‘I’m still not quite understanding what happened back there,’ Riot was saying as they awaited the tram at the nearest stop.

‘Remember the skill vials?’ Sham replied. ‘The ones I mentioned yesterday?’

Riot nodded.

‘Asa is about to obtain some.’

‘Yes,’ Riot said, ‘I understood that far. But what’s that got to do with stopping this woman from destroying the Tower?’

‘Well,’ Sham replied as he spotted the tram coming. ‘This woman—Julya, your brother said her name was…’

Riot’s eyebrows pricked up at mention that Kryl knew the terrorist by name.

‘She is powerful. More powerful than anyone I’ve ever encountered before. More so than the Legion, even. Whereas I…’ He gestured down at himself.

‘Weak, yes,’ Riot said, as though this were a simple statement of fact rather than an insult. Well, only a simple statement of fact.

‘Except for one thing: I took one of those vials in an earlier Loop.’

Their conversation was drawn to a pause by the arrival of the tram. Both of them nodded a greeting to the driver as they stepped on.

Positioned standing at the rear of the tram, Sham brought his mouth close to Riot’s ears and continued at a near whisper. ‘Recollection. It’s how I remember the Loops.’

‘It’s how you…’ Riot started, and then mouthed the rest of the thought to herself before turning back to Sham. ‘They preserve across Loops?’

Sham nodded. ‘Yeah. And the natural skills too. I completed an achievement two Loops ago escaping from a prison vehicle—’

Riot raised another eyebrow.

‘—And took the opportunity to bank a Common grade Command skill. And here I am, a whole two Loops later, and I still have it.’

His friend nodded to herself as she consumed this information, and then went straight to the heart of the matter. ‘This Julya, she’s strong, right? So she’s taken these very same Legendary grade skill vials herself?’

Sham nodded. ‘And takes more every Loop.’

‘But… you said they’re preserved. With the Loop. So why would she need to take more?’

It was a question he’d asked himself a couple of times now, but one that he’d never had time to dwell on. He had precisely zero theories on that one. Sham put his hands in the air, palm up, to signal just how many theories he had.

‘Right,’ Riot said, her eyes narrowing, her head turning to stare out the window at the passing streets.

‘What?’ Sham asked. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘I’m thinking: you’re so fixated on overpowering this woman that you’ve overlooked other aspects. Typical man.’

Sham pulled a face, but was cut off by Riot’s continuing stream of thought before he could interject.

‘This aberration in the mechanics of these Loops surely can be used to an advantage. If you can just work out the why, you might just get the how.’ Riot’s face swung back to Sham. ‘Have you considered tracking down her supply? Stripping it from her?’

‘Yes. She gets them from Asa—’

‘The man we just…’

‘—So I’ve tried that. Kryl has too, I think, judging by the map I found in his bedroom a few Loops back. Obviously neither of us were successful.’

‘Why?’ Riot interjected.

Sham pulled a face. ‘What?’

‘Why? Why were neither of you successful? Did she have the vials already?’

‘Well, no… she gets them for saving Gresley. For saving someone.’

‘Then what stopped you?’

‘She… she did.’

The tram swung to a sudden halt, the driver shouting at a pedestrian who’d crossed its path. Both Sham and Riot snapped their heads to the disturbance, but their anxiety was quashed the moment they’d realised what had happened.

‘How?’ Riot continued the line of questioning. ‘If she didn’t yet have the vials, then how did she overpower you? And overpower Kryl?’

Sham could only shrug in response. ‘Guess she’s strong enough already.’

‘Then why’s she after the vials at all?’

He shrugged again, more dramatically this time. ‘I don’t know. Look, I really don’t know much about any of this. It’s your bloody brother who does, and he won’t tell me what he knows.’ Sham looked up at Riot. ‘Won’t tell me. But maybe you.’

Riot smiled. That peculiar, irritating, know-it-all smile. ‘About time we go find him, then, isn’t it?’

They’d alighted the tram at the next stop, Riot having suddenly had an idea where she might find her mysterious brother, and them requiring a different tram line in order to get there. This tram—a newer yet slightly less polished model than used to head into the Sunrise District—did not continue straight over Government Plaza. Instead, they swung left at the far corner of the square from the Tower, sending them north.

