They rested, and then they trained. Abbott came back for a second round in the training room, and then they went through another few rounds in the arena. By the end of that day, it seemed like Alex’s whole world had been consumed by training and fighting and learning. It seemed insane to realize that it hadn’t even been a full week since they’d started.

  She was still getting ready to start out on her morning run when she got a text. Frowning, she picked up her phone and checked it, expecting it to be some update from Sam or Abbott about their Survey the next day.

  Instead, it was the front desk receptionist telling her that her mother was waiting for her in the lobby.

  Alex probably broke some kind of speed record getting there.

  When she got to the front desk, Alex was sorely out of breath. She plunged through the front doors and staggered to a halt as she saw her mother waiting for her in the front room, apparently exchanging small talk with Lisa, the receptionist.

  The only saving grace was that Muriel wasn’t there as the Crimson Blade. Instead, she was using her ‘walking around clothes’, the disguise that she used outside of the house. Too-baggy clothing allowed her to hunch her back and appear far less in-shape than she actually was. Subtly mismatched shoes gave her a limp she didn’t actually have, and a soft cloth eyepatch hid her missing eye. Makeup to suggest wrinkles that didn’t exist and a contact lens to change her eye color completed the disguise. All told, she went from the wounded agent of Regulation that had made corporations tremble to someone’s slightly dowdy, disabled mother.

  As Alex stared at her, still panting from her panicked sprint, Muriel turned to look at her, wobbling a little on her supposedly unsteady legs. Her mother smiled. “Alex! How good to see you. Did you run all the way here?”

  Alex glared at her a little. Her mother’s voice bore little resemblance to her normal steady tones, but the way Muriel changed the pitch and spoke like she was out of breath had always irritated her. “Yeah, Mom. I was a little… worried. You usually call before you show up.”

  Muriel waved it away with a trembling hand. “Oh, I just decided to surprise you, dear. After all, I never get to visit you where you work.”

  “There’s a good reason for that, Mom. Didn’t they give you a warning about the magic levels around here?” Alex tried to keep her words even, but it was hard not to start yelling. What was her mother thinking?

  Her mother blinked at the question. “Well, I did check with the gate guard and he said I could be here for at least a few minutes. He asked Lisa here to keep an eye on me, in case things got a little too intense. She’s been a fine companion, haven’t you, my dear?”

  Lisa smiled. “Your mother’s been a delight, Ms. Morrison. She’s got at least another hour or two before she’d be hitting danger levels, so if you wanted to, you could show her around the place.”

  There was a brief moment of horror as Alex pictured herself escorting her mother around a Greylight Industries subsidiary. “No, I think it’s probably for the best that we don’t get her any closer to the portal. Right, Mom?”

  “Oh, honey, I’m sturdier than that.” Her mother’s smile grew a little too sharp and genuine for a moment, before fading back to a softer version. “Besides, I’d be delighted to meet some of your friends here. Maybe we could even invite them back home for dinner. We’re having waffles! You are coming home for your day off, aren’t you?”

  Alex grimaced slightly. It was technically her day off, something that she’d conveniently forgotten. With all of the work ahead of her, she’d hoped to get some more training in instead. “I don’t know, Mom, we’re so busy here and—”

  “Oh, but your father has been so excited to hear how things have been going.” Muriel clutched at the front of her shirt with her hand, the picture of overwrought motherly dignity. “He’ll be so disappointed.”

  The sadness in Muriel’s voice was like something out of a play. Alex glanced at Lisa, who was watching with a sympathetic look on her face. “I know, Mom, but still—”

  Lisa coughed lightly into her hand. “You know, it is something we encourage here. Taking days off, I mean. You can’t train all the time and remain effective, after all.”

  Her mother turned to Alex and poked her in the side. “See, even this fine young lady is saying you should come home. You should listen to your employers.”

