "Maybe you're the one who should be tied down to make sure you never see something like that again."

He smiled. "I'd get out of it."

* * * * *

Tibs marched up to Jackal, sitting at their table, a bowl of stew and tankard before him. He'd waited until Kroseph returned to the kitchen, and the fighter watched him approach, wary.

"You're a jackass," Tibs told him, turned, and left.

* * * * *

"Actually, it's Jackal," the fighter said once he closed the door to their room. Tibs sat on his bed, letting the headache from training with his essence pass. He had one success in that a knife was now imbued, but he didn't know how he'd managed it.

"That was hours ago. How do you still remember what I said?"

"I'm stupid, Tibs, not forgetful." He sat on the edge of Tibs's bed. "Does it mean you're ready to tell me what I did?"

"You almost died."

Jackal's brow furrowed so deeply it could be comical. Only it wasn't an act. Jackal was trying to figure out what Tibs referred to and had trouble coming up with anything.

"The golems," He offered. Jackal didn't see the danger he'd put himself in. As far as the fighter was concerned, he just did Jackal things.

Jackal's brow didn't uncrease. "I don't get it. We won."

"That's why I was angry. Why I'm still angry. You don't understand how dangerous that was."

"We won," Jackal repeated, slower. As if saying it slowly added to the explanation. Maybe in the fighter's mind, it did. Tibs was no longer putting anything past him.

"Khumdar got hurt bad and if we'd been late to help you, they would have killed you."

"I knew you'd act."

"You didn't even think about it!" Tibs snapped. "You wanted to prove we could do it, so you just started it and didn't leave us any choice. Normally you're better than that, Jackal. You asked us how we wanted to do it. The team made a decision, and you ignored it to do your thing. A Jackal thing that could have gotten you killed."

"And then Kro would be hurt by it," Jackal said, looking at Tibs hopefully. It was the wrong conclusion, but Tibs comforted himself with the fact Jackal had reached one that mattered.

"And me, and Carina, and the team, and probably others in the town."

"I trusted you and the team, Tibs. That's why I did it. I knew—"

"You didn't trust us enough to do what we'd agreed to! You're the leader. If you didn't want to do that, you should have told us we were going to do things your way."

"You would have been angry if I did that, Tibs."

"I am angry!" he yelled. "At least then I wouldn't feel like you don't care about how your dying is going to feel."

"I did say I wasn't a good leader," Jackal said meekly.

Tibs snorted. "Too bad, because you're still our leader. And now you're going to have to do a better job."

Jackal nodded. "I'm sorry I hurt you, Tibs. That wasn't what I wanted."

"Just stop doing stupid stuff like that, okay?"

"I'm never going to do that one again, I can promise that."

Tibs narrowed his eyes and spoke slowly. "Stop doing stupid stuff like that."

Jackal smiled. "This is me we're talking about, Tibs. The only way I can't do something stupid is to lock me in a cellar and make sure it's empty first."

"Your element is earth," Tibs said, rolling his eyes. Did Jackal think he was the stupid one?

The fighter nodded. "Right, in that case, better lock me into a fifth-story room. I'm not the one on the team with a habit of throwing himself out of windows."

* * * * *

The meal was quieter, but the team was eating together, and that made Tibs happy. Carina hadn't spoken to Khumdar; the glares she sent his way made that clear, but the cleric ignored them. In fact, he seemed pleased with her reaction.

"Before I bring up what we need to discuss," Jackal said. "Is everyone back on talking terms again, or am I going to be hit with anything. If that's the case, let's get it out now. I promise I won't turn to earth. It was explained to me I screwed up and I will take my punishment like a fighter."

"You could go tell that to Harry," Khumdar suggested. "I am certain he would appreciate the admission."

Tibs glared at the cleric while Jackal gawked.

"I didn't screw up that badly, right?" Jackal asked Tibs.

Tibs caught the almost-smile on Khumdar's lips before it was gone. He needed to have a talk with the cleric before it turned bad. "No, you didn't."

"I don't know," Carina said, pensively. "I think—"

"You said we were fine!" Jackal exclaimed in horror.

She grinned. "Now we're fine."

