Under a dark sky, filled with auroras both rainbow and blue, Mark stood several meters away from a gateway made of stone and steel and a lot of enchantments hidden in the base of the structure. Snow gently fell, but it was a rather warm winter night. Not at all like it had been.

  Mark was glad for the cold after spending all day by that raging inferno, but now he kinda wanted to be by a fire. A small fire. Not a big one. He would have been happy with just a bed and some thick blankets. He was fucking exhausted, and so was everyone else. But they were here, and they were prepared for transfer to Earth.

  Mark’s go-bag was over his shoulder, and his armor was as repaired as his Ring of Repair could do in the last hour. That ring, and his Ring of No-Wealth, along with all of his highly-magical things, were locked into his room. Everyone had left things behind, including the portable meat cooker that Sally was already missing, quite a lot. Her vector was pointed back toward the apartments and focused on a very box-shaped, food-thing. Mark was mostly guessing about her exact desires, but he was pretty sure his guess was correct. Sally was hungry—

  Sally’s stomach grumbled and her vector turned angry, so, correction: Sally was hangry. She had cleared out a lot of the fridge before they had needed to go, but it hadn’t been enough.

  Mark said, “Sorry, Sally. Not enough greenery around here.”

  Sally shook her head, realizing what she must have looked like with that frown on her face. She turned as placid as she could and stared forward, her swords attached to her back with straps and tactile telekinesis, while she carried her bag in one hand. “Will they have food there?”

  “Even if they don’t, delivery is everywhere,” Eliot said, standing beside a horse-like drone-thing that held his bags. “I’m gonna have a whole bunch of Nigerian food delivered, right after we get through this shit and right before I sleep for a day.”

  “How much have they built…” Isoko yawned, and adjusted the straps on her backpack. “Sorry. How much have they built already?”

  Eliot said, “Should be about 70%. The rest should be in supplies waiting for me to work.” His tired vector turned a little bit happy. “Everyone is going to see what I make here and there, for the next hundred years. It’s gonna look so fucking good.”

  The four of them were waiting in front of the archway to Earth, the gate anchor, waiting for some signal to propagate to Earth and then back, somewhere down below the gateway itself. There were a lot of scanning structures down there and a whole lot of redundancies in ‘every possible way there could be redundancies’, whatever that meant. Mark still wasn’t sure. All he knew was that a tiny portal down there was opening and shutting, and machines were sending signals to Earth and waiting for proper replies so that they could properly open the gate from both sides at once.

  If they didn’t do it like that, then the gate wouldn’t be contained properly, and it might cause a big rip, or be malformed, or a whole bunch of other things. Mark thought it was all a lot more fiddly than it needed to be. Addavein had ripped open the Veil from across the world and dragged Mark all the way to him, months ago, back when the dragon had summoned him out of Citadel Freyala. So all of this back-and-forth was unnecessary…

  But small humans had to do these sorts of things so that problems didn’t happen, Mark guessed.

  Of course, humans had a few more goals in mind when it came to opening the Veil than ‘kidnap your talzarki away from his oversight and throw him into danger’. Constancy and repeatability, for example. And also size.

  The main gate loomed overhead in the snowy sky, like an arch of black against the night sky colors of Daihoon, further beyond.

  … And the gate anchor, here in the center, was still dim and dark.

  A few other people were there, including Aurora, who was standing in front of a curving tunnel that led down below, frowning at the tunnel and the people who were working down there—

  “Send the message portal again,” Aurora called down the tunnel.

  Down below, Grand Mage Rekaro Solari, yelled back, “I already had it open four times!” And then Rekaro stomped up the tunnel, staring at Aurora as he said, “They have received the signal and they have responded with a ‘wait’! So we wait.”

  Aurora frowned. She stared at the inactive gate anchor, saying, “They’re planning something.”

  “Of course they are. Par for the course.”

  “Any idea what?”

