The five of them stumbled along the road: Navid, Ryan, Lisa, Pepper, and the horse. Jason had slipped away during the confusion with someone in a hooded cloak.

The underground city of ‘Hadica’ rose like a stone banner in front of them as it came into view. All six lanes of the tunnel were in use. A stream of travelers passed them by, horses and mules, carriages and wagons, bicycles, a postman on a flying broom.

Ryan’s head turned to track him with muted envy. I’d be a postman, he thought, if it meant getting a flying broom as part of the job description.

Guards patrolled the wagon village and directed traffic as it slowly dismantled itself. Those that recognized their adventuring party eyed them with mixed reactions. A pair of guards gave them consoling smiles and a shrug. A merchant family leveled searing glares.

A fire spirit on a horse’s back spat on the ground as they crossed paths. His spit seared into the weeds, and Ryan nearly hurled his empty water bottle at him. It wasn’t worth it.

They had kept their word. They had cleared the road and guided the actors to safety. They might have gotten the proper order of events mixed up …

Now, a charred husk of a carriage had been towed out of the tunnel. Its owners stood nearby with the few meager possessions they’d managed to save. A small team of guards and nurses spoke to them, offering bowls of smoking water to breathe from.

One of the actors had been badly hurt. Spiderwolves had mauled his legs. He would live, but Ryan wasn’t sure how well he would recover. He definitely couldn’t perform tonight. Some of the other actors they’d escorted back wouldn’t perform instead. They were too shaken by the attack. He had overheard them making plans to drink tonight.

The last hour had been a cold reminder that not everyone was dull to bloodshed; that Ryan wasn’t entirely dull to it, either. If he closed his eyes … He could use a drink himself.

Not all was bad. The travelers stuck in the city had been drinking to pass the time. Now, they did it with a cheer. The roads were clear! Nobody had died. Aside from the spiderwolves … and the horses …

But the public didn’t care about those, and it would have taken the city weeks to chase off the spiderwolves. They had saved the people here a small fortune. Yet, if they had let the city do it in time, maybe fewer spiderwolves would have died … and the horses …

Another cart rolled by as they approached the gates. Three teenagers sitting on it applauded them. Ryan didn’t know if their bright smiles were sardonic or not. He sighed and craned his head back to stare at the golden roots.

Usually, when he screwed up, it conjured a sick darkness in him that dragged him under until all he wanted to do was curl up and— sleep. Sleep, most of the time.

This was not that.

This was— He was on his feet. He was exhausted. He’d ridden a horse, fought for his life, and spent an hour foraging in cramped tunnels. His grip loosed and tightened on the loot sacks he carried. His eyes searched for some task he could complete. He was restless.

He wasn’t angry, not sad, not tired, just … Ryan didn’t where things had gone wrong. Where he had screwed up.

He had made mistakes, of course. In combat. How he had spoken to the spiderwolves, how he had spoken to his teammates. But those were minor mistakes, or else based on the information he’d had at the time. Maybe he could have saved a handful of travelers minor wounds at the price of striving for perfection.

Ryan had tried. Even with the benefit of hindsight, he didn’t know how he could have done better. He felt disappointed. In himself, in the Theatre, and …

His eyes wandered from side to side, from the carefree Navid, who had led the merchants into the spiders’ webs, to the carefree Pepper, who had lost his horses—neither of them had told them the spiderwolves could speak. Navid claimed he hadn’t known. He was almost prepared to ask him again when Anne was around.

He wondered where Jason had run off to. Hadn’t he been the one to rush them out in the first place?

Ryan felt a little disappointed in his teammates.

Not Lisa. The thought was there, blaming her. He shoved it aside because it was ridiculous. Lisa had done most of the work. She had saved them. Why would he think such a thing? He was used to intrusive thoughts. But the others—

“Argh!” Pepper broke their exhausted silence with a sound of frustration. They turned, and he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck.

“What was that?” Lisa asked.

“Sorry. I just, uh … realized I have to go back to work! My bosses are not going to be happy I’m coming back with only one— well, two of their horses. Your other friend, uh …?”

“Jason.” Ryan preened a little at the chance to remind another of someone else’s name.

“Yeah, if he hasn’t brought his horse back, or if the shop was closed when he tried, tell him to tie it to the post outside and I’ll get to it later?”

“Sure?”

Lisa and Navid continued to talk to him as they went through customs, asking whether there would be consequences for the guide … but mostly for them. Pepper said not to worry. He would probably lose his job, but he was used to it.

Ryan believed that in a heartbeat. It must have shown in his expression, because the Salamander man glared at him with citrus-colored eyes. He shrugged in an empty apology, which did nothing to assuage the man’s anger.

“I’m probably going to have to partially pay for the lost horses,” he went on, “but I doubt my bosses are going to come after you. If they do, you will be long gone. I knew what I was getting into when you hired me. It was my responsibility.”

Navid and Lisa spoke with an oddly polite concern Ryan had rarely ever heard from them as one of their friends, but he didn’t really care for the man’s plight. He agreed. It had been his fault one of the horses had run off, because he somehow couldn’t fasten a proper leash. It had been his fault the other two had been eaten. They had told him to leave.

As for his other teammates … Not that Ryan wanted to assign blame. Even if he did say something, that wasn’t his intention.

If he closed his eyes, he could still see the people being attacked behind him, in the dark, surrounded by fire and smoke. It was a miracle nobody had died, and he was grateful. Lisa had done so much. All Ryan had been able to do was hold off an adult while he listened to their cries for help.