The rails of this line took them slightly into the very boundaries of the Crater, where there was only a sense of the full disrepair that still existed in Haven’s northern reaches. Riot did not so much as glance in the destruction’s direction, as though almost unnaturally or pointedly so. But soon the tram swung east once more, carrying them not into the Sunrise District, but along the banks of the Dripcanal.

To the hoity-toity types that Riot and Kryl ran with, it was Dripcanal that was considered the most rotten part of Haven. As though the gambling dens and opium joints in this part of the city were the absolute worse that it had to offer. Of course, this was only because none of them had stepped a single foot into the Harbour District at any moment in their lives. Many of them never would, and would lie on their deathbed still content in the knowledge that they knew their city as well as anyone. Sham looked at Riot, unnoticed, wondering if she had been one of these misguided souls until they’d crossed paths.

The tram continued its winding journey down the front of the canal, winding slowly through stony courtyards onto which bars and restaurants spilled, rolling between trees and pillars with strings of lanterns wrapped between them. There was a sense of criminality to the area, one that even Sham could sense in the dark alleyway meetings and the bloodshot eyes, but it was plastered over by wealth and cleanliness. It was almost an affront to true criminals that citizens with obvious wealth could be so flagrant about it.

‘This is a weird thing to get worked up about,’ Recollection murmured.

‘Shut up,’ Sham whispered back, forgetting himself for a second, and receiving a strange look from Riot as a result of it. He was fortunate when she didn’t pursue it as a line of questioning; he wasn’t ready to explain the voice. Not just yet.

Finally Riot rose from her seat and signalled for their stop. They spilled out onto the canalside, and Sham could smell the wetness in the air—though whether this was from the water in the canal or from tomorrow’s rain, he was not sure.

‘Come,’ Riot said, nodding to her right. ‘This way. And hold yourself up more, make yourself look like you belong.’

Sham paused, thrown by the suggestion, but pulled his shoulders back nonetheless.

When Riot led the pair of them into the front of a nearby casino, Sham understood exactly why she’d comments on his posture. The casino, though undoubtedly not entirely by the book, was grand in architecture and grander in patron.

Sham’s outfit—though “costume” suddenly felt like a more accurate description—was not, in and of itself, that dissimilar to that of his fellow male patrons. They all wore leather boots, dark trousers, shirts with collars that, admittedly, weren’t crinkled. But it was the cut of these items of clothing, the freshly-pressed nature of their fabrics, which separate Sham from the crowd. Even in this supposedly disreputable part of town, Sham did not fit in. Such were the citizens of the Harbour District.

He spotted Riot staring at him, and straightened out his back once more. It did little to disguise how ill-fitting he was for such an establishment, but it was, at least, something.

Riot grimaced, caught herself doing so, and then nodded. She led Sham down a glamorous flight of wide stairs onto the casino floor proper, and Sham found himself near overwhelmed by the amount of action erupting around him. Patrons cheered, patrons groaned, dice echoed around wooden tables and cards were tossed with such aggression that he thought for a moment that they might cut straight through the tables. But Riot did not stop at any of these tables, instead keeping her gaze fixed firmly on a man in a black suit at the very end of the casino hall.

The man they approached was about their age, though he carried it far better than Sham. His head was still full of hair—there was no questioning that—and the little grey he possessed was combed elegantly behind his ears. He spoke in the ear of another nearby gentleman, and judging by the reddening cheeks of his companion, he was whispering things that he might not want anyone to overhear.

Riot stopped a small distance away from this man, gesturing for Sham to do the same, and then coughed pointedly.

The man in question did not respond for a moment, so busy caught up in his whispering, only turning when the man he was talking dirty to nodded in the visitors’ direction. The gentleman turned, raised his eyebrows, then faced other man once more. ‘Run along, my dear,’ he whispered just loudly enough that Sham and Riot could hear. ‘Have fun. I’ll track you down later, don’t you worry.’

The other man hurried off, leaving Riot’s apparent acquaintance free to speak with them. He paused as if only for dramatic effect, smiled, and then held his hands wide. ‘Riot Resnuc!’ he cried out—far louder than he needed to. ‘How long has it been?’