  “None whatsoever, but I bet it has a lot to do with those two,” Solari said, looking toward Mark and Eliot.

  Tartu, Solari’s son, gave a tiny snort of agreement.

  Tartu, and Tartu’s team, were also there. Kardi, Shawn, and Lenny. All of them seemed to be wearing new hero outfits, too, all of them dressed like a team in white and blue, though Kardi had pink accents, Shawn had yellow, and Lenny had green. Tartu was the only one wearing white on white and with a bit of blue. His coloring appeared to be ‘white’, and Mark had never seen his team in full hero regalia before, so that was new. Mark wondered about his own team. Mark had never even considered asking Isoko, Sally, or Eliot to dress in black, but maybe he should have considered that.

  If Mark didn’t hate that bastard Tartu, then he might admire their team unity.

  Tartu certainly hated Mark, though, so the feeling was mutual.

  Mark didn’t like the look Tartu and his father were giving him, and by extension, Eliot, so he spoke up, “Of course they’re planning shit about us. We’ll be back, though.”

  A lot of people there had a lot of mixed reactions to that. Aurora wanted to believe. The grand mage just wanted Mark gone, away from here, and he hoped whatever trap that Memphi or other people were planning would work. Solari’s son and his team were mostly aligned with the Grand Mage, but Kardi wanted Mark injured. Hurting. Vulnerable. Which was freaky as fuck, especially since she was not even looking at him and more looking at her phone while they waited.

  Isoko noticed Kardi’s desires, though, so that was at least one more person who realized what was up. She just frowned in Kardi’s general direction, though, her own vector turning a bit… protective.

  Mark smiled at that.

  Eliot spoke up, “We are coming back, even if Tartu and I have to make a secondary gate. So… Expect that! I guess!”

  Most vectors instantly pointed at Eliot, and Mark was happy to hear him talk like that, though it was probably not the smartest thing to say.

  There was a reason that Tartu’s team was coming along with them, and it wasn’t because they were friends. Tartu was there to open the way back with his Domainer Skill, if such a thing became necessary.

  Eliot wasn’t supposed to say that out loud, though, but he was tired and he felt that the act was dumb.

  Aurora just came right out and said, “Don’t make a gate unless they try to actually trap you illegally. Opening a gate is a violation of all international laws, except how we’re doing it right here, and you violating those laws might be exactly what they’re looking for. They’ll nail you if they can.”

  “I’m not making a rip if your team gets scared, Cybersong,” Tartu said, some of his ire for Mark rubbing off onto Eliot, it seems.

  Solari spoke up, “My son and the General, are correct, though I hope my son, at least, has the wherewithal to speak with more politeness to his voice when you’re over there.” Solari digressed, “What will probably happen is that they will try to force you to do something you don’t want to do, and then trump up charges on something, and gate ripping is a big law to break. You’ll be held, legally, and have to spend a month fighting those charges while they hit you with the real wine and dine experience.”

  “It’s a very common MO,” Aurora said, showcasing her unity with the grand mage, even though they had been pointed at each other not a moment before. “Don’t fall for it. Follow the law, do what is demanded, and come back when you can. But stick together. They’re going to…” She was worried, possibly about nothing, so she set her worries aside. “You’ll be fine—”

  “We got a signal!” said Quentin, his voice echoing out from the tunnel that led below the anchor.

  Solari rushed down the tunnel.

  … Waiting waiting waiting waiting—

  “One minute!” came Solari’s voice. “Charging the batteries now!”

  “Thank the gods,” Aurora mumbled. “Took them long enough.”

  And then she moved to stand in front of Mark and Tartu, with Mark’s team lining up behind him and Tartu’s behind Tartu.

  Everyone organized with Aurora in front and a few soldiers to the far sides, out of the direct line of the gate.