Assigning blame now would be heartless. If he had thought his teammates were doing something wrong, he should have spoken up when they’d been planning their approach.

Except, that was part of what would drag him under. Taking the weight of responsibility and inevitably lashing out at his friends for his own shortcomings.

Ryan could see what not to do. It was just … Did it have to be a bad thing? That he felt this way? Even if his friends did not suffer the same dark thoughts he did—would he even know if they did?—they had to see their failure and feel bad for it.

He just thought there had to be a better way to be a good teammate.

Pepper threw his free arm up in exasperation. His horse eyed him uneasily where it walked on the side of the road. “Alright!” he said and split off in the direction of a branching street. “I have to leave. See you later …?”

“Huh?” Lisa realized he was asking her. “Oh, yeah. Maybe.” She sounded surprised, but Pepper left with a smile.

Assistant Director Veshim let out a heavy sigh. “I cannot say that I am pleased.”

The theatre was abuzz with activity as workers made final preparations. The foyer of the community center had looked polished on their way in. They’d waited, slumped in theatre seats, for fifteen minutes to speak to the man.

Jason had already given him a brief account of the events on his way through, apparently, but the Assistant Director had sent an intern out to have his own accounting of things.

They corroborated their stories in broad strokes and filled in some of the blanks Jason couldn’t have known—or rather, hadn’t bothered to ask them about before he had left.

The assistant director’s tired disappointment, rather than anger, made Ryan uncomfortable. He had expected him to be angrier. He had worried the guards might arrest them, too, but they had been sympathetic.

It was the merchants who blamed them. It was the civilians who blamed the merchants. More than once, they had overheard the sentiment in the streets, That’s what you get for relying on travelers. As if they should have known not to fall for empty promises.

That, more than anything, had wiped the smile off Navid’s face. If he faulted Lisa and Ryan for not killing the monsters sooner, his expression didn’t show it.

In the same way, if Ryan faulted Jason and Navid for hounding the merchants into a dangerous situation, he tried not to show it.

They stood united in front of the man while the golden children, Anne and Frederick, who had nearly aced their parts of the assignment, glowed with smiles and praise off to the side.

Maybe it was a good thing I was an only child for most my life. Ryan found himself resenting their success as Veshim looked at them like a disappointed father. Yeah, but you didn’t exorcise the ghost, did you? Not so perfect after all, huh?

His thoughts almost made him laugh. Just how tired was he? He’d liked to have spent another fifteen minutes slumped in that seat.

“By all rights, you nearly succeeded. You have helped us more than if you had done nothing, but that does not erase the harm you inflicted with your mistakes … I can offer you a partial reward,” Veshim said to Lisa after a moment of consideration. “For now.”

Luckily, the paper man didn’t have time to discuss their performance at length. His and his father’s assistants waited impatiently at the edge of their conversation, wanting to speak to him. Their time until the curtains rose was short. The first guests would be arriving soon.

Their team, on the other hand? They could have had an hour more. If they had taken their time to ensure the roads were safe …

Next time, Ryan was buying one of those books to write across a long distance. Even if it was expensive and temporary. Healing potions were, too. It would be worth the price to save lives.

“Your admission ticket, your meal, and half of the monetary reward. The rest will be needed to smooth the tempers of the frightened people you brought to our doorstep.”

Lisa glared. Ryan was prepared to hear her argue, but she hesitated and held out a hand for her reward instead. “Fine.”

She seemed impatient for some reason. Fidgety. The moment Ryan caught the worry in Anne’s eyes, he joined her in checking Lisa up and down. Was everything alright? She looked healthy, if a little—a lot—dirty. Streaks of ink and blood covered her like grass stains.

Veshim counted crystals in a pouch as he went on, addressing Ryan and Navid next, and Ryan stood up straight. “You two may collect your reward from my brother, depending on how well you completed his request.

“Frederick and Anne,” he addressed them by name, “you’ll get your paychecks and referral bonuses for mentioning us on the radio later, depending on the quality of your performances tonight and how many tickets we sell, if that is alright with you …?”

“Sure—” Anne started.

“You were on the radio!?” Lisa asked, voice full of envy. “How?”

“We kept our distance from the equipment and they use an, uh, ‘extension cord’ for the phone? But they still had to wrap us in tin foil.”

Lisa frowned. “Microphone. Not phone.”

“Oh, yeah that.” Anne smiled. “It was fun.”

“I bet.”

Ryan was confused. “They wrapped you in foil to quiet down the radio noise …?”

Lisa rolled her eyes. “Radios aren’t supposed to be noisy. They interpret signals, but you people produce those same signals as a byproduct of your mana. So if you’re close, you talk over the signals and the radio only makes gibberish.”

“Ah …?”

Veshim’s arm slipped into their conversation, followed by his shoulder and wary eyes glancing between them. He handed Lisa a pouch of crystals and four paper vouchers he had torn from ticket rolls that lay on one of the seats.

Ryan had noticed those earlier. He was still surprised the community center used them. They reminded him of beer tents and festival games. Not necessarily in a bad way. Veshim continued to tear off tickets for the rest of them.

“And Jason?”

“Jason received his reward, minus his penalty for my wounded actors, minus the cost of one ticket for his lady.”

So he really was on a date? Ryan hadn’t thought Jason was interested in romance at all … which was probably unfair. It wasn’t like he’d ever asked the tall boy if he had a crush on someone.