[SEASONED] A BELLOWED GREETING: SUCCESS

Think, Sham. Why shout someone’s name in greeting, unless you want others to overhear? This man wants witnesses to this interaction. It’s nothing you haven’t done before.

‘Too long, Harcourt,’ Riot replied, wearing the very same overambitious smile on her face, and widening her arms to meet the gentleman in his friendly embrace. ‘Far too long.’ She nodded to the man Harcourt had been speaking with. ‘Am I to understand that Alistair is no longer in the picture?’

‘Not for a while now, I’m afraid to say,’ Harcourt replied, before turning his attention to Sham, his eyes sweeping ever so quickly over him, as if it only took a second to size him up. ‘And I see you’ve taken a new man too.’

Riot was caught in such surprise by this sentence that she raised her eyebrows so much they might’ve hopped off her head.

‘No,’ Sham said, reaching forward for a handshake and saving his friend in the process. ‘Ain’t taken anything of the sort. Sham.’ He made sure not to provide a last name.

‘I’m here about Kryl,’ Riot said, jumping straight to the point this time.

‘Just when doesn’t she jump to the point?’ Recollection asked.

Sham managed to resist the urge to tell him to shut it. It took Sham a moment, with Recollection whispering in his mind, to realise that Harcourt’s demeanor had changed. His eyes had glazed over, his tongue bitten; he was no longer receptive like he had been only moments earlier.

With a sigh, the gentleman reached into his suit pocket, and pulled from it two wrapped and bound stacks of casino chips. He offered one to each of them.

‘Harcourt,’ Riot responded, placing her palms up in refusal. ‘I can’t. That’s too much.’

But the gentleman smiled, and then with that same warm, charismatic voice, said, ‘Please. Have some fun. I—’

‘We’re not here to gamble,’ Sham interjected before he caught himself. Just where had that come from? After all, he had nothing if not time.

‘Please,’ Harcourt said again, firmer this time. Only then did Sham understand that there was more at play here than a simple gift.

‘He’s a bit rude,’ Riot said, nodding to Sham. ‘But he’s right. I need to know where—’

‘Take it,’ Harcourt insisted, shaking the stack of chips near-viciously. ‘We don’t talk unless you partake in the games.’

Sham gulped, found himself sharing a look with Riot. As his friend’s cue, he relented, taking a stack of chips from Harcourt’s hand.

‘Where do you want…’ Sham started, gesturing to the many tables around the casino, each sporting a different game.

‘Whichever you like, my fellow.’ Harcourt stuffed another stack of chips in Riot’s palm, wrapping her hands in his own, and smiling warmly. ‘You too, my dear, I’m afraid.’

Riot’s brow furrowed, but she said no more of it, instead turning to Sham and flashing him a nod, before disappearing onto the casino floor. At her cue, Sham followed, scouring the tables for something he knew how to play. His attention was soon captured by the rattle of ball bearing against wood.

Roulette.

Sham ambled over to the table, and then, without thinking, placed the entire stack of chips down at random on the table. The player opposite him—a woman in a stunning cocktail dress, the likes of which Sham had never seen outside of shop windows—raised her eyebrows at his choice.

Sham, trying to hide his embarrassment at her obvious judgement of him, backed his decision up in a shaky voice. ‘Let’s just see, shall we?’

‘The number five?’ the glamorous gambler responded.

He shrugged. ‘Lucky number.’

It wasn’t; he didn’t have such a thing.

The woman smiled, though Sham couldn’t tell if it was with him or at him, and the roulette wheel was spun once more. The ball bearing rattled around the outside, spinning against the edge for longer than Sham could’ve thought possible—though maybe it just felt longer because it might lead to him being embarrassed in front of a pretty woman—before finally coming to a stop.

[FLUKE] 35-TO-1: FAIL

You do understand how probability works, right? If you wanted to win—win anything at all—a straight bet was probably not the wisest choice.

‘Red 34!’ the crouper cried out.

34 was, notably, not the same as 5.

Sham groaned as the entire stack of chips was swept from the table, all of Harcourt’s stake lost in the matter of seconds. But to Sham’s surprise, his ill luck was received by a cheery pat on the back.