  The anchor archway to Earth was about 5 meters by 5 meters square, with a little bit more space at the top because it was an archway, and a little bit extra below, because the gate also extended under the ground. The road leading to the gateway was flat, so the gateway itself had to be started below the level of the road, so that the road could stay flat. Spikes of magic-infused steel were set into the archway’s frame, every 10 centimeters on the inside of the stone structure. Those spikes were like pins, and once activated they would hold the gate open.

  If everything worked out, the open gateway would resemble leathers on a rack, pulled taut and drying.

  Mark stood straight and tall, at parade rest with his legs slightly apart. His helmet was adamantium, mouth exposed, and Quark’s body was right behind his head, attached under that helmet. Tiny silver lines stretched out of the helmet, where they stuck cameras on the outside for Quark to see though. There were also the lenses. Thanks to the lenses made by Eliot, and interfaced through by Quark, Mark had the best tech-assisted scouting available to a non-techie. Even if he lost the lenses, Quark could just put tiny screens to the side of Mark’s vision, but the lenses were good, for now.

  Mark felt secure in his own capabilities.

  His team was with him, and he was prepared in all the ways he could be prepared, and his spellbreaker charm was still glowing on its chain around his neck. He could survive one big targeted magic, and Quark could alert him when the thing triggered, so Mark knew it had triggered. They hadn’t practiced that, but Quark had understood the idea of it all, and Mark trusted Quark to do right—

  A small display, set to the side of the gate and next to the ground, lit up.

  Numbers appeared.

  Solari’s voice preceded the man, as Solari rushed back up into the open, saying, “10, 9, 8, 7…!”

  Solari took a spot next to Aurora, in front of his son, and went silent, while the countdown still continu—

  A rip.

  A whine.

  Mark watched as rainbows spilled out from nothing, from the air. It wasn’t light, though. It was like Aurora ripping rainbows into the world. Pure power carved a rent in reality, but this time reality whined at the damage. It was a cry for help.

  Mark hadn’t been near the gate when the diplomats from Memphi had come through a few days ago. He had watched it open from kilometers away, and he hadn’t caught sight of the actual gate himself, either. Just the light from it.

  And the sound.

  That sound had been a thrumming call to battle, and Mark felt himself start to breathe hard, to quiet his heart, to fight against every instinct he had to rend and tear and kill.

  Standing next to the opening gate was so much worse.

  Quark was probably saying something in his ears, but all Mark could hear was the rage, and a demand to rage even more.

  The rainbow rent split outward, slamming into the magisteel pins like so much water splashed onto a table. The hole in the world expanded past the edges of the container, and then splashed back down into an organized space, but the pins held it in place, and the world screamed to be released.

  Break the gate!

  Don’t let the gate exist!

  Mark stepped for—

  A soft touch pressed on Mark’s shoulders and feet, holding him there, while words flowed through his head, spoken without any lips moving at all. It was Aurora’s voice, standing in front of him, her back still turned to him.

  ‘You’re okay, Mark. It’s just the Kaiju Call working on you a bit more than everyone else. You get used to it. Stand down, please, and turn your claws back into knives. Contain yourself before the interference clears and the other side can see.’

  Mark blinked, and put his foot all the way back down, though it was difficult—

  His adamantium, around his ankles and wrists, had become claws holding over his fists and over his feet, digging into the stone underfoot.

  People had noticed, especially Tartu and Kardi to the sides, and Eliot right behind him. They worried.

  That’s what really brought Mark back to the moment.

  Mark rapidly reshaped what he had made, turning claws back into knives that held against his body—

  The pinned rainbows of the gate anchor softened. Overlapping truths fell into each other. Like a turbulent pool clearing, the broken Veil between worlds became an open gate.

  An opening to Earth.

  Wind poured through like dry desert air and the world on this side seemed suddenly dimmer, while color from Daihoon flowed to Earth, curling through the edges of the open gate like twists of colored sand blown across desert dunes.

  And then there were the people on the other side, some of whom marveled at the gate itself, but then there were the central figures who saw only Aurora, Grand Mage Solari, and then Mark and Eliot.

  Mark knew the three people over there that mattered the most.