He wondered if Lang and whatsherface were still together. He hadn’t spoken to his best friend in months … which probably wasn’t fair either.

Assistant Director Veshim seemed to consider their matter settled, but Lisa spoke up, “Uh, can we chip these in already? For real food? Right now?”

The man’s inky eyebrows furrowed, but he gestured to the doors. “By all means, redeem them in the kitchens.”

Lisa hurried to leave. Anne joined her with a strained smile. “Hungry?”

“Famished,” she said angrily. ”If I don’t eat something soon, I’ll eat my hand.” She seemed to remember them and asked, “Uh, want me to trade yours in, too? We can meet up in the lobby to share a meal before the play starts.”

They had to wait again before they could speak to the special effects director, Demir. Not because too many people required the man’s attention, like his brother, but because he was trying to get his father’s attention to gloat. “I told you this would be a disaster.”

He and his father watched a group of actors who had returned to the theatre rather than seek out a bar. The wounded actor was with them. Despite the cast around his leg and the crutches that rested against his seat, he wore a cloudy smile. Pain killers?

His friends patted him on the back and complimented his bravery. Apparently, he had gotten hurt helping another man flee from the monsters. With a blush, he pushed their hands aside. “I barely remember leaving the carriage.”

“How long will he be out of commission?” Demir gossiped. “Lola has been on the fence for a while, too. Do you think Veshim risking her life to make her perform will convince her to renew her contract?”

His father didn’t seem to hear his words. The elderly paper man sat with his hands resting on his cane and seemed content to watch his firstborn steer the production through this current storm.

Ryan didn’t know if he was ignoring his second son on purpose, if he was just old and distracted, or maybe if he was one of those people who could only focus on one thing at a time. The moment Navid and he entered his field of vision, warily approaching their one-sided conversation, the director abruptly snapped to attention. He told his son to stop being useless and get back to work. “Veshim is showing his best. Why can’t you?”

Demir’s smile vanished. He slipped out of his seat to storm down the aisle but when he noticed Navid and Ryan, he perked up. “Did you get it all?”

“Of course,” Navid scoffed, but the man wasn’t looking at him. He met Ryan’s eyes, and Ryan gave the barest hint of a nod.

With Lisa’s help, he had collected the secret ingredients Demir had requested. He assumed they were illegal. The customs officers had been overwhelmed by the flood of merchants, the guards sympathetic to their plight. Luckily, they had let them pass with nothing more than a cursory inspection and a small tax.

At his nod, Demir regained his smile and pushed his painted lips to say the word, “Perfect.”

Ryan hadn’t known if he should complete this part of his quest at all. The idea had made him uncomfortable. What would his mom think? But in the silence after the battle, Lisa had asked, because her secret quest said to help him. After sharing their doubts, they had agreed to at least gather the ingredients. Just in case.

They hadn’t known how the scenario would turn out once they returned to the city. What if they needed to pay a fine? What if they needed to garner favor? What if they had to complete their quests to earn their level-ups?

What if this was a test to see if Ryan could do things that made him uncomfortable? Lisa wasn’t technically allowed to be in Hadica. What if he had to help her someday? What if he didn’t get his dream job? What if he asked Thea out and, unlike Saga and Lisa, she said yes …

Demir asked Navid to fetch his assistant and to tell him to get the quest funds. Navid did it with a huff but smiled at the mention of money.

That gave them a moment alone. Ryan swiftly handed over his smaller pouch with the ingredients and told him in no uncertain tones, “I am not selling Navid out. Give us our rewards, stick to the deal, and our business is done. Got it?”

They hadn’t been to the shop, Ryan didn’t know if Navid would help Jason, and the careless lordling had screwed up his part of the quest, but Ryan didn’t care.

Demir made an exasperated noise at his words. He sneered in the direction Navid had left, considered the contents of the satchel, then gave a reluctant nod. “Fine. You’re making a mistake, the same as him, but you’ll see. You’ll all see. You and your friend can take your money and enjoy the show.”

They enjoyed a warm meal in the lobby first. Lisa finished hers first and stole fries for herself and Sam. Ryan tossed the little … whatever Sam was, nowadays, one of the crystals he had earned from his quest reward, and Sam gnawed on it like a dog on a bone.

“Lisa,” Ryan said after mulling it over. He realized he was so used to dancing around certain issues, yet he couldn’t think of a good reason not to ask, “What is Sam?”

“A primordial,” she said between chomping fries she clutched between her knuckles. “Primordial fire whelp, apparently.”

He frowned. He had some preconceived ideas of what that could be from books he’d read, but he didn’t know of any real examples in the Towers. “Sounds tough. What is that?”

“Mm … an elemental with a body, as best we can tell?”

“Isn’t an elemental already a spirit with a body?”

“I meant a biological body. Flesh and blood. A fire spirit with a body made of a burning substance is a fire elemental. A fire spirit with a body made of a burning substance and flesh and blood is a fire primordial … I think.”

“Micah has a wind spirit,” Anne spoke up with a testing voice. Ryan was somewhat surprised to hear her mention his name. “Is he a primordial?”

“Nope.”

Anne kicked her legs. “Why not?”

“Because not.”

Lisa tried to steal more fries. When Anne was too busy chewing and hiding her plate, Navid spoke up for her with a girly voice, batting his eyelashes, “But why because not, Lisa?”

“Because I said so.”

“Can blood elementals not become primordials?” Ryan joined in. “Or are they automatically primordials?”

