Deimos cruised toward a fortress of concrete and steel on the west side of Phoenix, Ellen’s hands on the wheel. She swerved, and the car swerved with her, around a city bus. Then she braked. I gripped the panic handle tightly. “Daddy…Bob…never let me drive Deimos. It was always autopilot. Now I see why,” she said as we drifted into a parking spot outside of the Portal Tyrant’s building.

  The towering castle faced north, into the Wickenberg Portal Break and Surprise. We stepped inside, Ellen’s purse banging on her hip and Jessie in her chair. She was exhausted, and even a partial night’s sleep hadn’t been enough for her to recover. The pancake nightmare probably hadn’t helped, either, even though I’d cleaned it up.

  “Name, rank, and guild affiliations, sirs and ma’ams?” one of the E-Rankers at the door asked. They were a different set than the last time I’d been here. We rattled off our information and were escorted deep inside—but not to the Portal Tyrant’s office or the projection room.

  Instead, we stopped at a small, windowless room deep within the Portal Tyrants’ castle. It felt dry, and the air conditioning was hard at work this morning. The smell of nothing hung in the air as we sat across from an unawakened human in a gray suit. “Mr. Noelstra, Misses Traynor and Gerald, you’re here to inquire about the unused guild outpost in Surprise, correct?” he asked, his voice reedy and high.

  “No,” Ellen said. She reached for her purse, and Jessie opened the bag on her chair. They each pulled a slip of paper out and set them on the man’s desk. “No inquiry is necessary. We have the correct amount to purchase it outright. Eleven million from our delving team, and a loan of nine million from me, plus the necessary fees.”

  The man took a minute to examine the two checks, then nodded. “Very well. The Portal Tyrant will have to approve the purchase, but sometime within the next three days—barring holds on the funds or another reason the transaction falls through—the deed to the building should transfer to you. I’ll need a few pieces of information first, though.

  “First, what is the name of your organization?”

  Jessie’s badge cut through a lot of the red tape as she navigated us through GC Headquarters, but not all of it. The building’s energy felt frantic, like everyone inside was working on coffee and adrenaline. But at the same time, no one seemed to be moving quickly. The vibe and reality didn’t match—especially not when it came to what she was working on.

  “And you have your own building?” the suit-clad man asked.

  “Yes. The Portal Tyrants’ old auxiliary center in Surprise. They put it up for sale, and we came up with the money. Now it’s ours, pending transaction approval, but that’s a formality, am I right? That’s our next stop—getting situated there. Then, we’re figuring out our next steps as a guild,” Jessie said.

  “And getting signed up for the Fallen Delvers Tournament,” Jeff said. He cracked his knuckles.

  “Yep, and that,” Jessie agreed.

  The man pored over the paperwork, then over his tablet. “This all appears to be in order, with one exception. We can deal with that last, though. First, I need to walk you through the process from here.

  “Your guild will enter the system as a Type Three Guild. That gives you a control area of approximately one district, neighborhood, or community, depending on the number of people and the complexity of its map. Your responsibility is to prevent portal breaks within that zone, call in portals that your team can’t handle, and assist your neighbors—in your case, the Portal Tyrants to your south and the Guardians to your north and east—with any portals they cannot handle.”

  He tapped the screen on his tablet, then squinted for a second. “You’re also responsible for maintaining decent relations with any independent delvers and teams in your area.”

  I snorted. The Roadrunners—and especially Deborah and her sponsored team—had been truly excellent at that.

  “A Type Three guild is the entry level. They’re generally able to handle C-Rank portals, with a decent shot at clearing a B-Rank, but no chance of an A. I see your best clear as a guild was an A-assisted A-Rank portal. That’s really good, but you’d still be wise to hand off anything higher than B-Rank.”

  Jessie nodded. “Kade knows that. Right, Kade?”

  I shrugged. “If it’s the best choice, it’s the choice I’ll make.”

  “Excellent. Now, if you do find yourself with a team that can consistently handle A-Rank portals, you can apply for Type Two status. You’ll want at least three teams before you do that, though, because Type Two guilds operate in a couple of districts and run teams on their neighbors’ fringes to overlap coverage. You’ll have Guardian and Portal Tyrant teams in Surprise, since they’re Type One guilds. They’re operating there legally, but in the event that you both arrive outside a portal within a minute or two of each other, your team will have priority and theirs will be the back-up or support team.”

  “Understood,” I said.