  Mayor Emilia Ramirez, the leader of Memphi, who had been voted into power years and years ago, and never been voted out. She stood center of the welcoming formation. She was proud, and the person there seemed to be actually her, according to her vector. Mark would have assumed she would have sent a holographic interface instead, but apparently she left the city to come to this ceremony… Or maybe Memphi had been expanded to include this gate space, actually.

  Yeah.

  That made more sense.

  Emilia was still inside the city right now, because the city had expanded rather far north.

  To the Mayor’s left was General Kraigan Steele, the leader of Memphi’s Hero Association, and the general overseer of all heroic activities in the city. Mark hadn’t met him yet, but he knew what the guy looked like from the pictures. He was a tough-as-nails asshole, according to all accounts, and he looked perpetually pissed. He was also quite large and strong-looking. His last name, Steele, was a mage-name; one he gave himself after achieving a certain level of power that allowed him to do that. He was pretty damned accomplished, and a kaiju-killer in his own right, several times over.

  But the strongest person there, who might have rivaled Aurora for personal power, was the last big name, standing to the mayor’s right.

  Archmage Steve Blackthorn was wearing black and gold, the standard colors of an archmage, and smiling, as he said, “Hello! Sorry about the delay. That was my fault entirely!” He waved at Mark. “Hey, Mark!”

  … Mark waved back. “Hello.”

  Emilia Ramirez stepped forward, mostly resuming normal operations as she said, “Welcome to Earth. I’ve heard you have had a day of kaiju. Memphi is glad to see you thriving from the ordeal.”

  Aurora spoke into Mark’s mind (and he assumed everyone else’s, too), sending, ‘That’s our cue.’ And then she stepped forward, saying, “We have. Thank you for your hospitality.” And then she stepped to the side.

  Solari stepped to the other side.

  And now the path was clear for Mark and Tartu and their teams to walk through. Mark and Tartu did exactly that, followed by their teams, in double file, just like Aurora had told them to walk.

  They walked out of a colorful winter, into a dark night that was made into day by ten thousand spotlights and light towers, onto an open stone field just north of a gate anchor that looked exactly like the one Eliot had built on Daihoon, but here, on Earth. Soldiers of Memphi, dressed in black and yellow and nicknamed ‘bees’ for those uniforms, lined the sides of the reception area, all of them standing tall and proud. Other people were far in the background, on stadium seating, standing up and shouting for joy. Waving. Calling out. Celebrating.

  Mark was worried, and that worry had not stopped, but what he saw here was a hero’s welcome, in the deep of winter.

  It was exhilarating.

  It was still cold, as well, but it was an Earth-sort of cold, and Mark—

  Mark’s ears popped and he shivered as something left him, like sand from an hourglass.

  Mark felt every person who had just walked through the gate experience the same thing, but what he most saw was Kardi’s spellguns. They were like smoke bombs going off, but with rainbow light, looking exactly like the rainbow light that curled out of the gate, from Daihoon to Earth, and then expanded on Earth until it was invisible in the background.

  Mark was pretty sure it was mana, unconstrained by the pressure of other mana as it usually was, on Daihoon. The gateway had opened a hole from high pressure to low pressure, after all.

  Many people noticed the vaguely color-smoke-bombs at Kardi’s hips, but no one in charge was worried.

  Kardi was worried as fuck, though, as she unbuckled her spellguns and let them fall to the ground, saying, “What—!”

  And then Blackthorn was there, saying, “It’s mana offgassing. Magical items break unless they are very well made. Sorry you found that out the hard way, young lady.”

  Mayor Ramirez called them to attention, saying something about moving on, and then the orders Aurora had told them came back to Mark’s mind. Mark marched forward and so did his team, while Tartu’s team only lagged a little, while Kardi bemoaned her guns, still smoking on the ground. But they marched, too, soon enough. They didn’t go far. Just 5 meters forward, between the Mayor and her people.

