Kai looped the ruin, his boots echoing off stone and splashing through pooled water. Nico tracked him by sound alone, eyes half-closed. Rapid phone taps followed, then the swish of messages sent in quick succession. Maybe that was what Kai had been drafting back in the rift.

  When Kai circled back, a weight settled over the fox—a black bomber jacket, laid over Nico where he sprawled against the stone. It smelled of pine forest and ocean breeze. Sometimes Nico couldn’t believe how nationalistic the guy was; he even smelled like Lumere’s natural biome, as if he’d done a good roll in the forest before the trip just to keep the brand strong.

  Kai sat down next to him, back against a broken stone column, leaning in until Nico felt the steady contact of a leg along his back. A hand started scratching between his ears. It helped with the headache. Nico mentally took back what he’d said… no, he doubled down. His friend was working hard to be a nationalist.

  “You’ll probably have to be medevacked,” Kai said, tapping his phone again.

  “Can you just kill me instead?” the fox whined.

  “You could portal,” Kai offered.

  Nico’s ear lifted. “…Really?”

  “You might go blind from the mana depletion is all.”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  “No.”

  The fox whimpered, his tail weakly whacking the friend who wouldn’t let him go blind. He heard the pop of a puncture, and a juice box was lowered to his nose.

  “You carry these around on you?” Nico asked between sips. “It’s actually… pretty good.” He could see the label: 100% apple juice, not from concentrate.

  “It’s good for blood sugar,” Kai said. “And it seems to comfort people.”

  It was true. A juice box made him feel a level of “taken care of” more elevated than a water bottle would have.

  Nico looked again at what was left of the causeway while sipping. The stone ended abruptly a few strides ahead, a jagged shelf where the road had been sheared off. Beyond it, the swamp had reclaimed the line. Dark water sat stagnant between reeds and half-submerged blocks of heavy foundation stone.

  The rest of the causeway survived only as a series of disconnected islands. Segments jutted from the muck at odd angles—some sunken into the silt, others cracked clean through, others simply gone. It appeared to have once served as a straight line to the border, but now it stopped being a road the moment it left the city. Trees had rooted through what remained of the arches, their trunks thick enough to split the masonry and hold the rubble in place, threading vines through gaps where the mortar had long since washed away.

  They hadn’t entered the rift from this side; it was a known dead-end, a precarious mess of unstable stone. Kai was threatening a medevac because of how much of the border station had been eaten by swamp and blight—a place Nico didn’t love laying on the floor of.

  How Caleb had entered from here… only he could tell. From where Nico sat, it was just a path that had been allowed to drown. The way the stone was torn from the path reminded him of the aqueduct, and how Zhou had gotten them into that rift.

  “…”

  Well, he was with Kai, so they’d started at the border entrance, miles away. They’d entered the rift a segment before where they eventually left Caleb behind. Now the response teams would be over there, on the only accessible side of the break, likely finding Caleb tied to a tree while Nico and Kai sat here, cut off by the moat. It was a relief, honestly, not having to contend with Caleb’s team immediately after unraveling the rift. At least this gave Kai time to send off his texts. Nico had half-expected at least one person to be assigned to this side, too. He wanted to call the guy sloppy, but he didn’t actually know the logistics of planning an assassination, so it wasn’t right to assume.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Kai grabbed Nico’s empty juice box and, not one to litter, tossed it back into his inventory, exchanging it for something crinkly.

  “You know, the way these stones are piled up,” Kai said, his voice low as he poked a cracker against Nico’s cheek. “It reminds me of the north side of the beach house.”

  Nico flapped his ears in protest but opened his mouth to eat it anyway. “The rocky section where the tide pools used to get trapped,” Kai continued.

  Between crumbs, Nico spoke steadily. “Where you broke your ankle trying to catch a crab?”

  “Yeah, I caught it.” Kai nudged another cracker toward Nico’s mouth, ignoring the rest of the statement. “It’s been a while since we went. We used to go every summer during academy.” He watched the fox’s tail swipe slowly across the stone.

  “The town it’s in hosted really fun festivals over the summer…” Nico mumbled.

  “They started being fun for me, too,” Kai added, pinching the fox’s ear. “I’m glad we kept going every time something big happened. Our graduation, our licenses, our guild inductions…” He let go when the ear flicked back at him.

  “The last time was my A-rank,” Nico added, pawing away a third cracker. “That was… two years after yours, so it was…” His voice trailed off, the thought dissolving as his breath turned ragged.

  “Almost four years ago now,” Kai supplemented, eating the rejected cracker himself. “Time went by faster than I’d realized.” His hand returned to the fox’s back. “We really used any excuse to celebrate back then.”

  “We’ll have to accomplish something worth a trip then,” Nico said, his voice smaller.

  Kai went quiet, his fingers snagging on a tangle in Nico’s fur before smoothing it out. “We’ll find a reason after this mission.”

  Nico’s eyes cracked open just a sliver. “We can celebrate kit’s first time being targeted for assassination.”

  “You’re late to my party for that,” Kai retorted with a short laugh.

  Nico flopped his tail onto him again. “It’ll be a joint party. We’ll celebrate your first time tying a guy into a tree.”

  “Why are you assuming that was my first time?”

  “Because you didn’t do it very well,” the fox said, ears trying to waggle. They gave up, softly slowing to a rest.

  Kai flattened the fox’s ears out again. “My mom is always asking when you’ll visit… she asks about you before she does me.”

  “Cuz she’s the best,” Nico replied lazily. ”She still texts me happy birthday.”

  Kai flicked the cartilage of the fox’s ear; it twitched back in a weak reflex. “She said you could even use the beach house without me.”

  “Would I have to ask through you, though?” Nico huffed.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’ll pass. It’d cost too much,” Nico declined.

  “Ok then I’ll tell—”

  Kai cut himself off. The sound of hurried tapping returned. “I have to take a call. One second.”

  “Don’t let them medevac me…” Nico whispered, languidly raising one paw to the sky.

  “Thanks, I’ll follow up on that,” Kai said, already on the phone as he pushed to his feet.

  One of Nico’s ears perked, then lowered, watching him go with deep disappointment. He’d spent so much time eavesdropping in Tellur that he’d forgotten Kai was the most Lycan of Lycans. As if he’d ever linger within earshot for a private conversation.

  Between unrushed blinks, Nico found the sky was pinker than he’d last remembered. A warm, dusty rose softened the broken causeway against the horizon. He could’ve sworn the sun was high up when reality had returned, but now the light was long and golden, washing over the surface of the swamp, highlighting the sway of its reeds.

  A memory rolled in with the tides of the beach house—watching the sky turn pink there, too. Kai’s mom had never let Nico miss a summer from the moment she found out he was choosing between extra courses or working on campus just to keep his dorm spot. Apparently, she cornered Sage Vuong himself to give him an earful about it. Something about “child labor” and “academic cruelty.” Kai was really cheery telling Nico about it the next day. He was always annoyed with his dad, except for when his mom scolded him. It had put Nico in a weird position—being the catalyst for many of those scoldings—for about two decades.

  Sage Vuong—

  A shiver strolled up Nico’s spine, bumping out the thought. Kai’s dad probably couldn’t read minds. Especially not all the way in Tellur. Unless…

  Boots finally echoed on the stone again. Kai braced his back against the column and slid down it with a long, tired sigh, rubbing a hand across his forehead before settling beside the fox. Nico flopped his tail in greeting. When that failed to provoke a response, he waggled his ears in Kai’s direction.

  A warm hand came down, pressing both ears flat before Nico could escalate any further.

  “They found Caleb's body,” Kai said. “Let’s get our story straight.”