“What do you mean followed?” Maeve spun in a circle, looking around the abandoned flagstone road they were trekking. They’d left well before dawn, hoping to get to the docks before anybody decided to start working in the warehouses. The saltwater scent had always been a comfort for him. It pervaded the city, but once he could hear the waves and seabirds, it was a different feeling. Like regaining a missing part of himself.

  Then he thought about that kraken nearly taking him out, and that comfort floor fell out real fast.

  “Apparently Elanaril Dawnflare is having me followed.” Greg shrugged. “I haven’t seen anything, but I don’t know why she’d lie to me about it?”

  “Okay…” Maeve shook her head. “I’m sorry. Why? No offense, but you’re just a nobody.”

  “None taken.” He scoffed.

  “Why is she having you followed?”

  “No idea.” The ground beneath them changed from flagstone to gravel. “She did say she would be keeping an eye on me. If she does have somebody watching, though, they are not very helpful.”

  “Well, watching you and saving your bony ass are two different things. Trust me, I know.” Maeve elbowed his hip.

  “When did you save me?” Greg winced, feigning pain as he rubbed the spot she’d hit.

  “I seem to recall a naked guy in a ditch, and then there was that time you went too hard and nearly offered yourself up to the gods? Oh, wait, that happened twice! Guess who had to peel you off the pavement?” She cocked her head up at him, eyebrows raised high.

  He frowned, but finally gave her a reluctant nod. “I guess you’re right.”

  “Of course I am,” she chirped, skipping ahead of him as they arrived on the outskirts of the port. “You might be the scary Gifted, but just remember ol’ Maeve is the one who keeps you on your feet.”

  “Who could forget ‘Ol’ Maeve’?” He mimicked her, resulting in a quick, playful gut punch.

  They maneuvered through the initial blockade of admin buildings surrounding the docks before getting to the warehouses. He’d gotten better about using his UI’s minimap feature since his run-in with Horatio and his goons, but even without flagging the building he could pick it out despite being in a sea of identical metal buildings.

  “What exactly are we looking for here?”

  “No idea.” Greg glanced back and forth as he walked up to the back door of the warehouse. “Something incriminating enough to get the justicars to plant themselves between the Rillon family cheeks?” He knelt down and pulled the picks from the pocket of his duster, popping a couple in his mouth before setting the tension rod. “Keep an eye out,” he spoke around the metal.

  “Nah, I was just gonna stand here and watch you play with the door.” Maeve leaned against the wall, blocking him from view from one angle and keeping a close eye on the other. “You realize we are talking about top five powerful families on the planet, right? You’re going to have to find enough evidence to bury them.”

  “Yeah, I know. They’re the only ones who can make artifacts or whatever. Big deal.” Greg felt along the pins.

  “Making artifacts isn’t the problem. Hell, I could make one. The problem is getting the dragon hearts. Outside of full on armies, there are only a couple of groups that can take them down.” Maeve said, glancing down at his progress. “You’re not very good at this are you?”

  “I just read a book about it, give me a break.” He popped the final pin and twisted the handle. “Uhh…traps. Do you know how to check for traps?”

  “Send your friends in first?” Maeve shrugged.

  “Mhmm… Okay, well I’m gonna walk through this door. If I blow up, please save my bony ass again.” He slowly stood up and pushed the door open

  “Always.” She gave him a quick slap on the behind and took several large steps back.

  Greg held his breath. Better to just get it over with. He hopped across the threshold and into the dark room.

  Nothing.

  He evacuated his lungs just in time for a whirring sound to rev up behind him and then zip by his head. After letting out a very manly squeak and throwing himself to the side into the wall of the warehouse, he glanced up from his position on the ground at Maeve standing over him and the little drone hovering over her head and lighting up the area around her.

  “Maeve special.” She jerked her thumb up at it. “Mother Below, you’re a jumpy thing for having magic powers.”