‘Excellent, my good chap,’ Harcourt said. ‘I knew you weren’t one of them, of course. But you can never be too careful.’

‘One of them?’ Sham asked, glancing to a returning Riot for answer. A shake of her said told him she had nothing. ‘What do you mean, “one of them”?’

‘Nothing, nothing,’ Harcourt replied with the wave of his hand. ‘Come! To the bar. May I offer my new friends a drink.’

Sham opened his mouth to reply, to place an order, but at a glance from Riot found something change inside him.

[HARDENED LIVER] NONE FOR ME: SUCCESS

Huh. Really? Fair enough, then. But can I ask: what’s brought this on?

‘I’m good,’ Sham said. ‘But thanks for the offer.’

‘Sidecar,’ Riot responded with a nod.

Harcourt smiled. ‘Coming right—’

A ruckus at a far table cut their host off. A woman—near as glamorous as the first, Sham noted—wrestled her arm away from a tall, broad, member of the casino security.

‘I won it!’ she shouted, pitch high. ‘Fair and square!’

Sham couldn’t quite make out the low, rumbling tones of the security when he muttered something in her ear, but the woman’s next response filled in the blanks.

‘Boono?’ she shouted back. ‘Boono? You think I would touch that stuff? Me?’ The indignation was feigned, over-done, and quickly seen through by the member of security, who began to wrestled her from the premises.

Harcourt raised his eyebrows. ‘A lot of that, these days. People who think they can cheat the system.’

‘How do you know they’re not actually lucky?’ Riot asked.

Their host’s eyes lit up, his mouth warped into a smirk. ‘Because the house is using boono.’

Riot nodded to herself. ‘Putting a new meaning to “the house always wins.”’

‘Indeed,’ Harcourt replied, and then led them over to the bar area. After ordering their drinks—a sidecar for Riot and a glass of tonic for Sham; his refusal being truly understood by the man—Harcourt beckoned the bartender away, seeking some privacy.

‘You were here about…’

‘My brother,’ Riot said. ‘We’re looking for him. It’s… urgent.’

‘Well, I’ve seen him, yes,’ Harcourt replied.

‘When?’ Sham butted in. ‘Today? Yesterday?’

But Harcourt pulled an expression that wasn’t exactly promising. ‘Not for a few days now, really. Three? Four? Who’s to say when you exist in a place like this.’ He gestured to the casino around him, and it was only then that Sham realised that windows were notably missing. ‘Passed on some boono to him. A couple of vials. But I do beg you not to repeat that, of course.’

Riot nodded, and Harcourt’s eyes shifted instead to Sham. He nodded too, and the matter seemed put to bed.

‘You say you can’t find him? He’s missing?’

‘There’s people after him,’ Riot replied.

‘The Legion,’ Sham added—though he immediately regretted parting with that particular bit of information.

Harcourt raised his eyebrows once more. ‘The Legion are after him, are they? So soon?’

Riot flashed Sham a peculiar expression—she’d recognised, too, that Harcourt wasn’t telling them everything.

‘Then the moment must be prematurely upon us,’ Harcourt finished.

‘Moment?’ Sham asked. ‘What moment?’

Harcourt studied him once again, his eyes lingering for longer this time. His gaze holding on his unpolished, dirty boots, his eyes fixing on his unkempt beard and unruly hair. Just what Harcourt was determining from this, Sham wasn’t sure—but he didn’t think he’d like to find out.

‘Can I ask, sir…’ Harcourt finally asked, leaning in and lowering his voice so much that even Riot wouldn’t be able to hear, ‘Have you yet chosen a side in the coming storm?’

‘What?’ Sham instinctively replied. He’d heard that phrasing before.

No.

Not heard it, perceived it.

QUEST: LIFE IN THE REVOLUTION

Pick a side in the coming storm.

Sham swallowed, narrowed his eyes at the strange man in front of him. ‘You don’t know someone named Gresley, do you?’

Harcourt raised an eyebrow. ‘I wouldn’t know about that. Perhaps…’

But he trailed off.

‘Perhaps…’

Harcourt shook his head, retreated back from Sham and resumed speaking at his normal booming level. ‘When you do find Kryl, please give him my best.’