  And then the Mayor and her people once again stood next to the gate, while Aurora and Solari stood on the other side.

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  The Mayor said, “Memphi of the Central Cities of Earth is grateful for the Aluatha Empire of Daihoon’s cooperation in this historic gateway between our people, and our worlds.”

  Aurora simply said, “The Aluatha Empire of Daihoon appreciates and accepts the hand of Memphi and the Central Cities of Earth as allies in this historical event. We look forward to many good years of trade between our people, and the felling of many kaiju together.”

  The Mayor gave the tiniest of bows, and Aurora returned the gesture.

  The Mayor said, “The big test will be in 4 days. I will return your people to you in 3. Smaller tests will take place all during the third day, if that is agreeable.”

  Mark was surprised, and he was not the only one.

  It should have been 2 days to a full test, right? Not 4? Or wait. Mark had missed a sleep there, so maybe it was only 3 days by now. Or maybe just 48 hours.

  Four full days was a lot of time to prepare, though.

  More than Mark had thought they would have.

  Aurora asked, “… I assumed the schedule was for 48 hours for a full test from now.”

  Ah-ha! So Mark wasn’t imagining things.

  Mayor Ramirez said, “I managed to get a few things adjusted. Is 4 days sufficient time to prepare?”

  Aurora returned to professionalism, and Mark realized that Aurora was just a general of a settlement here, while the Mayor was the leader of millions of people. Aurora said, “As you desire, the Aluatha Empire can accommodate.”

  “Then let us close the gate before problems come knocking. It was nice to meet you in person, General Valen.”

  “And you as well, Mayor Ramirez.”

  Mark didn’t see anyone make any sort of signal to cut off the gate, but he did feel the Mayor’s vector, reach down below the gatehouse and flick something and uncurl a whole lot of things from other things… Maybe. She was a technokinetic of massive means, so whatever she was doing Mark could only guess at. The effect was understandable, though.

  The worlds pressed in against the scar that humans had caused, and with the sound of a dying kaiju, the gate slapped shut. A mirage vanished in the air, and Daihoon was once again separated from Earth by the Veil.

  Something like a pressure left Mark in that moment, and it wasn’t the pressure of mana escaping. It was like a threat had vanished. He relaxed, though he tried not to. He was still on high alert for shittery.

  But more cheers went up from the people on the stadium seating and the soldiers raised their rifles in a salute, and the Mayor led the way toward a building down the road ahead. Soon Mayor Ramirez was leading the way forward, while Blackthorn stood on her right side, close to Mark. He looked like he wanted to say something, and he probably would, soon.

  Mark and his team walked in line with Tartu and his team, down the path ahead, following the Mayor, Steele, and Blackthorn.

  Mark glanced around at the landscape, and he was impressed.

  There was a gate overhead, 500 meters wide by 500-ish-or-more tall, just like the one over on Daihoon, while the landscape all around was rather open, except for a bunch of buildings over there, which looked to be an airship tower, a ground dock of some sort, and something like a few hotels, or something. Probably office space for whatever would come next. People always needed office space.

  Everything ahead was north of the gatehouse, which was to be the entrance to Daihoon, which was already rather far north of the previous walls of Memphi. But those walls were now way out there, much further to the north. Mark glanced behind him and saw a whole lot of open land that had once been kilometers upon kilometers of patrolled forests, just a month ago. Those patrol areas were probably far to the north…

  Was Wolf Bayou only a kilometer away from those further northern walls? Mark wasn’t sure, but it seemed likely.

  As he glanced the way he expected Wolf Bayou to be, Quark must have understood what he was looking for, because the lens in his glasses populated with a tiny outline, far to the right of where Mark had been looking. That outline was labeled ‘Wolf Bayou’. Mark smirked at that, and mouthed, ‘Thanks, Quark’.

  Quark wrote like subtitles on his lenses, ‘Of course, sir.’

  Mark looked around the place a bit more, and was pretty impressed by what he saw…

  Oh.