She sounded exasperated, “There’s a difference between a body and a puddle of blood!”

“What about golems?”

That was how Jason found them. Tired, arguing semantics, poking fun, and trying to steal each other’s food. He didn’t come alone. A void person stood by him who looked like she had been cut from the fabric of the night sky.

He couldn’t read her expression at all, but she sounded kind. A little uptight. Her posture reminded him of Cathy or Lea.

“This is Lady Estru,” Jason introduced her and presented them a wooden crate with a six-pack as he apologized. “Sorry about earlier. We had to leave before her guards could catch up.”

Frederick accepted the first bottle with an easy smile. He had no need for an apology, he hadn’t been there.

Ryan was glad he wouldn’t have to be the first to take one. “Are they still following you … my lady?” Was that the correct form of address? Why did his voice sound different? Ryan hadn’t meant to lower it, but his friends quirked their eyebrows at him, and he quickly opened his bottle and hid his flushed cheeks behind the glass as he took a sip.

Estru hunched her shoulder to push her own stopper off. She made a delighted noise when it popped and the cool vapors escaped from the bottleneck, bringing the smell of hops.

“They are,” she said, “but I should not allow them to trouble you overmore. I only wish to watch the play from the crowd tonight. And perhaps enjoy an evening in Hadica. I’ll return with them in the morning and accept my due consequences.”

Ryan took a moment to parse that. His eyebrows quirked this time and he looked at Jason. ‘In the morning?’ Where would she stay in the interim?

“She’s only seen plays as private performances,” he quickly said. “When her parents invited troupes to their estate. I thought— Well, I don’t know the city, I can’t show her around, but I wanted to explore it myself so I extended an invitation.”

He gave them an expectant smile, glancing from Anne to Navid and back. Did he hope the rich kids would act as his wingmen?

Anne declined to take a bottle with a tiny shake of her head. Navid slipped his out and inspected the label. Neither spoke. So much for that.

Lisa frowned at the bottles and suddenly broke into an eager grin, waving Jason over to herself so she could steal one. Was the beer real?

As if in trade, she said, “I had noticed your guards fighting alongside my conjurations, Lady Estru. If you could thank them on my behalf. Even if the battle was to their misfortune, it was our good fortune they protected our charges in our stead. I hope they are well?”

Drink in hand, the lady seemed surprised by her words. She quickly curtsied, revealing the hem of a sleek dress underneath her cloak. The distortion around her outline shifted and her voice sounded pained, “Certainly. They were well … when I last saw them. I admit, I’ve not had the chance to ensure their health since we left. You may know more than I.”

Ryan wasn’t going to let Lisa of all people be a better wingman than the rest of them. “Minor cuts and bruises, my lady. They were tending their wounds when we left. All but one could walk unaided. It is nothing they, or any of us, does not know well.”

It was like they were in the arena again, Lisa with him. Ryan could play pretend if he was not alone.

Estru went still. “I see.”

Jason glared. At least, Ryan thought his hawkish stare down at him was supposed to be a glare. What? How was he supposed to know she would be troubled by that? He had meant to be reassuring!

“Uh,” he reached for a change of topic, “oh! Did you give Pepper your horse back?”

“We left them at one of the gates,” he said gratingly. “We didn’t want to go all the way to the theatre when we were already at the balconies. The view from up there is amazing. They have service tunnels that go all the way up to the roots!” His excitement picked back up.

Ryan looked straight up, searching for hints of structure around the titanic shapes. “Did you go through one?”

“Well, no. They’re locked and guarded. It’s illegal if you don’t have permission—”

“More so than kidnapping a lady?”

“Jason did not ‘kidnap’ me.” Estru raised her chin. Was she rolling her eyes? “I merely deigned to accept his invitation.”

“We remembered we still had to get tickets and came down to see if you were here, then went bar crawling to pass the time. Maybe we can show you guys the view later? They have taverns and inns up there that stay open late?”

“Sure, but uh, have you bought your item yet?” Ryan remembered. The item shop probably closed by reasonable hours. They would have to go before the play.

“I haven’t had the time—”

Estru perked up. “Item? By all means, don’t let me stop you from reaping the rewards of combat.” It sounded like an excuse to him, like she excited to visit a magic shop herself. “All of you, for that matter, fought valiantly against those beasts,” she added.

Ah.

Lisa looked away.

His amusement withered, but Ryan forced a smile. “I probably won’t buy anything, but I would love to browse. How about it, Navid?”

“Mm!” He finished his swig and lowered the bottle. “Oh, sure. Shopping.”

Anne and Frederick had to stay because of their participation in the play, but Lisa—

“I’m good,” she said. “I have to do my afternoon check-up on Sam anyway.”

That was news to him. “Check-up?”

“I appraise its spirit, body, and brain activity every few hours and take notes,” she explained as she brought out a leatherbound journal he’d never seen before. She brought out what looked like children’s toys next. Colored blocks. A little picture book. Cards with pictures and words on them. A spell scroll. “I designed tests, too.”

“Huh.” Ryan crouched to scratch Sam’s neck. “Poor little guy. Well, if you’re sure …? Have fun, both of you.”

They tried on different pieces of armor. They swung a green blade around that left an afterimage of itself in the air. Its metal smelled like snow and mint. They peered through goggles and helmet slits, chatted about magic items, and compared theirs to the shop’s selection and what else was out there.

Jason and Navid knew more than Ryan. They had kept abreast of the changes over the summer.