  There was a glint of malicious humor in Muriel’s eye, and Alex rubbed at her side. The Crimson Blade had put a bit of Strength into that poke. “Okay, fine, Mother, I’ll come home. Just… call next time, all right?”

  Muriel’s smile was both familiar and infuriating. “Oh, why would you say that? You aren’t hiding a new boyfriend or anything, are you?”

  Lisa hid a smile of her own behind a hand, and Alex felt her face starting to warm. She took hold of her mother’s arm and started to half-drag, half-escort her towards the door. “I would never hide anything from you, mother. Let me get you back to the bus stop so you can head home.”

  Her mother dragged her heels—quite literally, actually. “Are you coming with me, then? I could use some help getting back to your father. He gets so worried, you know.”

  Alex opened her mouth to argue, only for someone else to speak up first. “And who might this be?”

  She turned slowly and saw both Jester and Mitch Warner walking out of the right-hand doorway. The Surveyor had a cruel smile twisting his lips, while the CEO simply looked mildly curious. Alex felt her mother’s hand go a little tense under her own, but she squeezed calmly, feeling the calluses from her mother’s sword practice beneath her own.

  “It’s just my mom. She came to see how I was doing.”

  Jester’s eyes seemed to light up at the information, but Warner just seemed amused. He looked at Muriel and smiled. It was the slick, insincere expression of someone who had made a career out of reassuring investors and lying to underlings. “Welcome to Royal Purple Contracting, Mrs. Morrison! I’m so glad that you took the time to visit today.”

  His eyes dropped to the stump of her right arm, and he extended his left hand for her to shake, with a pause so small that it might as well have not happened. Muriel took her hand from Alex’s and gave him a delicate—for her, at least—handshake. “Why thank you, Mr…”

  There was a flicker of… something in Warner’s expression. His smile seemed to grow a little more brittle as he extracted his hand. “Warner. Mitch Warner. I’m the person in charge here, for my sins.”

  Muriel’s head tilted slightly, and her voice lost a little of its quavering quality. “Mitch Warner? Any relation to Joshua Warner?”

  Warner’s expression froze. When he answered, he seemed to pick his words carefully. “Joshua was my brother, yes. He died many years ago, unfortunately.”

  “So I heard.” Muriel shook her head and clucked to herself. “I read a news report about him back when it happened. It was some kind of unexpected Escalation Event, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. It was.” Warner’s flat tone didn’t quite match the expression of sadness on his face. Then he shook himself. “I suppose that’s part of why I came here to supervise things at Royal Purple Contracting. It’s a chance to prevent the same kind of incidents. Something Joshua would have wanted, no doubt.”

  “Oh, I’m sure.” Muriel nodded agreeably. “I’m just pleased that my daughter might be of some use to you here. Has she been performing well?”

  “Why, absolutely!” Warner seemed to recover a little, beaming at Alex. “Alexandretta has been making quite the impression. We expect great things from her.”

  “Yeah! You could even say we have a great eye for talent!” Jester’s grin had stretched into a ghoulish expression, and he leered at Muriel as if expecting some sort of response. Behind him, Lisa’s mouth dropped open in shock at his supposed joke. Even Warner frowned slightly at the C rank Surveyor.

  Alex, on the other hand, just made a tally mark on her mental scoreboard and forced herself to turn back to Warner. “I was actually just going to help my mother to the bus stop. Did you need us for something?”

  Warner shook his head, his eyes darting from Muriel to Alex to Jester. “No, no, go ahead and accompany her. Again, a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Morrison.”

  Muriel was nodding when Jester spoke up again. “Do you need any help with that, Valkyrie? You look like you could use a hand.”

  There was a sudden silence after the question. Alex felt her mother go a little stiff and moved her hand to block her mother’s; there had been a hint of a sword hilt that definitely didn’t need to make an appearance here. Muriel gave Alex a look and then smiled. “Is this your supervisor, Alex? You haven’t introduced us, after all.”

