“Holy crap,” Lenn muttered when Sorin presented him with the giant nightmare bat skin. “That’s… uh… Well, this is kind of awkward, but this is kind of too big to give you the flexibility you wanted.”

  “Oh, I’m aware,” Sorin told him. “But when something like that falls into your lap, you can’t just let the tower reclaim it, right? I’ve got some normal-sized ones, too.”

  “Oh, good! I take it you’re looking to sell the big one then?”

  “Depends what you’re willing to give for it.”

  “Half off on your armor order,” Lenn said immediately.

  Sorin snorted. “Considering the materials are the expensive part, and I’m already supplying that for you, it’s not much of a discount.”

  “Fine, I’ll trade you the labor for making the armor for the big skin.”

  “How about you make me a set of bracers from the big one in addition to my armor and a nice pair of boots from the regular ones, and you can keep everything left from the big one.”

  “Armor and boots only,” Lenn countered. “Wasting the material on the big one for bracers would be criminal. You don’t need the flexibility there. Just get metal studded to the bracers.”

  “What are you even going to do with hide that thick?” Sorin asked. “You seriously can’t spare a bit of it?”

  “I’m thinking a bat-skin cloak. That should take enchantments quite well.”

  Sorin considered that for a moment. “Huh. That’s not a bad idea.”

  Now he kind of wanted the cloak, too, but he already had a regular cloth cloak to keep him warm at night, and his danirs were better spent on other supplies. “A rush job on the armor, bracers, and boots made from the smaller bats in exchange for the big hide. You can keep whatever’s left over.”

  Not knowing how safe it was to linger around the portal hub, Sorin wanted his stuff done as quickly as possible. In theory, Finn would have his part ready well before Lenn finished the armor, so this part was the bottleneck. If he could get Lenn to start working on it immediately, even at the expense of pushing other orders back, it would be done that much faster.

  Lenn made a face like he wanted to argue, but Sorin simply started folding the giant bat hide back up as though he meant to put it back in his bag. “Wait, wait! Fine. You’ve got a deal,” the leatherworker said.

  Sorin smiled at the man. “Great. Here you are, then. When will you have my order ready to hand to Finn?”

  “Faster than he’ll finish the lacquer for it,” Lenn said, a hint of a boast in his voice.

  “That quickly, huh?”

  “Got a few soulprints to speed up the tanning process. They’re pretty much mandatory for this line of work. Well, that and the ones that suppress the odor.”

  “Good set to have,” Sorin agreed. “Just take the armor to Finn directly when you’re done with it so he can do his part.”

  Lenn nodded slowly. “I can do that. Alright, I’d say… Maybe three days if we rush it.”

  “Perfect,” Sorin said, pretending to be thrilled. Secretly he was grinding his teeth at the delay, but hopefully it wouldn’t matter. Rue did need some down time either way. “I’ll be back to check then.”

  * * *

  The portal hub’s one and only inn was a lot quieter in the morning than it had been the evening before. There were a few hungover climbers nursing hot drinks and idly picking at a surprisingly good-smelling breakfast, but none of the boisterous partying lingered. The inn’s staff had even cleaned the mess, though if Sorin wasn’t mistaken, they were short a few chairs.

  Someone got rowdy last night, he thought to himself with a chuckle. He was no stranger to drunken bar fights, though it had been a decade or two since he’d partaken in one himself.

  Among the subdued crowd was Nemari, although she looked more exhausted than hungover. It was a subtle distinction, but he recognized a climber who’d missed out on a night of sleep. His own face probably looked similar, albeit a bit less haggard due to having a soulprint that boosted his endurance. Once he reached rank 3 and could merge Vigorous Constitution in, he’d be able to go for days at a time without sleep.

  “You’re alive,” Nemari said as he approached her table. “Not surprised.”

  “Thanks, I think?”

  “Any trouble while you were out?”

  “Some,” he said. “Might be better to discuss it upstairs.”

  Her gaze sharpened, but she just gave him a single nod. “Urgent?”

  “I think you’ve got time to finish your breakfast. In fact, I’m kind of hungry myself.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Sorin lifted a hand to get the attention of one of the servers, who brought him out a plate that matched what everyone else was eating. No surprise there. This isn’t really the kind of place to take your order. You get whatever they cooked today, or you can starve.

  The food wasn’t bad at all, or at least the sausage links weren’t. The eggs were a bit burnt, but he’d had worse. They were also a vivid orange color that he couldn’t identify, but it was hardly the first time he’d eaten strange colored food. Sometimes, it was better not to ask what monster things had been sourced from.

  Nemari got extra plates for Rue and Odric, which Sorin helped her carry up to the rooms. He followed Nemari into her room, much to her surprise. “Go grab Odric and bring him over, will you?” she asked. “He should be here for this.”

  “Well, that’s the thing,” Sorin said. “I get the sense Rue doesn’t want this particular secret getting out.”

  “Shit, this is about that guy I spotted yesterday, isn’t it?”

  “Yep. Let’s wake Rue up, and we can have a quick discussion. I figure it’s best to leave it to her to explain things to her brother.”

  Nemari chewed her lip, then straightened her shoulders and nodded. She crossed the room in three easy steps and reached down to shake Rue awake. The girl’s eyes snapped open before Nemari even touched her, and she reflexively jerked back before letting out a sharp hiss of pain.

  “God, don’t do that!” she practically snarled at Nemari. With a visible effort of will, she let out a breath and added, “Sorry. Still hurting. Didn’t get a lot of sleep.”

