The new place was gorgeous.

Two bedrooms. A kitchen that was separated from the main room by a low, countered wall. A tub, not just a standing-room-only shower. Two bedrooms. On the first floor, which would be great for Jessie. Close to a public bus stop and light rail station. And, of course, two—two—bedrooms.

It had taken a long time to find the place, make sure it was what we needed, show proof that we could afford it, and move in. But now, at Jessie's insistence, all the boxes were unpacked, the new-used couch and fake-leather armchair sat in the living room, and her bedroom was starting to look like a fifteen-year-old had vomited pure teenager all over it. Mine was pretty minimal for now, but even the mattress on the floor was a massive upgrade over what I'd had. The bedframe was on the way.

Now all that was left was to christen the apartment with a small get-together. Not a party. No one I knew was a party animal. But a gathering of a few friends to celebrate.

I'd invited Jeff and Ellen. Zeke was on my possible list, too, but I'd decided against him in the end. He'd been someone I could trust, right up until the moment the ice portal closed. From that point on, things had gotten weird with him. He wasn't an enemy, but I wasn't convinced he was a friend, either. And, against Jeff's typically better judgment, I didn't invite Sophia, either. She needed space and time to recover. Inviting her to hang out with Jeff and me wouldn't help with either of those.

Jessie had invited Stephen.

He seemed nice, and they'd been chatting via laptop and phone even more since the Se'dav Va'aki portal break. When school finally started, she came home excited about sharing her lunch table with him. I was happy for her.

But I'd also told him the party started at five-thirty and ended at eight. And that was a lie; I had no end time in mind. I just needed him out of the house.

So, the five of us sat around the living room. Jessie and Stephen had part of the couch, while I sat nearby. Ellen had threatened doom on anyone who so much as looked at the faded black armchair with envy, then plopped herself right into the center of it. She looked exhausted, but when I'd asked, she just shook her head. "That's my own business."

I didn't mind, but I wished she'd stop yawning so much.

Right now, Jeff was telling a story about his most recent portal from one of the counter stools. He'd been clearing low D-Ranked ones with what people he could find; another archer, usually, and a rotating cast of tag-along delvers. Ellen had all but become one with the chair, but she kept looking around, then staring at me. After a few minutes, I raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Why are we all here?"

"Nothing," I said innocently. "I'm just enjoying the company."

"Sure, Kade," she said, eyes narrowing theatrically. "You're up to something—I can tell."

"How?"

Jeff butted in, saving me from Ellen's interrogation. "Kade's always up to something, Ellen. He has schemes within schemes, and the only way to cut through them is to get him in a fight. But that's not why we're here. We are gathered here today to celebrate that our dear friend, Kade Allen Noelstra—"

"No middle names, Jeffrey Wilfred Carlson," I said.

"Wilfred?" Jessie snorted. She shifted slightly, and Stephen's arm fell off her shoulder. Then she stared at him until he put it back. I kept the eye-roll to myself; I'd been a high-schooler long enough to know how awkward budding relationships could be.

"Fine, you win," Jeff said. "That our dear friend and true gentleman, Kade Noelstra, and his sister, Jessie Gerald, have moved up in the world!"

"And you didn't even try middle-naming me, huh?" Jessie asked.

Jeff shrugged. "I said I wouldn't, and besides, I don't know your middle name. Doesn't anyone else have anything they'd like to say? Any more goofy remarks?"

No one did.

Then Ellen raised her hand. She had a scar across it now; even though I'd told her not to, she'd kept it open all Tuesday night, poking and prodding at it as she tried to master her Stamina pain reduction. It wasn't a bad scar. If someone didn't know what it was, it'd look like just another line on her hand. But it was still something she could have avoided and chosen not to.

Jeff nodded to her, and she smiled mischievously. "I'd just like to say that, according to my phone, the food showed up about five minutes ago."

As Jeff sprang up to head for the door, and the high-schoolers rushed for the table, Ellen leaned in and whispered, "I know you're hiding something, Kade."