  Wait.

  … Was the gatehouse… done?

  What about Eliot?

  Of course a city like Memphi could put together a gatehouse just fine, but he wasn’t the only one looking around, and Eliot was already checking everything out, and he was looking worried. Mark was a bit worried, too.

  Mark asked, “I thought you guys were going to need help building this side?”

  Mark’s people and Tartu’s people were all wondering that too, now that Mark had put words to a lot of their unrealized worries. He was pretty sure Lenny and Shawn both had the same sort of ‘Duh! That’s what is wrong here’ sort of thought process. Sally, meanwhile, was fully alert for shittery, because the Mayor and Kraigen Steele ignored Mark’s question.

  But Blackthorn leaned in to Mark—

  A lot of nearby vectors spiked with worry but Sally’s was the largest spike.

  —and Blackthorn whispered, “Got any questions for me? I got lots to trade, and I see you do, too. We could head off for a trading session right now?”

  Tartu, on Mark’s other side, was deeply, deeply offended, in a lot of weird ways. Sally, standing at the rear of their formation, was feeling some kind of way, and—

  Mark had to ignore all of that and more, including a miffed vector from the Mayor, to focus on the archmage. “I have questions, yes, but I can’t leave the team—”

  “Feel far forward, Mark,” Blackthorn suggested, and this time the levity in his voice was a visible act.

  … Mark felt forward, into the building down the way. There was only one building ahead, about 200 meters away. It was a squat building that looked more like a final checkpoint filled with sensors and stuff of that nature, rather than any place to really visit. Mark and them had merely gone in this direction because this is the direction the people of Memphi were leading them.

  But there was nothing there.

  Or rather, Mark could feel no vectors inside the building at all. There were, in fact, a distinct lack of vectors in there. Mark could usually feel, he wasn’t really sure, the world? In the background? But in that building up ahead… It was a ‘perfectly safe’, unoccupied space.

  Mark’s worry spiked, and his team went on edge with him.

  Something was going on.

  They continued walking like nothing was wrong, though.

  Blackthorn whispered, “I can keep you secure from the people who want to capture you for breaking the embargo on selling Addavein’s metal, but you have to come with me, right now. I’m already being told telepathically that I’m going to be looked at much more harshly for talking to you right now about this, but I can handle the scrutiny. I have lots of good will saved up.”

  The mayor sighed, loudly and pointedly, all the while Blackthorn spoke. When he was done Emilia Ramirez said, “Just let it happen, Mark. You can endure the humiliation of handcuffs and a cell for a while.”

  Blackthorn pointedly whispered, “And I think that he should fuck that shit, and come with me.” He asked Mark, “Escape?”

  Mark made a decision that may or may not have been stupid, asking, “Who is it and are they planning on using shavallian?”

  The Mayor is the one who answered, “You’ll get drugged with shavallian and disarmed of everything. As for who is doing this: It’s the Collective and some people from the Okuana and Aluatha Empires, strangely enough. I would have thought Aluatha wouldn’t pull something like this, considering the circumstances, but I get the distinct feeling that they appreciate Aurora a lot less than they appear to appreciate her.”

  Mark said, “They hate her family and distrust her for no good reason.”

  The mayor nodded, but they never stopped walking toward the trap, as she said, “The core of the people in there are specifically the inquisitors who worked as oversight on Addashield, who were not murdered in his near-Fall, and that woman who was teaching you, Inquisitor Lola Turner. I think she got roped into it based on pressures outside of her control, which is what happens when empires dislike empires; small people get used in ways they never wanted to be used.”

  For a moment, Mark’s heart broke.

  Lola was with them?

  But then Mark was panicking, but he tried not to show it. Other people in the party were less well put together. Sally was making fists.

  They had never stopped walking toward the building in the distance, which was now under 100 meters away, and Mark was beginning to wonder if the Mayor was dragging out her words so that they would get captured anyway.