  “I’m afraid I’m going to make your day even worse,” Sorin told her.

  “It’s about Jorn,” Nemari added.

  “What about him?” Rue asked slowly, looking back and forth between the two.

  “Well, the good news is he’s monster bait,” Sorin told her. “Bad news is he followed me out of the hub, knew who I was, and seemed very insistent that I join up with whatever organization he represented. Now, I’m pretty sure you’re connected to these people in some way, but I’m not sure if that preempted them approaching me or if it’s just a coincidence.”

  “Shit,” Rue swore. “This is my fault. Fuck. Alright. I can fix this.”

  “How’s that?” Nemari asked.

  “I don’t fucking know!” Rue snapped. “I’ll… I’ll think of something.”

  “I realize that this is entirely hypocritical of me to even ask,” Sorin said, “but perhaps filling me in on some detail here would make it easier for me to help come up with a plan. I’m assuming this whole thing is related to whatever it is you’re keeping from your brother.”

  “It might be time to tell him, Rue,” Nemari said.

  Rue let out a deep, tired sigh, then winced and grabbed at her rib. “Yeah. Couldn’t really expect to keep it a secret forever, especially not once we started climbing for real.”

  “I’ll go grab him. Seems like it’s probably time for your next session anyway,” Sorin said.

  He slipped out of the room and made his way to the one he shared with the big man. Odric was already up, though it looked like he’d only been awake for a few minutes. “Good to see you in one piece,” he said by way of greeting. “Did you get what you needed last night?”

  “I did,” Sorin said. “Team meeting in the girls’ room.”

  Yawning, Odric nodded. “Give me five minutes.”

  * * *

  Once again, Rue found herself wanting to pace back and forth in a room that was far too small to allow it. The other three had gathered in what was fast-becoming claustrophobic conditions while she sat on the bed. Od knelt next to her, working his healing magic, while Nemari and Sorin leaned against opposite walls and waited for an explanation.

  “Right,” Rue began. “So, I guess what you need to know is that I am, technically, a member of the Black Hellions.”

  “What?!” Nemari yelped, abandoning her slouched over posture to lean forward, eyes wide. “Since when?”

  Od made that stupid humming growl sound he did that meant disapproval and disappointment and probably a bunch of other disa-words that she didn’t know but which were equally bad. But that was all he did. He didn’t even stop channeling anima through Soothing Touch.

  “That was how I got my first soulprint,” Rue said. “Come on. You know how poor I am. You think I could afford something like an umbral goat eye?”

  “I always just assumed you got lucky and stole it from someone with more money than brains,” Nemari said bluntly.

  “Ouch. But okay, not unwarranted. That honestly probably would have been better, but no. I bought it by going into debt with the Hellions. I figured with Od being a healer, we could find a team willing to take us on pretty quickly, but that didn’t happen. And then I couldn’t pay back the loan, not even the first payment.”

  “And that was when you were forcefully recruited,” Sorin said.

  “Yep. The Hellions have spies everywhere. Bradford won’t let them in the Meat Grinder officially, so they use people like me as their eyes and ears instead. I go in, I get a feel for people, I report back to my handler.”

  “And what do they do with that information?” Nemari demanded.

  “I’ve never asked.”

  Sorin snorted. “You’re not dumb. You know what telling that gang means for the people you’ve spied on.”

  “Oh, God. Did you…” Nemari’s face paled.

  “You, Od, me. A hundred other would-be climbers that passed through the Meat Grinder.”

  “I trusted you,” Nemari whispered.

  Rue flinched. Guilt twisted in her gut like a knife. “Sorry.”

  “Your handler knew who I was and followed me,” Sorin pointed out.

  “Jorn wasn’t my handler. That’s Raf. Jorn is his muscle. Was his muscle, I guess. Eldart is his eyes and ears, feeding him information. Raf meets with his… informants, makes the plans, and gives Jorn work to do.”

  “That day you disappeared when we got to the Floor 1 hub,” Sorin said. “You were going to meet with them.”

  Rue nodded. “I was already overdue for my check in. You do not want to miss your check ins and make them come find you.”

  “The bruises I healed when you came back,” Od rumbled quietly.

  “Raf wasn’t happy with me.”

  Nemari swore sulphurously, making Rue’s eyebrows shoot up. I didn’t know she even knew half those words.

  “So the Black Hellions know my build, my future plans, and probably anything else I’ve ever mentioned in casual conversation about my family.”

  “Yeah.”

  Nemari wasn’t taking the betrayal well, but Rue had expected that. It was Od’s reaction that confused her. “You’re not surprised?” she asked him.

  “Already knew you were in trouble with them,” he said softly. “Didn’t know the details, but you wanted your space. I figured you’d come to me if you needed help.”

  “You knew? How?”

  Odric chuckled. “Teenagers always think they’re sneakier than they actually are, like the adults don’t remember when we were that age. I’d have to be blind to have missed it.”

  “All that aside,” Sorin cut in, “the more pressing issue here is that Rue’s handler sent his muscle to pressgang me with orders to kill me if I refused.”

  “I’m surprised you got away from him,” Rue said.

  “I didn’t,” Sorin told her.

  She stared blankly at him for a second, then started laughing. Wasn’t I just thinking the other day that it’d be interesting to see who won if those two fought. Guess I know now.

  “This really isn’t funny,” Nemari told her sternly.

  “You killed him, huh?” Rue asked.

  “And left his body for the tower to take.”

  “Well,” Rue said slowly, looking around at her team. “I would say we’re pretty well fucked then.”