"I am," I said simply. Then I stood up and headed for the kitchen table myself. "But you'll just have to wait."

The food was gone faster than I expected, but it still took two hours.

The fast food burgers. The pizza. Even the Chinese take-out. We'd worked through two liters of soda and had started on the second bottle. The whole apartment smelled like the wreckage of our dinner—tomato sauce, onion rings, and fried rice.

But it was getting to be that time.

Stephen had managed to keep up with Jeff, slice for slice and helping for helping. It had almost killed him—Jessie kept giving him worried looks—but he'd done it. And now, he was heading for the door, hand in hand with my sister. She wanted to walk her boyfriend out, and I was more than happy to let her. If nothing else, it gave me a minute or two to compose myself before the second part of the night started.

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At least, it would have if my friends didn't want to interrogate me.

"You're really okay with him?" Jeff asked.

I shrugged. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because she's your kid sister, and you're a relentless ball of anger who'll fight anyone, any time, for any reason?"

"That sounds like you," Ellen said. "An absolute maniac for a fight."

I sighed and sat down, this time claiming Ellen's chair before she could get back to it. She shot me a glare, but I wasn't moving. "Look, I get it. It'd be easy to do the whole 'threatening older brother' routine, right? But Stephen was with my sister during the portal break last week. He didn't exactly throw himself in front of Jessie to save her, but he wasn't a coward, and when I found them, he was calming her down and trying to help her be comfortable. He's okay in my book."

"And that's all it takes? Just, like, not being a jerk?" Jeff asked.

"She's had a tough go of it, and if she can be happy with him, more power to her," I replied. Then I smiled evilly. "Besides, I don't have to threaten him. He heard me kill the monster that killed his teacher. He's smart enough to be scared without me acting scary."

Ellen stared at me, eyes piercing mine. I stared back. Then she slowly started talking. "Kade, you didn't invite us here just to eat, did you?"

"No, but I won't talk about it until Jessie's back in here."

"Seriously?"

I nodded. "She's going to be involved in it whether I want her or not, so she needs to be here. I can't keep secrets from her. She's too smart for her own good. It's better to read her in on my plans than it is to have her discover them a day or two later. She tends to hate when I do that, and she's not afraid to try assassinating me the next time I'm stuck in a hospital bed."

"It better not be dumb," she said. "I'll kill you myself if this is dumb."

I just smiled. The truth was that my idea was incredibly dumb.

"Oh," Jeff said, "are we about to talk business? Because right now, I've got a great offer for you two. As you may have heard, I'm putting together a team, and we've got space for a striker and a mage. We'll be clearing portals up to the high Cs eventually, but starting out with D-Rank ones. Team composition is me at tank, an archer at sustained damage, a mage, a striker, and—"

"Wait." Ellen's eyes narrowed. Two things. Number one, if Kade's not ready to talk work, neither am I. And second, are you already listing your team like we're part of it?"

"What are we talking about?" Jessie asked as she slipped back through the door. She yawned, and her eyes drifted toward her new bedroom. "Never mind. I'll see you tomorrow, Kade."

"You heading to bed, shrimp?"

"Yeah. I think it's time," she said.

Ellen stared at her for a second. "I've never seen a high-schooler ready for bed when there's a party happening. You must be a pretty special kid."

"She is," I agreed. "Jessie, before you go to sleep, I have something to ask of you all. A couple weeks ago, I was visited by an A-Ranker from the Roadrunners. She came to pay me the finder's fee from the broken portal, but she had a second offer besides the money. She wanted to hand me a D-Rank boss core and a smaller—but still substantial—bit of cash. I turned her down. It smelled fishy. But it did get me thinking."

"Are you thinking about joining my team?" Jeff asked. "It's about time. I've made you both a good offer, and all you have to do is accept it."

Ellen rolled her eyes. "Your team's not even a team. It's two people."

"No, I'm not planning on joining your team. I have an even worse idea," I said.