  But the Mayor turned, briefly, and lied straight to Mark’s face, “It will go easier on you if you face justice.”

  “Okay, I’m going,” Mark said, and he turned toward Blackthorn. “My team, too.”

  And that’s what caused the march to stop.

  Tartu glared, whisper-roaring at Mark, “You are going to godsdamned jail if that is what they want of you, and I will go with you. I don’t like you, and I don’t like whatever the fuck this is, either, but there are laws, and you will obey them, or I will drag you in myself.”

  Well wasn’t this just perfect, then!

  Mark saw the shape of a great big conspiracy, and he laughed.

  Tartu glared—

  Mark made a Union with his people, strong as adamant and cracking the world with black. And then Mark punched Tartu in the face, laying him out, and while the Domainer stared up at Mark, fury writ large, Mark roared, “Villains don’t get caught, dumbass!”

  Many things happened all at once.

  Mark reached for Archmage Blackthorn, the Mayor spoke like a dead person, saying, ‘Oh, nooo, don’t try to escaaaape. That’s so baaad.’ and Isoko laughed somewhere in all that, while whatever cover obscured the trap ahead promptly shattered. A world of Union tried to reach for Mark, to take control of the world around him and deny him any sort of power distribution at all.

  But Mark’s black veins dug a lot deeper than a goddess’ gifted Powers, and Blackthorn was already flying away, laughing as he signed off, as he grabbed a claw of adamantium in one hand that Mark held out to him. Mark had given all of his team handles, too, and just like they had practiced not-often-enough, Mark lifted his team into the air, on Blackthorn’s power.

  One after the other, with the archmage pulling them along, Mark escaped with his full team with him.

  Lola ran out into the open, saying, “Mark!”

  Mark called back as they flew away, “We’ll catch up soon!”

  And then there was a great wind tunnel and Mark and his team somehow passed through the sky and then there was a black obelisk, like chipped obsidian, with a top end that held gardens and a very opulent apartment.

  Blackthorn dropped Mark and his team onto the balcony of his private mage tower and residence and smiled, saying, “Great decision! Best decision ever.”

  Sally was on the ground, on her knees, vector spinning, as she mumbled, “Fuck fuck fuck.”

  Isoko exclaimed, “Loved that.”

  And then, a bit mad, Eliot said, “I was looking forward to building another gate with full supplies. Was it always the plan to ruin that?!”

  Blackthorn shrugged, and then he walked toward the big glass porch doors to his big, tower-top penthouse, saying, “I don’t know. Probably! I do my own things most of the time. Say, you kids want some drugs? I’ve got lots!”

  Sally quietly shook her head back and forth, mocking, “ ‘Want some drugs? Perhaps to sell your souls, too?’ ”

  Blackthorn turned and said, “None of those other things, Sally dear! Just drugs! I got coffee, too.”

  Sally paled a whole lot—

  But Mark stepped toward Blackthorn, feeling less worried about him than he was about Addavein, or the gate project, or the empires out there gunning for him for whatever reason, as he said, “Please understand our previous issues with archmages have predisposed us to certain modes of thinking and acting. Please allow me to formally apologize for how I treated you the second and most of the third times we met. I have adamantium for sale in exchange for questions answered. First, food and sleep, though.”

  Blackthorn smirked. “I’m just teasing. Come on in.” Blackthorn continued inside, saying, “I planned on you, Mark, but I can make room for your teammates, too. Not a problem.”

  Sally’s vector was distinctly quiet, and with an unsaid weight that leaned on Mark, almost like she was saying, ‘Fucking hell, Mark. I’m here, but I’m not happy about it.’

  Eliot was very unhappy, too, but for unrelated reasons, as he muttered, “How do they even know what the other big gate looks like, magically, if I’m not there to make it the exact same?”

  Isoko, however, was excited. She walked right behind and to the side of Mark, eagerly eyeing Blackthorn, but whispering to Mark, “Are you gonna ask about magic?”