  He took Maeve’s outstretched hand, and she heaved him to his feet. Dusting himself off, Greg took a look around the immediate area. Unfortunately, it looks suspiciously just like a warehouse. A few rows of shells laid out right in front of them, and further to the left in the open space was a mass of crates, boxes, and barrels.

  “Lets take a look around,” he whispered and stepped past her to close the door behind them.

  “Yeah, but like…for what?” Maeve asked as she casually strolled into an aisle, little drone buzzing behind her.

  “Anything that doesn’t look like it should be in a dusty old warehouse.” He called back in a hushed tone Maeve seemed to refuse to match before moving for the barrels. His hope had been finding a barrel that matched the one he’d found in the sewers. The griffin and spear burnt into the lid. Finding it chock-full of Frost would have been an even bigger bonus.

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  That did not happen.

  The logo was nowhere to be seen. Nothing on boxes, or crates, and certainly not any barrels. The only thing on any of them was a neat stamp that read Rillon Shipping Company. He’d even pulled out Light Drinker and used its tip to pry open one of the wooden crates. Fucking plates. He let out a low grumble before Maeve called out to him.

  “Uhhh…Greg?”

  He looked up, spotting the drone buzzing above one of the aisles. He hurried over and came to a stop beside her. Something was off. He didn’t see anything, but before she even said anything…he could hear something.

  “Do you…?”

  “Yeah,” Greg said, turning his head to parse out the source of the sound. He knew the sound. It just wasn’t clicking in his mind. He searched shelves, no longer concerned about leaving any trace behind. Pushing boxes to the side or completely off the shelf, he followed the low hum down. Now on his knees, he pushed the contents of the bottom shelf to the aisle opposite, and it hit him all at once.

  The buzzing.

  Goose pimples spread over his body as he felt along the floor, his fingers finding coarse carpet.

  “Help me move this.” Greg lurched to his feet and grabbed the five foot tall shelf by one end. Maeve grabbed the other, and they moved it along with the two other shelves that were above the six by six hunk of carpet. His vision blurred to static as he bent down and pulled the carpet back.

  Beneath a circular metal grate, a shimmering opalescent pool greeted them. It was all but completely opaque. Instead of the hint of a bottom, he swore he could see trees swaying with the wind from within.

  “Have I lost my mind?” Greg whispered.

  “I don’t think so,” she called back, now with the good sense to whisper as well.

  “Do you see the trees?”

  “I think it’s a portal.” She answered his next question before adding. “We should put this stuff back and get the hells out of here.”

  “It’s definitely a portal.” Isabella interjected. “Portals are heavily monitored. Even if the Rillon’s got approved for one, the Thirteen would not allow them to put it in a warehouse any idiot could break into.”

  “We should go through.” Greg grinned as the buzzing and static grew louder and more intrusive.

  “We definitely should not do that.” Maeve snapped and grabbed his shoulder even as his fingers sunk into the grates to pull. “You don’t know where this thing goes. You might pop out on the other side of the world in an encampment full of starving giants.”

  “Oh, no, not you and I…” He’d almost forgotten Maeve was with him. The buzzing was so damn loud. He needed to control his volume. “You stay here. Keep a lookout.” He grunted as he heaved the grate up and leaned it against the case he’d originally moved.

  Maeve was saying something. He could hear her tone just on the other side of the buzz, but it was easy enough to ignore. Getting her powerful hands off his shoulders was less than simple, however.

  “Waiting on you.” Greg said, not looking back at Maeve. “Go through or no?”

  “You dumb son of a bitch! Get back!” She was yelling at him now. Trying, and mostly succeeding, to pull him away from the big, enticing circle. He let her drag him a few inches back. It wouldn’t matter. He’d not had enough time in a safe zone to lower his volatility.

  “Do it.”

  Greg glanced up and vanished, leaving Maeve’s hands grasping at smoke.

  “Oh, you little!” Maeve growled as she started looking around. “I’ll kick your ass if I find you.”