Lady Estru also tried to offer advice, but she had only a vague idea which items her guards used. She quickly joined Ryan in learning what Jason had found out from rumor magazines and browsing the markets, and Navid from company records and catalogs.

The market that had bloomed the most was for tracking down item sets. Those had existed before, but they were becoming increasingly common on the newer floors. Ryan had encountered a few of them himself. A single red glove Kyle had rejected, a single red boot one of the scouts had claimed …

They’d come from Salamander guardians and shared the same enchantment: fire resistance for one limb, for a time. If you wore both boots, rumor had it, you could briefly run on lava. And if you wore the entire set …?

So, Jason bought the Sundance Greaves, because Navid thought he recognized the name from somewhere, and because Jason liked them.

They were made of a leathery, yellow material with hints of dark brown underneath, like a thousand sunflowers layered into one. Their enchantment offered temporary Celerity. The effect was stronger and recharged more quickly under the sun.

“I regret my comment.” Navid frowned as they watched Jason strap the greaves on. “Pick the blade or the goggles. Even I can grant you celerity if you need it. [Enhance Celerity]. There, bop, you have it.”

Navid tapped his shoulder. A brief lime shimmer overtook Jason, and he nearly fell over in his rush to escape.

“C’mon. You do that now?” He sighed and gave a sad mumbled, “Now I won’t get to try them out …”

“You are a twin adventurer. I am saying you could learn that spell yourself.”

“I don’t need another Vitality spell at the moment, and I’m not made of mana either.”

Celerity combined Agility with Vitality. It was a rare stat to get, if Ryan remembered his lessons, because it sacrificed flexibility of motion for speed of motion and didn’t offer stamina. People who spent all day rushing across short distances could get it—messengers, some service jobs, and some athletes.

To get it from an item or spell was a much better use of it. 'The poor man’s haste.'

Ryan remembering losing his race to Saga. He was quickly learning [Longstrider] but maybe he could use a magic item to boost his speed …?

Jason must have noticed him staring. “Are you sure you don’t want to buy anything? I bet we can scratch the money together somehow …”

“Huh? Oh. No, I bought a new item last week. I’ll sell the raincoat soon, too, so I’ll wait until I get my funds from that before I go looking for anything else.”

“So you’re really selling it. Why?”

He shrugged. “Someone at the border can probably use it better than me. I could use the money, and I think it might stifle my leveling chances …?” He looked to Navid.

“What? What are you looking at me for?”

“I don’t know. Our teachers only gave us an overview of how that works, and I know how you love to hear yourself talk …”

Navid chuckled. “Even I wouldn’t be so bold to try to explain leveling theory in one conversation, Payne. If you want to know more, you should sign up for two years of courses on the subject like everyone else.”

He said that, Jason showed off his new equipment in front of the mirror, and Ryan thought about the course applications he had sent in with his paperwork, and Navid went on as if he couldn’t help himself. “I mean, it’s complicated.”

Jason and Ryan shared a look across the mirror.

“It depends on your Classes, your Paths, your levels, the challenge, your other Skills, your other equipment, your allies, your mindset—a lot. A [Guardian] protecting his allies will have an easier time leveling in a suit of armor than a [Fighter] looking for an adrenaline rush. A veteran who knows the dangers of combat won’t stifle his progression as much by wearing one as a novice who feels like he is being pampered.”

Ryan had thought so, but it was reassuring to hear a scion of a noble family say it. He felt suffocated when he wore the raincoat. He’d worn it for almost a year and only leveled as a [Fighter] once when he had loaned it to Jason, and once while fighting in the arena with Lisa.

He hated the idea of being safe while his friends were in danger. He kind of liked the adrenaline rush that made him feel alive without having to feel disgusted by himself. It was a good idea to sell it.

“We should probably leave then if we want to get to our seats on time.” Jason looked at a clock behind the counter. His step had that athletic lightness that Ryan recognized in many of his classmates, to the point where he had stopped noticing it, and other people had begun to look slower instead. Jason’s movement made it obvious again as he stepped aside to offer Estru his arm. He looked like he could jump up to do something at a moment’s notice and it wouldn’t be an issue. “My lady.”

The distortion around the void of her head shifted like the night sky racing by. When she linked her arm in his, a dusting of stars alighted in the darkness of his gambeson. “My lord.”

They thanked the shopkeeper, and arm in arm, the two led the way down the street. Above, the golden roots shone a little dimmer.

“Where does this card go?” Lisa showed it the yellow splotch. Sam waddled forward and took the card in its mouth. It had remembered to melt its teeth, swallow the goo, and put out its mouth fire as to not damage the paper. Now, it looked at the cards laid out around it.

Yellow splotch. Yellow splotch. Yellow goes …?

Sam missed their bond. It had been easier to know what Lisa wanted when it had been able to read her intent. Now it had to find ways to do its job right. ‘Cheating,’ Lisa called it.

Its first cheat, after they had done the card exercise for the umpteenth time and Sam had realized it would become a regular occurrence, had been to mark the cards with pairs of scents so it knew which two belonged together.

Lisa had smelled those and washed the cards. She’d also washed them after it had covered them with subtler scents, magical scents, and invisible spit. She had replaced them when it had nibbled on the edges to mark different pairs.

Sam didn’t understand why. Marking the cards seemed like a good solution, especially because Sam forgot not to do that sometimes and marked the cards anyway. If it came up with the same solution twice in a row, it had to be good!

