“How are you doing?” Zackaria asked as Tibs and the remnant of his team started back to the transport platform.

Jackal turned to face them, and the others followed suit. “And who are you?” the fighter asked, an edge to his voice.

“I’m Zackaria,” they answered with a gentle smile. “I met Tibs when he and Carina visited. I’m glad you found your element, Tibs.”

“They’re Paolo’s special person,” Tibs said, then added, “He was the cleric who healed me in Mountain Sea. I’m fine,” he then told them.

Their smile turned sad. “Tibs, she was special to you. You can—”

“She wasn’t my special girl,” he snapped as the ice cracked. He fought the pain that tried to escape.

“She was still special to you. I could see that. It’s alright to acknowledge you’re in pain.”

“I’m not,” he stated.

“We are dealing with her death as best we are able to,” Khumdar said.

They smile at him, the nod of acknowledgment interrupted as they searched the cleric’s face. They shrugged. “Be there for each other and you will pull through. It’s what family is for.”

“We know that,” Mez said. “We don’t need some stranger telling us.”

“Of course. I didn’t mean to intrude. If you ever need to talk, Tibs, or any of you, I’m here and always—”

“We won’t be able to come back.” Jackal cut them off. “We’re runners. They only let us leave if the dungeon’s closed.” He rubbed his left wrist. “This was a special circumstance.”

They nodded. “Then send word, and I will visit your town.”

“We will.” Tibs turned to start walking.

“If I may,” they said, and Tibs stopped, catching the cleric stiffening out of the corner of his eye. “What is your name?”

“It is Khumdar.”

Tibs turned to face them again as they searched the cleric’s face. “Have we met? You seem-“

“No,” the cleric stated, the word bright to Tibs. It wasn’t often the cleric let a lie be visible.

They nodded. “Be well, then.” Zackaria turned and headed back to the assembly.

Tibs started toward the platform again, and the others fell in step with him.

“You think he,” Mez hesitated. “She?”

“They,” Tibs corrected. Zackaria had worn pants this time, along with a loose shirt, but they only highlighted the combination of curves and more masculine features.

“Do you think they picked up on Khumdar’s lie?” the archer asked the group. “I don’t have Light, like Tibs does, but that ‘no’ sounded a false as I’ve ever heard.”

“I did not expect they would recognize me,” the cleric replied defensively. “I was much younger the last time they saw me, and much less… hearty.”

“You realize you just admitted you’re from this city, right?” Jackal pointed out.

Khumdar shrugged. “We have been a… family long enough. This is one thing you can know about me.”

“Real generous of you,” the fighter said sarcastically, “to grant us this one secret.”

“It is indeed,” the cleric agreed, with a magnanimous nod and slight smile.

* * * * *

Kragle Rock appeared around them, and the first sounds were that of a commotion. Guards subduing a group of respectable looking men and women.

“Watch for the pouches,” a guard said, a knee to the back of the woman he held on the ground. Tibs recognized the sense of the Everburn as the man continued. “The last group had theirs filled with that burning tar stuff. You don’t want that stuff spilling out and igniting.”

Quickly, the other guards removed the pouches from the people they were arresting.

“Looks like your uncle’s finally taking his role as protector of the town seriously,” Mez commented as they walked away from the platform.

“It’s about time,” Jackal muttered. “I just wish it hadn’t taken watching the town be destroyed while he stood by, because that’s what his orders were, to get his head out of his ass and be a man.”

It was too late, as far as Tibs was concerned. The man had already done too much damage just following orders, for anything he might do now to mean anything. Around them, buildings were burned husks. How long until they were rebuilt? Until the houses were up, the shops at the edge of Market Place reopened?

He didn’t care that people needed them, filled with ice as he was. The town was what needed the houses rebuilt and the shops reopened, for it to survive. It needed people to inhabit it, to return from wherever they’d fled and bring commerce with them. More shops than those on Merchant Row were needed for the town to function.

Merchant Row had escaped the worse of the damage, because of the Runners ensuring they were protected, but the merchants there wouldn’t be able to supply everything a grown town needed. Market Place was needed for that.

Could Kragle Rock even grow beyond where it stood?

When Tibs had checked in with Darran, not to see how the merchant was doing, but to find out how the row was managing after the assaults, the merchant had explained how numbers meant a lot to the growth of a town, how it needed so much of one versus the other. Ratios, profits, the flow of people.

Tibs had found the numbers interesting, but didn’t understand all of them. What he had taken from the merchant’s lecture was that Kragle Rock needed those extra shops, those houses, if it was to thrive.

* * * * *

Kroseph had his arms around Jackal as soon as they stepped within the inn. They spoke quietly while Tibs continued to their table. Not long after he sat, Kroseph placed bowl of stew and tankard before him.

“Please eat,” the server said, squeezing his shoulder.

Tibs wasn’t hungry, but if he didn’t eat, his friends would pester him about it, so he made slow work of the food.

Someone brought a chair to the table and sat.

Tibs ignored them.

“I know you don’t wan to deal with this right now,” Quigly said, “but with how effective the guards are, we need to pull the people we have together and get them back to patrolling the Row, or the merchants there will start thinking depending on the guards is enough.”

“I’ll deal with that tomorrow.”

“Tibs, this can’t wait.” The warrior put a hand on Tibs’s arm.

“I said tomorrow,” he snapped, the ice cracking under the heat of his anger.

Quigly’s one eye searched his face. The left side of the warrior’s face was still bandaged, but Tibs had seen the mess that eye had been before Clara started healing it. Quigly had stopped her the moment it no longer oozed blood and other liquids, ordering her to see to those with worse injuries. He’d waved away her warnings that if she didn’t heal the eye now, she might not be able to later.

“Tomorrow,” the warrior said, standing, but not sounding happy. “Be careful you don’t alway push tomorrow back, Tibs. You don’t have a lot left to control right now, but if too many of them pass before you take action, you won’t have anything.”

“We’ll sit and deal with this tomorrow,” Tibs replied, filling the cracks with more ice. “I’m not letting the guild take the town away from us, no matter how much work Harry puts into it now. I’m not giving them a chance to betray us again.”

With a satisfied nod, Quigly left with his chair.

* * * * *

Tibs stepped into his team’s room.

He should go roof running. He always felt better up there, rather than in here, but he was tired. Purity could deal with it, but it meant letting go of water, and he needed the whole of his reserve to keep the ice intact. Even if he filled the eight reserves in his bracers with water, he knew there wouldn’t be enough.

He stopped as he saw her bed.

He saw her there, sitting, laughing. Chiding him for throwing the clay tablet aside in frustration.

The ice cracked, and he swallowed. He forced himself to breathe and removed his armor.

He was the only one in the room. Jackal was with Kroseph, Mez with his girl, and Khumdar… Tibs had no idea who the cleric might be with.

Tibs had the ice, and it made sure being alone in his team’s room didn’t bother him.

He sat on his bed and looked at hers, next to it.

He didn’t care that it, too, was empty.

He pulled his knees to his chest. He didn’t care that the others has someone to seek comfort with and that he didn’t.

He didn’t—

The ice cracked.

He wouldn’t—

The ice broke.

He—

He lost hold of Water as tears flowed.

He missed Carina.

He missed Mama so much.

It all hurt so much that he couldn’t reach for the one thing that took his pain away.