Ellen coughed politely from the 'bar.' Jessie wasn't anywhere near as merciful. "Is it as dumb as—"

"Shut up," I said.

"—the time you set your hair on fire while blowing out birthday candles?"

"That was one time."

"You were twelve!"

Ellen burst out laughing. "You set your hair on fire when you were twelve?"

I sighed and ignored her. "Yes, it's dumber than that. But it also does have something to do with Jeff's team. Being a dedicated team has some advantages. We'd get to know each other's strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies. We'd get better at fighting with each other. And so on. But it's not enough—not really."

I took a deep breath and held up a hand as both Ellen and Jeff started trying to talk. From here on, I was committed. There'd be no going back. Then I cleared my throat and said it, before I could stop myself.

"I want to form a delving guild."

Carter stood outside of Deborah's training room with the rest of 'his' team, wincing every time something crashed against the wall or shook the floor.

His team had changed in the last couple of weeks, and he didn't like it.

At first, it was just the expected fallout from whatever had shaken up the Roadrunners' leadership. One day, Ethan was gone. The next, Lizzie's injuries were going to keep her off the team for a month, or maybe two. Both of those could have been weathered. He could have survived and persevered through their losses—especially knowing that Lizzie would be back eventually.

But then Deborah had returned, and she'd stuffed his team with four brand-new E-Rankers. He didn't know any of them. He didn't know if he was still in charge. All he knew was that all four of them—and both he and Alonzo—had suddenly been flooded with D-Rank cores and thrown into E-Rank portal after E-Rank portal. And that every one of them was off the books.

Something crashed against the wall over his head, and he flinched as a piece of cinderblock flaked off and landed on his shoulder.

Deborah was pissed. Really pissed.

Carter sympathized. When he'd returned from what should have been an easy E-Rank portal and had to report his failure to her, he'd been upset, too. Upset about how things had gone. Upset that his chance at a fast ascent to high rank had been set back. And most of all, upset at how some random with a lightning sword was so much stronger than him.

He'd wanted to break stuff, too. But unlike Deborah, he didn't have a private training room loaded down with Scripts designed to self-repair it.

She did.

Another booming collision shook the wall. Then it went quiet for a long time. For too long. Carter stared at 'his' team, waiting.

The door opened. Deborah stood there in a sports bra and shorts. If she'd been wearing battle armor, there wasn't any sign of it. If she'd used her sword and shield, she didn't carry them now. Sweat poured down her face and covered her chest in a slick sheen. She stank of hard work, and the heat of both anger and exercise hit Carter like a physical force. "Get in," she said.

Carter flinched. But he listened, following her into her personal gym.

The walls were cratered. The top-of-the-line, self-repairing sparring bots—each rated to mid-A-Rank—lay in the corner, shattered and ripped from their housing. The smell of electrical smoke fought with Deborah's body odor as she shut the door behind him.

"I've been investing in you, Carter," she said. Her chest heaved as she sucked in a deep breath, then slowly let it out. "You were supposed to be a longer-term one, but under the circumstances, I'm going to need to cash you in sooner rather than later. Your job for the next month is to finish your build. Do it as fast as you can. Whenever you need a core, come here. I want you in every E-Rank dungeon you can find."

Carter swallowed. It was all he could do; Deborah's aura—no, her sheer presence, she wasn't even pushing with her aura—threatened to crush him like she'd crushed the sparring bots. "Why?" he managed to ask.

Now her aura flared. Carter couldn't help it. He stepped back until his shoulders touched the pitted wall. For a moment, he thought Deborah was about to kill him. Then the pressure eased—though her glare didn't. "Because no one tells me 'no,' Carter Richards. I'm on the rise, and Angelo doesn't see it. His star's bright, but it's fading. Someone has to step up when he falls, and that someone is me. That slight? That one, I could let go. He's more powerful than me, for now, and power is the only thing that matters. But that god-damned boy with the lightning sword? Unacceptable. No one tells me 'no.'"

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