But Lisa always noticed and admonished it. So, Sam had tried to keep one eye on Lisa instead. Her posture and her eyes revealed if it was going in the right direction. She had noticed that as well and told it not to look at her while they did this. Sam didn’t understand.

Its latest ‘cheat’ was to keep one eye on her anyway. Just not one she could see. It—Sam—was a bundle of meat within a giant goo egg now. That could be odd and uncomfortable at times. It had its detriments, like having to sleep. It also had its benefits, like Lisa teaching it to alter its form on its own, the same way she had used to do for it.

Sam had to build limbs and eyes whenever it wanted to move or see. It was easy to add a second pupil over its right eye with tiny holes in it. The fake eye looked at whatever its left eye looked at. The real eye watched Lisa.

Yellow goes— Here! Lisa tensed up when Sam went in the wrong direction. It finally found the right card and stared at the lines on it. ‘Duck?’ If Sam tilted its head, it sort of looked like a lone feather. Yellow splotch … feather … Like the bright birds on the branches!

Was that why the cards went together? If the lines were supposed to look like a bird, why were they black and not yellow then? Was there a point to this?

Sam didn’t understand reverse-fetch, but Lisa smiled and it would get a treat when they were done. That was reason enough to do this.

Until the Pepper Thing returned.

It caught a glimpse of his red scales in the corner of its fake eye. Sam whirled and charged at him with a hiss that promised, Come closer and become the goo of my fangs!

Just before it could attack, two hands scooped it up and placed it in front of the cards again, heedless of its burning scales. “No hissing,” Lisa shushed it.

But that Thing is dangerous! Sam tried to think at her through a bond that no longer existed. She should have been able to smell, uh … Huh?

Sam sniffed the air and slithered between Lisa’s feet toward the Pepper Thing. Lisa caught it and turned it around. Stubbornly, Sam melted in her hands and restructured the goo to extend its neck and get a good whiff of the ground.

The Pepper Thing came closer with a relaxed posture and toothy grin, and it only smelled Anne’s trail. But Sam had known her for ages. She was a stinky ally, but she protected Lisa and was nice to it.

Come to think of it, the Pepper Thing hadn’t smelled bad on the way back either. Sam must have forgotten that …

It didn’t matter. Once a stinker, always a stinker!

“This one?” Lisa showed it another card. Sam kept leaning aside to keep its eyes on the enemy, but she moved her hand to block its vision again and again. “Sam. This one?”

Ugh. Sam snapped the card out of her hand, retracting its teeth at the last moment, and faced the ones that lay around it. It kept one eye on Lisa— Who turned away!

“Lisa. Has the play not started yet?”

“Nope. And how did things go on your end?”

He rubbed the back of its neck like he had done something wrong. “I got fired like, immediately.”

Lisa winced. “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be.”

Sam did not like how close they stood to each other, nor his smile. It hastily searched for the right card to match the red splotch. One of the black lines had a circle in it. The red splotch was a circle …? Did they go together because … it was supposed to look like fruit!

Aha!

Sam dropped the card and ran over Lisa’s boots to grab her attention. When she faced the cards, though, her expression fell.

“No, Sam, that’s not— An apple is not an owl. Apple. Do you see? Where does the apple go?” Lisa handed it the card, told it to try again, and turned back to the Pepper Thing.

Wait, what? It had been right! The red splotch was an apple. So why didn’t it match with the black circle? How else were the cards supposed to pair together? Why was Sam even doing this if she wasn’t looking? Why was it doing this when there was an enemy right there!?

Sam bit the card and whipped it away. It trampled fire on the rest, extended its tail, and scattered them to the winds with a wild spin.

“Sam!” Lisa cried out in horror and rushed to catch the fluttering and burning paper. That gave Sam the freedom it needed to keep both eyes on the enemy as the ashes rained down around it.

The Pepper Thing went to grab some of the cards. Sam hissed and roared and spat fire and acid in a blinding rush that made him back off.

Ha! Its cards.

Well, Lisa’s cards. Still, if he tried anything, Sam would bite him to pieces.

The Pepper Thing eyed it. “Overprotective little fellow, isn’t it?”

“Its base was a summoning crystal meant to protect its summoner. Part of its original design must have gotten stuck. This place must also unnerve it. It unnerves me.”

“I have heard that sentiment before. Because we are underground, right?”

Lisa chuckled. “Yes. Because we are underground.” She put the charred cards in her bag and scooped Sam up onto her lap as she sat on the steps leading up to the building.

The Pepper Thing rested its butt against a low stone wall that ran along the slanted road up to the entrance next to her. He watched Lisa pet its scales, and Sam watched him.

“What are you doing here, Pepper?”

“Well, I just lost my job. I figured, ‘might as well watch the play we risked our lives for.’”

“Do you have a ticket?”

“I do not.”

“Can you afford to buy a ticket? If there are any left?”

He patted his pockets. “I don’t know if I have enough on me, though I could certainly buy a round of drinks or two. Did you and your friends have plans for the night?”

Lisa stopped petting Sam and looked at him. “Pepper, are you flirting with me?”

He froze. “Was it that obvious?”

“Why?”

“What—”

“I mean, why are you flirting with me? I am not a [Lover]. [Grand Summoner] may be a diplomatic Class but I have no intentions of adding romance to my repertoire. I’m not interested in romance at all, so why—”

Sam shot up at the sound of her angry voice, but she paused, and when it tilted its head back to see her, Lisa was smiling like she had spotted one of the little dragons hiding in the underbrush.