  “Absolutely, yes. You want to be there?”

  “Yes. I had a Binding dream in the nap before we lined up for the gate. I didn’t get a chance to say, but I did.”

  Mark’s eyes went wide. “Congrats.”

  “Oh! A Binding dream?” Blackthorn asked, as he stepped to the big table where Mark had sat down with him and hashed out their adamantium deal, among other things, what felt like ages ago. “You both walking the dreams?”

  Sally was looking weird, now. “Walking dreams?”

  “Magic talk,” Blackthorn said, excited and happily. “Mage Society secrecy stuff. It’ll kill you if you learn it half-assed and do it wrong, though~”

  He was way too happy.

  Mark suspected he was high right now.

  Sally wanted to groan, but she did not groan.

  Blackthorn cut short all conversation, though, as he said, “But that’s for later, I’m sure. The Collective and the Empires will need to go through a lot of hoops for me to begin to entertain the idea of allowing them to collect you, so until then: All four of you look utterly exhausted. Let’s get you settled into nice beds. Showers and food, too, if you’re hungry!”

  Mark was still quite tired, so he had no problem doing all of that. And, it turned out, Sally was okay once the archmage got a few giant burritos in her. It was Mexican for everyone, and Isoko was thrilled and exhausted.

  Soon, Mark found himself in a big bed with black bed sheets, with Isoko on the other side of the bed, separated by pillows. Eliot was in a bed on the other side of the room, while Sally got her own big girl bed, both of them sleeping on constructions that Eliot had made himself, inside the room that Blackthorn had prepared for Mark alone. Blackthorn had rapidly assigned a few more guest rooms to all of his new, unexpected guests, but Mark wasn’t about to split the party, for any reason.

  That meant that they would be sleeping in the same room.

  Everyone else agreed with him, though Blackthorn seemed reluctant about that decision, though he went along with it, anyway. The archmage was practically giddy the whole time all of that happened, which made him rather easy to deal with right now.

  And soon, Mark was sleeping, along with the others.

  - - - -

  Steve picked up the phone and Mayor Emilia Ramirez was already there.

  “You have him secure?” she asked.

  Steve’s demon Planty curled one ephemeral hand through the hair on Steve’s chest and the other around his hand, holding his phone, her grin visible in the corner of Steve’s eyes.

  Steve said, “Of course I have him. He and his team are fed and sleeping, and I have some more catering coming in for when they wake up.” Steve leaned over his balcony and looked at the parking lot in front of his tower. Only a few cars were there, all of them linked to Steve’s girls and guys and his secretaries and otherwise. There were no hovercars from the Collective, and no flying invisible ships in the sky. The gate to the tower’s parking lot was still open, too, so for the entire world, everything looked normal. Steve said, “I expected to be fighting off interlopers already, Mayor, so what happened?”

  With a bit more relaxed tone, the Mayor said, “You missed it in your high-speed escape, but that Solari boy shouted a bunch of epithets at Mark, and that Lucky girl got her phone out super quick and touched off some recording program for the Hero/Villain Program. A bunch of people in the audience did the same thing. Ten minutes and a headache later, the Hero/Villain Program intervened. That’s what is happening right now. The HVP is involved now, because everyone tried to block Crystal Tower from helping with the gate, and Glorious Man did not like that. I believe he called it ‘the principle of the thing’ and ‘we should help them how we can’. He’s still not showing up and none of the big heroes are, either, because Tokyo still controls the purse, but this event has become a clusterfuck of worldwide proportions.” A breath. “As if it wasn’t already.” And then the Mayor ordered, “Keep them out of trouble. I’ll update you soon, but most of it is going to be on the 9 AM morning news.”

  And then she hung up.

  Steve grinned.

  Planty spoke into his ear, seductively asking, “What are you going to teach him first?”

  Steve digressed, “We won’t have much actual time and I doubt I can teach him anything given the parameters of the situation…” He grinned. “But...”