  It took a moment for gravity to take over. He’d jaunted straight up above the portal, and was now plummeting directly into it. “Be right back!” he called before the opalescent glow took him.

  Diving into the portal was not the brightest idea, but in his defense, there was no other way he was going to get out of Maeve’s grasp. He hit the ground instantly, legs crumbling under him and the rest of his body falling forward face first into a moss carpeted forest floor. Greg rolled onto his back with a low groan and picked bits of twigs and dirt out of his hair and off his face before looking up at the portal.

  Technically, it was hidden. If he didn’t know what he was looking for, it would just be a weird-looking tree. Behind thick hanging ferns and between two trunks that had twisted together, the feintest hint of the opalescent portal could be seen.

  He pushed himself to his feet and shook off the excess dirt as he looked around. “Where are we?”

  Isabella zoomed out on his minimap several times until a more general overview of the coast showed. It looked like they were about fifty miles north of Rhobair.

  “Monarch’s Forest.” Isabella zoomed back in on the map quickly. “Keep your wits about you and don’t stray too far from the portal.”

  He’d not heard a lot about the forest outside Rhobair, only that high-level adventurers took jobs out here from time to time. As he walked through the trees, the quiet immediately struck him. Real quiet. No birds. No running water. No wind rustling through the trees. Even the buzzing in his head had stopped. All he could hear was the occasional snap of a twig underfoot and his own breathing.

  “I know I grew up in the city, but I don’t think it’s meant to be this quiet.” He kept his voice low, scanning through the trees for any movement. Outside the portal, nothing looked out of the ordinary.

  “It’s not. This place is dangerous, be careful.”

  Greg frowned, but kept moving. He had Isabella mark the portal tree on the map and walked slow, deliberate circle around it, extending the radius each rotation. There would be no convincing him that Horatio didn’t know about this portal. Which meant there was something out here. He just needed to find it.

  With each pass, he grew more convinced he was missing something. It had to be staring him right in the face. Yet all he saw were trees. There weren’t even any paths or tracks that would suggest people had walked through her. Just soft, mossy dirt…and fucking trees.

  The portal was hidden in the trees.

  Greg reached out, fingers pushing into the bark of the nearest tree. It reminded him of a pine, but its needles were short and the bark of the tree felt soft. Soft enough to fall apart in his hands. He glanced at the other trees around him. It seemed they were mostly the same variety, with a few exceptions.

  He dug his fingers into the bark and ripped downward.

  Flaky bark fell to ground at his feet.

  He tore again and again.

  A dull blue light emanated from the small hole.

  Greg pushed his fingers in and tore. Bark splintered until he had a clear view of the jaw and lips of a human within, illuminated in a soft blue hue. There was no way Horatio Rillon was making Frost kissed out in the woods. He pushed a finger in and found a soft barrier. Squishy. Like Gelatin.

  “I don’t understand. This is not how Frost kissed are made.” Isabella spoke in his mind, though he had the feeling it was more to herself than him.

  Greg pulled out Light Drinker and dug out the bark, carving into the tree until he’d almost fully exposed a woman encased in some kind of bioluminescent blue goo. At least…she’d been a woman once, he thought.

  The two eyes on her face were mercifully closed, the others that had sprouted through her skin did not have the same mercy. Her head was bald, but two additional mouths had grown in, one just above her left ear and the other where her hairline would have started over her right eye. Her arms and legs looked like they’d broken and healed over incorrectly numerous times, creating awkward, multi-jointed tentacle-like limbs covered in additional eyes and toothy maws.

  “What the fuck…” Greg said, taking a step back.

  “Well, this is awkward.” A familiar voice called from behind him, and he jumped, spinning in the air. Light Drinker still in hand, he stared across a small opening in the trees at Kael Vireth. Greg’s eyes dropped from the deep brown Gifted eyes to Maeve trapped in his arms with a dagger to her throat.