“Wait, does the Theatre challenge us psychologically, not just our Classes?” She sounded excited and pushed Sam’s head back down with heavy pats.

“I don’t understand,” said Pepper in a monotone voice.

Lisa chuckled. “Of course, you don’t. I just— I’m not interested, is all.”

His voice returned. “Why? Oh, are you uh … asexual? Aromantic? I wouldn’t have expected that from you.”

“Am I what?”

“Asexual. It means—”

“No,” she said. “No, I can infer the meaning. But I’m not that at all. What a dumb idea. I’m just— How do I look to you?”

“I don’t understand,” he repeated.

“Right. I don’t know how we are supposed to look like to you. None of you commented on our appearance or treated us any differently, aside from being travelers, but I am not the same species as the rest of my teammates. I— Uh.” The heat had begun to rise in her voice, but then she looked worried. “They don’t know that, though, so don’t mention it to them if you see them, got it?”

The Pepper Thing tilted its head. “So? I am not the same species as my mailman.”

“Yes, but you can meet your species at a bar. I can’t. I come from … a commune of sorts. And in that commune, there is my cousin, me, and hundreds of my aunts and uncles, but nobody else.”

The Pepper Thing leaned on the railing of the stairs. “I don’t understand. How can there not be more— more of your species around. You couldn’t have come from nowhere. There should be millions of you around, at least.”

“Well, there aren’t. So unless I change my outlook on my dating pool in the next hundred years, or the next two hundred years, or the next millennium—”

She said the word and stared into the distance with fearful eyes. Sam searched the plaza for enemies and found none. It had to be the Pepper Thing. It was going to rip his face off!

Sam scrambled off her lap, but Lisa caught it before it could jump at him and hugged it to her chest. Sam stilled. Oh. That felt soothing.

“Your teammates? Or your uh, mailman?”

“They are adorable,” Lisa said in the voice she used when Sam was doing something right. “In a naked cat sort of way. I respect them greatly. But no.”

“Is it because they don’t have scales?” The Pepper Thing titled his body like he was trying to bathe in the sunlight.

Lisa chuckled. “Yes. Because they do not have scales.”

She set Sam back down. “It’s not like biology is an issue. I am not even related to all of my aunts and uncles by lineage. And some of them are my cousins. They were just born so close to their aunts and uncles that they all see each other as sons and daughters of the same Mother. But I grew up with them. I would have to be fine with dating someone who is, at the very least, seventeen years younger than me and distant family. That’s impossible.

“I am not alone. I’m not unloved. But, there is nobody for me.” She trailed off. Her voice was quiet. “I would appreciate it if you could leave.”

Pepper did not look surprised, and he took his time standing up. “Alright, but … your commune can’t be the last one. It can’t be. I don’t accept that. You must have survived on other planes. Other planets. Have you tried to reach them?”

“I thought the Five Cities were supposed to be a trap?” Lisa looked up. “Dwarf? If this is you telling me to leave this world …” She chuckled. “As if I could just abandon my home.”

Lisa wasn’t watching the Pepper Thing, but Sam was. It saw him frown, straighten, and after a brief pause, speak in that same monotone voice as earlier. “I don’t understand.”

Abruptly, his smile shot back up as he rubbed his neck with more elan. “Aw, man. I had to try. Thank you for not leading me on, I guess. Have fun with your friends tonight and enjoy the rest of your stay in the city, traveler!”

Lisa perked up as if she had only just remembered an enemy was right there, but the Pepper Thing was walking away. “Sorry again for the trouble,” she said. “Good luck finding a new job! Maybe something better suited to you?”

He laughed and waved. “That’s the plan!”

“Puppets. Figures. Might as well talk to a tree.” Lisa chuckled at her own mumbled words for some reason. “I suppose She had nobody to talk to either … right? Was there ever someone for You? Per?”

She stared at the golden roots for a long while as if she expected someone to be up there. Sam searched the sky, expecting the titanic form of her mom to swoop down and quake the ground again, but it found no one. Nobody answered her.

That didn’t seem right. As if they were playing fetch, Sam thought it should have something to give her, but it didn’t know what. It couldn’t even remember what her question had been. For a lack of words, it made a sound like a water droplet falling on stone.

Lisa hugged it.

It felt insufficient, but words were strange. Could Sam speak? If it could, what would it even say …?

“Ah, are we allowed to eat during the performance?” Ryan remembered to ask the worker as he redeemed his snack voucher at the counter.

The burning sun in a shape of a woman frowned as she handed him his little paper bag of trail mix. He’d picked it because healthy, and Navid had gotten the fruit and sandwich skewers. Maybe they could trade? He still eyed the gummies and chocolate bits the people in the lines next to theirs bought.

Further along, workers handed out the first proper meals. Their portions were small and portable, but the smells still befuddled him. Ryan didn’t know where to place this on the 'plays for street kids-community center comedy and dance performance-fine arts theatre' scale.

Snacks and drink, proper meals, no meals?

Well, it couldn’t be ‘no meals’ if they were handed them out, but who knew what the customs would be like in this underground city?

The woman blinked and leaned her head back as understanding dawned. “Ahh! You must be one of the travelers. Of course, you wouldn’t know then.” She went on in a patient voice like she was speaking to a child, “You can eat if you want, but please try to be quiet and respectful to the actors and the other fellow audience members, okay?