  Jessie said nothing. I stared at her, then raised an eyebrow. She winked, and I rolled my eyes. She already knew all of this. She’d probably stolen access to this whole document a month ago—or more—and she’d been studying up.

  “Now, the last thing,” the GC rep said. “What’s your guild’s name?”

  “It’s a shame to see you go, Representative Gerald.”

  Jessie nodded at Representative Trench. The old woman ran the Peoria GC center, and she’d been the best mentor Jessie could have asked for. Firm where she had to be, bending where she could be, understanding that the rules were for delvers, not representatives. Jessie had learned a lot—even more than Trench knew—from her. “It’s a shame to be going, ma’am, but it’s not every day your brother starts a guild and wants you to run it.”

  Trench nodded. Her gray hair bobbed slightly, and she stared Jessie down with the same mix of intense laid-back-ness that she always did. Jessie couldn’t help but look at the floor for a moment. She’d never held that gaze for longer than a few seconds.

  “Well, I understand that. You’re not covering the Peoria district, though?”

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  Jessie shook her head. “No. Kade’s got…there are good reasons for us not to be in Peoria, and Surprise had the advantage of a functional, furnished building.”

  Trench nodded. Then she stood up and offered a hand. Jessie shook it, not wincing. She had the first couple of times, until Trench had figured out how much pressure Jessie’s joints could handle on an average day. “Alright, Jessie. I accept your resignation, but I do hope that if your guild adventure doesn’t work out, you come back.”

  “I will, ma’am.”

  “Anita, please,” Trench said. She held the grip for a moment. “Is your brother planning on entering the tournament?”

  “Yep. Him and a few of our guild mates.”

  “Excellent. I’ll be rooting for him.” Trench paused. She took a deep breath. Then she stepped toward the door. Jessie followed, her badge and tablet sitting on the representative’s desk. At the door, Trench stopped again. “Oh, you didn’t tell me your guild’s name.”

  Jessie and I had driven past the old Portal Tyrants’ outpost before. It stood deep in Surprise, against the 303 Wall, with the Wickenberg portal and the fields on the other side. The rounded shape and balconies had seemed less clean in real life than in the pictures online, but even so, it was going to be our building. And now it was. Neither Jessie nor I had been in a place that belonged to us since Dad died. Neither had Jeff, and Ellen’s situation had been…unique.

  The three of us drove past it twice, slowing Deimos down so we could get a good look at our new home.

  The building—our building—had an attached parking garage. It was a second-floor setup, with a glass-walled bridge spanning an old, cracked road. When the three of us pulled up in Deimos, Sophia’s old beater was already parked inside. I raised an eyebrow as she got out. “Are you moving in here?”

  A second person got out of the passenger’s seat. He was older—at least fifty, with a completely shaved head and a long beard—an unawakened human. No rank, no system. A tablet, but instead of a suit, khaki pants and a short-sleeved white button-down. He cleared his throat, and Sophia shook her head. “No. Not for a while, at least. I’m good where I am. But maybe down the road, when I graduate again.”

  “Miss Walker is making good progress, but she’s told us she’s not ready to be on her own yet, not after her most recent portal. We have cleared her for limited delving at her discretion, though, and she’s eager to see the new facility. I’m Dr. Baker, Miss Walker’s main therapist and her chaperone for this trip,” the man said.

  “I asked him to come along,” Sophia supplied, smiling.

  “Right,” Jessie said. She pulled her cane free and headed for the bridge. We followed. The door unlocked with a swipe of her card, and we stepped inside our new home.

  It was…dusty.

  Planters covered the walls of the atrium we’d stepped into, but they were empty. The white walls were dust-colored, and the tile had a thin layer of dirt. The place had obviously been abandoned for a while. Jessie shrugged. “We’ll get a cleaning company to touch it up. I think it’s not as bad upstairs, and they can start with the bedrooms, so we can get moved in. Gym and sparring room are through there—“ she pointed at a door to the left, “—and the library is to the right.”

  “Perfect,” Ellen said.

  Up one level is the first set of room suites. I call the one closest to the elevator, because…” Jessie waved her cane pointedly, “But you can have any other room on the next two floors. Seven rooms per floor. I think the idea was for three teams to operate out of here, each with a dedicated unwakened support person acting as a sort of GC rep. That’s not our situation, though, and we don’t have to follow that set-up.”

  Someone knocked on the door, and Jessie pressed a button. It slid open, and Yasmin and Jeff walked in, with Raul trailing behind them. “Nice place. I like the dust aesthetic. Very Phoenix,” Yasmin said.