  Alex shook her head. The tone in her mother’s voice promised nothing good. “No, that’s Abbott. Or Ryan Costello, I guess.” She glanced at Jester. “This is Jester. He’s another C rank Surveyor here.”

  Muriel nodded easily. Her voice was almost wistful. “Oh, I should have guessed that. After all, you said your supervisor was funny.”

  Warner’s eyebrows nearly shot into his hairline, and Lisa snorted before she could stop herself. Jester, on the other hand, turned a hard look on her mother, something close to a snarl growing across his face. Before he could open his mouth again, Alex spoke up. “All right, mother, we don’t want you to be late. Let me come with you to make sure you’re all right.”

  Her mother nodded easily and offered Alex her arm. Alex took it and started off through the lobby, careful to keep to a believable pace for her mother to hobble along with her. She risked a quick glance backward and saw Warner speaking to Jester in a low voice. The C rank was alternating between nodding to Warner and sending quick glares in her direction.

  Still keeping her voice low, Alex spoke up. “Really, Mom? Picking fights now? With a high-level Surveyor?”

  Muriel snorted. Her voice was low, but unflinching. “I’ve scraped better Surveyors off my boot. He wouldn’t last five seconds.”

  “Neither would my cover! And what would have happened if someone with a Skill like Lifesight came in? They’d have caught you for sure.”

  Her mother shrugged a little, waving farewell to one of the security guards in the room. “I had Sam check for me. Most of the guards here have their Surveyor records publicly listed, and none of them are the type to have trained their Skills in that direction. They barely even have Acolytes outside of the medical staff, honestly.”

  Alex shook her head. “And if Rabbit came in? You know, one of the ones that tried to kill you?”

  “Then your lobby might have gotten a few extra decorations.” The cold promise in her mother’s voice chilled Alex’s blood, but then Muriel sighed. “I’m sorry, Alex. I just wanted to be sure to speak with you today—and you do have a tendency to get so buried in training that you forget what day it is.”

  Alex started to open her mouth for another rebuke, only to give it up with a sigh. Recklessness ran in the family, and the best thing she could really hope for was that her mother wouldn’t make a habit of showing up out of nowhere. Instead, she asked the question that had already been bothering her. “You knew Warner.”

  “Joshua Warner, yes.” Muriel glanced back. If Warner had looked up then, he would have been surprised how much more focused and lethal her gaze would have seemed. “I knew him really well.”

  She waited, but Muriel didn’t say anything more. Alex nodded. “All right. We’ll talk later, Mom.” They made their way down towards the entrance to the campus in silence for a while. Then she grinned. “Anyway, you said something about waffles?”

  “I still can’t believe you went there on your own. When I realized…” Eric scrubbed a hand back through his hair, his other hand cradling a pile of pancakes heaped high on a plate. “I nearly activated our exit strategy. You could’ve come home to find the house on fire.”

  Muriel rolled her eye and patted her husband’s chest. “Now, now. There was no harm done, and I assessed their security. In case things go south.”

  Alex gave her a sharp look. “It’s going to be fine, Mom. Nothing’s going on at the company this time.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Her mom ignored the comment and continued. “They have barely half a dozen security guards, and none of them look particularly sharp. Lots of cameras, but they’re probably only there to keep normals from sneaking into the campus. We could be in and out in no time.”

  Eric’s expression lost some of its discontent. “I suppose that is comforting.” He shook his head as he gathered her into his arms, still balancing the food in his off-hand. “Still, I’d appreciate a warning the next time. As would Alex, I’m sure.”

  Muriel snorted softly, and Alex heaved a heavy sigh. She waited until her parents had separated, picking at the wreckage of her meal. The waffles had been even more delicious than she had remembered. “All right, now that we’ve remembered how phones work…”

  Eric grinned, and Muriel gave her a stern look. Alex met her gaze evenly and raised an eyebrow. Her mother grimaced and walked over to her own chair, settling down in front of her own stack of syrup-drenched waffles. “Joshua Warner. He was our contact inside of Greylight. Or at least, that’s what we thought.”