“Most people only eat during the prologue—the opening narration?—and intermission, the short break halfway through. Some scenes are more casual or festive, so it’s easier to eat during those. Just watch what the others do and copy them, got it?”

Ryan accepted the paper bag with a blush, thanked her, and turned away.

Navid paused in scrubbing at his gambeson with a wet cloth and asked in that same motherly tone, “Okay, Ryan? Do you understand? Should I explain it to you ag—”

“Screw you.”

Lisa wandered by with a hand in a bag of spicy peanuts. Navid flagged her down before she could vanish in the crowd. “Ah, Lisa? You wouldn’t happen to know any spells that could help me out here, would you? I feel woefully underdressed.”

They still wore their ink and blood-stained armor. The rest of the audience members wore nicer shirts and blouses. He saw more than one couple out on a date.

She choked down her peanuts, wiped her hands off, and waved a hand, drawing wisps of dirt from the damp fabric like ant caravans. The streaks shrunk but didn’t vanish. “Best I can do.” She shrugged. “Sorry.”

“It’s better than I would have managed on my own. Thank you.”

Walking together, they found their seats. They sat near the middle section of the auditorium and craned their necks as they tried to spot Anne and Frederick near the stage. A few of the musicians were already filling the background with low ambient music. Someone sang.

Kyle couldn’t hear where one word ended and the next began. They sounded alien to him, and the singer even more so.

The tune was universal. It was the soft melody a person hummed to themselves as they folded laundry or watered the plants. He had heard it pass through his village a hundred times as if on the breeze, rustling the lines, the windchimes, the canopy.

But the sound rustled, too. Like paper instead of leaves. As if someone had taken an axe to the melody, thunderous crackles hacked away pieces of the hollow sound. It reminded him of … cans. Two cans, a string, and a friend. One of the classroom ones he would go hiking through the bushes with before they’d realized whose blood ran through his veins.

How long had it been since he had thought of that memory?

Two of the stone cubes, larger than houses, cracked together in a deafening rumble. It echoed the crash that had cut him off from the purple fields, and it cut him from his stupor.

Contraptions shifted beneath his feet. “Delilah!” distant voices called. Kyle pounded on the stone. “Micah, can you hear me?”

There was a pause. He called again. A faint voice called back through the stone, “Hello!? Is anyone—”

“I’m here you dipstick. Go get Micah!”

The voice belonged to one of the alchemists who had been protecting the cart. “He’s busy. He’s—” The voice became fainter. “Hey, stop using our loot! You’ll have to pay …”

It trailed off as the speaker paced away. Kyle thumped his forehead against the stone and took a deep breath. No, he could not kick his ass for walking away from him in the middle of a conversation; there was a giant fucking stone wall between them.

He took a single step back and looked up, inspecting the stone for any markings, exposed contraptions, keyholes, or other openings. A few of the cracks in the stone looked unnatural. There was the gap between the cubes, but they didn’t have time to study those.

Some psycho was filling the halls with magical singing, one of Morgana’s Trappers had probably crawled out of a hole in the ground to reset the traps, Delilah was missing, and that scarecrow thing that had set off all sorts of survival alarms in his head was on the loose.

When the speaker came back, Kyle shouted, “Tell Micah we have to leave. Now! And don’t you fucking dare walk away from me again!”

“He— He says he knows that! He says he might be able to bring the wall down, or at least dig a hole …?”

What? Micah said a lot of things when the day was long.

“How are we going to get the cart through?” someone else shouted. After a pause, the first guy added, “If we whistle, we might have to forfeit our loot!”

“He wants to whistle?” Kyle gathered.

“Yeah? I don’t— He wants you to signal the others.”

If there was a Trapper after them, that was the sensible thing to do. Screw the loot. It would only slow them down. Kyle would have to manually pass the message on, though. He hadn’t brought his exam whistle.

“He says you have to find Deli— Rowan before we can leave anyway? He can sense if the fissle moves so he’ll know if that thing—” The voice turned away. “You mean the man?”

Kyle scowled as a short headache passed over his temple. Having to speak through this wall was annoying. He waited impatiently until the speaker returned and said, “I’m leaving to go tell the others. Tell Micah he better have this wall down and a bomb in hand by the time I get back, got it?”

“Yeah— Wait, uh, bomb?”

“You’re building a bomb!?” the other person shouted.

Kyle sighed and left. Great. He was not looking forward to searching for some dumb familiar that had run away when they really should be leaving. Kyle understood familiars were important to their owners, but at the end of the day, a pet was not worth risking your classmates’ lives over. Especially one who abandoned its owner when things got rough.

“Rowan!” the distant voices called, and Kyle kept an eye out for any feathered bats in the crevices of the cubes. From a distance, he glanced back at the wall in case the solution to lowering it was obvious from a distance, but he had to stop delaying.

He walked around a corner and heard a tiny click before an almost insectoid buzz filled the air. Lights flickered in the tunnel before him. A web of lasers blinked into existence. They flickered as if damaged and sputtered out, but then stabilized in full force and rotated in tandem.

Where the lasers were interrupted by rubble that wasn’t supposed to be there, the rocks blackened. A beetle flew into a yellow beam, singed, and crashed in a downward spiral trailing smoke.

He took a deep breath and looked down the other tunnel option instead. Stone plates with spiked edges shot out of gaps in the ground there, rotating at blinding speeds.

Screw being a [Rogue], and screw his pride besides. Kyle hated traps.