  “Shut up. I’m working on it,” Jessie said.

  “And the fifth floor?” Ellen asked.

  Jessie grinned. “That’s the guild leader’s suite. I figured it was Kade’s, even though I’m technically the guild leader on all the paperwork.”

  “Nah, I don’t need that,” I said.

  Ellen rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you do, Kade. Who else is going to take it? Jessie? Already picked. Me? I don’t want that kind of set-up again. Yasmin?”

  “Hey, I’ll take it if you’re offering, Kade,” Yasmin said.

  Sophia snorted softly. Then she sniffed once and walked down the hall, toward the end. “I’ll move into this one when I’m ready.”

  One by one, the guild picked rooms until it was just me left. The elevator beckoned, and with it, the guild leader’s suite at the top of the tower. It’d be tall enough that I could probably look out into the Wickenberg fields beyond the 303 Wall. It’d be roomy, isolated, and perfect in every way I could ask for. I’d have space to rank up my skills, learn my Laws, and talk to the God of Thunder.

  “I can’t take it,” I said.

  Jessie’s eyes narrowed. She walked over and hit my arm.

  “Ow!”

  “Kade, I already asked everyone. The only person who disagreed with you taking it was Yasmin, and that was just because—“

  “I wanted it,” Yasmin said. “No good reason. I just wanted it.”

  “Yeah, that. Everyone in the guild knows your relationship with Eugene, and you’ve saved every one of our lives,” Jessie said.

  “Except Raul,” I interrupted, trying to find something—anything—that I could use. I wanted that room. I wanted it bad—and not just because of Eugene or because of the privacy. I could have that in any space in the guild. No, I wanted it for Ellen. After last night, I had a feeling she’d be spending more time in my space than in hers. But I couldn’t justify it. Not when—“

  “Kade, you’re being dumb.” Jeff put an arm around my shoulder and walked me to the elevator, then pushed me inside. I tried to protest, but he pressed the floor button, then slipped out. “I’ll be in the gym. Come see me when you’re done.”

  The door shut, and the elevator took me up toward my new room.

  “You’re far too humble, Kade Noelstra,” the God of Thunder said.

  “Nice to hear from you, too.”

  “I may be a bored old monster, kid, but that doesn’t mean I’m not busy. You took up more than your fair share of time in the last few months, and some of my colleagues have started to act up. There’s talk of one of them attempting to rank up and ascend soon.”

  “I thought you were at the peak of your power,” I said. The elevator was really dragging. I made a note to have someone look at it when they could.

  “Unfortunately not. You’re part of that process, kid. Now, focus on yourself and on this tournament. That ‘E-Rank’ portal is interesting—I haven’t seen one like it in a very long time. You’ll want to be one of the delvers that clears it, and that means you or one of your friends has to win.”

  “For someone who’s busy and thinks I’m taking up too much time, you’re good at paying attention to me,” I said, but Eugene didn’t respond, and after a moment, the elevator dinged, and the door opened.

  The suite, at first glance, was perfect.

  It was circular. Bathroom, closet, bedroom, living space. The size of the apartment I’d shared with Jessie. The floor was tile, and the walls were almost all glass—I could see the fields across the 303 Wall. I stood about a story above the ramparts. The furniture—the stuff I planned on keeping, at least—was surprisingly utilitarian. Simple, nondescript, and easy to manage. I liked it already.

  And, to my surprise, it was relatively dust-free. I looked around, trying to figure out why, but there was no evidence of a cleaner, cleaning bot, or any system to remove the dust that had leaked in everywhere else. “Maybe Jessie was right,” I said.

  The bedroom and bathroom didn’t hold my interest so much as the living space did. It was divided into three sections by fold-down walls. The first was a kitchen and dining set-up. I checked the cabinets. Empty. That was fine; we’d hired a company to move our stuff over, and it’d be dropped off later today. The second was a living room, with a TV, couches, and a single chair that looked almost as comfortable as the one Ellen liked. And the third…

  Was empty.

  It overlooked Surprise, with a full array of windows that took up its entire eastern wall. Beyond the wrecked, abandoned district that was ours now was the rest of the city, and off in the distance, the 303 Wall’s opposite side. I stared at it for a long time, trying to decide what to do with it. Then I shook my head. It’d stay empty. I’d use that space to force myself to meditate, to talk to Eugene, and to work on my build, my skills, and myself.

  I headed for the elevator. Jeff was waiting—and so was the rest of the Desert Wind Guild.

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