"You're going to cause my death before the dungeon gets to it," Jackal said, catching his breath. He looked them over. "We need to talk about how we're going to handle the next schedule for the dungeon. We don't have as many coins this time, so we need to be more careful."

"Isn't that like weeks away?" Mez asked.

"Yes, but if we start thinking now, we might come up with a way to maximize how early we can go in."

"May I ask something?" Khumdar asked.

"No, I am not talking to Hard Knuckles."

"This is relating to the practice of spending money to go in before the other teams."

Jackal sighed. "Go ahead."

"What exactly is the point?"

"To be the first to clear the floor," Jackal replied.

The cleric nodded. "So it is simply paying for the privilege of claiming to being first?"

Jackal's brow creased. "Well, hearing you say it that way, I have to question why I want to do it."

"Let me ask it a different way," Khumdar said before Tibs could point out Jackal always wanted to brag about being first. "Why does the guild do it?"

"To get our coins," Tibs said without hesitation, and the others nodded.

"Should that not be reason enough to not take part, then?"

"But the later we go," Mez said, "the stronger the dungeon is. What if it's too strong by the time it's our turn?"

"Does it really grow that fast?" Carina asked. "Count everyone the dungeon ate on the first floor and look at how hard it got. Is now really when things will start changing faster?"

"We got conned," Jackal said breathlessly, then he let out a bark of laughter. "I got conned by Hard Knuckles."

"I thought you said he didn't lie," Carina said.

"That's the beauty of this con," Jackal replied. "He never lied. If he'd tried, I would have picked up on it. He never said we have to take part in this. I wanted us to go in early. I wanted to know the layout before anyone else. I wanted to brag we'd done it. I wanted to be first like we were with the boss room."

"You couldn't brag about that," Tibs pointed out.

Jackal waved it aside. "Once enough people did, I was able to."

"Are you stating that Harry Hard Knuckles targeted you?" Khumdar asked, too innocently for Tibs's liking.

"Of course not. I just should have known better. It's the kind of stuff I grew up around." He leaned back. "And I'm the greedy one on the team. I can't believe he got me to hand over my coins so easily."

"So we're not putting money into the next one?" Carina asked, looking at the others.

"Not unless one of you smart ones can think of a reason to do it."

"I don't feel particularly smart right now," Tibs admitted. It had sounded like a good idea to him, too.

"Going in later will give us more time to train," Mez said. "I was talking with an old teammate of mine, and his team would like to train against us, and against Pyan's team too, if they're interested."

"Do we tell the other teams?" Tibs asked in a low voice. "About not spending the coins?"

"We tell Pyan's team," Carina stated. "They've been helping us. We owe it to them."

"We tell one team," Jackal said, "they're going to tell another and soon every Runner in the town will know not to do it."

"Which means only the nobles would be giving money to the guild," Mez said, a smile forming. "I am definitely okay with that."

Jackal looked them over for confirmation. "Then we need to be discreet about it. Tibs, you have to be the one getting in touch with Tandy."

* * * * *

Tibs grabbed the cleric's arm as they left the inn and pulled him into the alley next to it. "You stop it now."

Khumdar raised an eyebrow.

"I'm a rogue," Tibs replied to the silent challenge. "I see what you're doing. You're poking Jackal about Harry."

"Are you not curious regarding what is between them?"

"Yes, but he's on our team. He's my friend. He'll tell us when he's ready. I know you can tell when someone has a secret, which means you know everyone has them. Let them be."

The cleric watched Tibs in silence for a few seconds. "You understand that it is in the nature of darkness to want more. To want to find those secrets. I am certain your darkness rogue friend has told you what his darkness let him sense of secrets, but I am bound to it. I am its cleric. I have to know."

Tibs nodded. "Okay, then you leave our team for last. We'll probably tell each other everything before you're through with the town."

Khumdar smiled. "Will you tell us your secrets?"

"You already know them."

The cleric smiled. "Good attempt. I know one. You have more."

Tibs swallowed as he realized which one he might refer to. "Once you're done with the town."

Khumdar looked around, his smile broadening. "It seems that a challenge is what I was meant to find here. I thank you for this, Tibs."

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