  Alex blinked. She looked at her father, who shrugged and began his second course. “What kind of contact?”

  “An informant. Someone who would let us know when the corp was doing something Regulation would be interested in.” Muriel paused to bite and chew a bit of waffle. “He was a low-level executive at the time, the kind of ambitious worker that got sent to do the dirty work so the higher ups could keep their hands clean. It helped that he’d been a Surveyor for a very brief time; it meant they could send him to meetings in the other world, where bugs and recordings weren’t exactly possible.”

  Alex finished her own bite, chewing slowly as she digested the information. “But he was talking to you? Or Regulation, at least?”

  “We thought he was.” Muriel shrugged. “We never met face to face. Everything was always anonymous emails, dead drops, that kind of thing.”

  “How did you know it was him?”

  Muriel answered after she finished swallowing. “It was fairly obvious. Everything he reported to us was something that he was involved in. He was always hanging around the projects we managed to bust, and half the time when we found a living witness, they mentioned having met him at some point. A lot of the people who went down in the company were people that Joshua had a rivalry with, so some of the people on the team thought he was turning in people that had rubbed him the wrong way or gotten between him and a position he wanted.”

  Alex raised her eyebrow. “What did you think?”

  “I thought it didn’t matter. As long as the information was good, why care why he gave it to us?” Muriel set aside her fork and took a drink of juice. She set it down with a sigh and toyed with the glass, spinning it slowly to make the liquid inside swirl. “Of course, now I would have liked to find out. Everything he gave us was completely reliable—right up until…”

  Her words trailed off, and Alex grunted as the realization dawned. “He was the informant. The one that led you into the ambush.”

  Muriel nodded, her eye serious. “Yeah, he was. When we arrived, he was claiming he wanted to surrender, and then my team started to go down. Last I saw of him was when Shane killed him and the others that were acting as bait.”

  Alex nodded slowly, still processing what she’d been told. “So the brother of the person who nearly got you killed…”

  “Is the one in charge of your company.” Muriel grinned at her. “It’s probably a good thing that I got a look at their security after all, isn’t it?”

  She grunted, her mind whirling through her interactions with Warner thus far. He hadn’t seemed to pay much attention to her, outside of the encounter in the lobby. “He doesn’t seem to suspect me of anything at all. Even if he did, I don’t know if Greylight actually has any plots going on at Royal Purple Contracting.”

  Eric raised his eyebrow as he finished sawing off another multi-layered chunk of waffles. “You think they’ve reformed or something?”

  Alex shook her head. “No. More like Royal Purple is their cover for everything else they’re doing. Why would they want to risk the company that is more or less their front business?”

  “You’d be surprised how greedy some criminals can be.” Muriel waved a fork at her, heedless of the syrup-sodden waffle on the end of it. “Remember Wells? He apparently had a whole backend deal with Greylight, but that didn’t keep him from pushing his little drug empire. Or vice versa, I suppose.”

  It was hard to argue that point. “Still, I just don’t see what the angle would be for them. Royal Purple is the rescue squad, the people who go in and solve emergencies. What could they possibly do that would be criminal with that? It would be like convincing people to hate firefighters.”

  Eric chuckled. When Alex gave him a questioning look, he shrugged. “You know, at some points in history, firefighting companies were actually illegal.”

  Alex blinked. “Really? Did people just like fires back then?”

  “Kind of the opposite.” Eric smiled. “Back in the day, the firefighters were more like protection rackets, like you’d see in mob movies. You know, a couple of them would walk up and start saying ‘wonderful building you have here, would be a shame if it lit on fire with no one to protect it…’”

  Muriel snorted in amusement, pausing to put her hand up to her face. She forced her latest bite down and smirked at her husband. “You’re saying that the whole lot of you are would-be arsonists, and not just you in particular? That explains so much.”

  He drew himself up in a dignified pose, one slightly undermined by the mischievousness in his eyes. “How rude! You should know that I am a particularly good firefighter, mostly because I can’t stand how sloppy all those arsonists and accidents do things. If anyone’s going to start fires, it’s going to be me. At least I’d do it right…”

  Her mother rolled her eye and then looked at Alex with a frown. “Alex? Is there something wrong?”

  Alex shook herself out of her daze. “That’s what they’re doing. Or what they’re going to do.”

  Muriel’s frown deepened. “What are you talking about?”

  “They’ll go to other corporations and tell them that accidents will happen—and when the companies don’t contract with us, they’ll have a sudden Escalation Event or something similar.” She shook her head. “Why didn’t I see it before? Warner was even talking about outreach and new opportunities when he arrived.”

  Eric grunted, his waffles suddenly forgotten. He set his utensils down. “It’s not the same thing, though. I hate to admit it, but it is a lot easier to set a fire than to make a portal… go… bad…”

  They all looked at each other for a long moment, and then Muriel let out a slow breath of air. “They know about Golden Swallow, don’t they?”

  “They have to.” Alex shook her head. “That, or something similar. Unless you don’t think Greylight would risk it?”

  Neither of her parents spoke up to disagree. She sighed and looked back down at her plate. Somehow, the waffles didn’t seem nearly as delicious.

  Joanna slowly lowered her head into her hands. Clara stared at Alex with wide, unfocused eyes. Sam just tilted his head, apparently thinking through options.

  Alex just watched all of them processing the situation, looking around at them in the small space she’d been given in the dorms. Unlike every other company so far, she’d actually been given a private room. It wasn’t large; just enough space for a twin bed, a computer desk set into the far wall, and a small open space nearer the front of the room that held a handful of chairs.

  The others had come to her room after she’d gotten back, answering her vague text message about ‘needing to talk’. Now, after she’d filled them in on her suspicions, she waited for them to react.

  Joanna spoke first, her voice half-muffled by her own hands. “You know, I shouldn’t be surprised. You did warn us.”

  Alex winced. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. After all, you aren’t the madwoman doing this. You just seem attracted to them.” Joanna lifted her head and gave her a crooked smile. “Runs in the family, I suppose.”

  Clara shook herself as if she was coming up for air in cold water. “Are we sure this is even possible? Why would they have us here if they were going anywhere near something like this? Wouldn’t they think we’d recognize it?”

  Alex paused. “Maybe they were worried about that. Did Abbott mention to any of you that other departments were trying to poach us?”

  Joanna and Clara shook their heads, but Sam nodded. His eyes were intent. “He mentioned something like that offhand, yeah. Something about how they felt we’d be better off in other parts of the company. I just assumed it was because they were holding a grudge over what happened with Wells.”

  “Let’s not rule that out entirely.” Joanna looked back at Alex and sighed. “Still, it does put together an… interesting picture. Though it still doesn’t entirely make sense to me.”

  Folding her arms across her chest, Alex frowned. “Why not? Did I miss something?”

  The Adept shook her head. “Not entirely. It’s more just a logistics issue.” She looked around at the others, and then spread her arms. “Look, think about it this way. How long did it take Golden Swallow to build that… thing… in the warehouse? Weeks, if not months, right?”

  “At least, yeah.” Sam paused. “Zach said that they’d have to have started years ago.”

  The mention of Zach’s name sent an echo of pain and anger through her, but Alex shoved it aside. “So?”

  “So, it would be a huge investment to build one of those near each of their target portals. They’d have to have started a long time ago, and they’d have no guarantee that they’d make their money back.” Joanna shook her head. “It sounds like the kind of slimy trick they’d do, but they wouldn’t have any motive for it. No profits.”

  Some of the tension went out of Clara’s shoulders a little. She closed her eyes and took a breath. “Well, at least we’d be able to check on it easily, right?” When the others looked at her, she shrugged. “If they are building things like that, Royal Purple or Greylight would have to own some property nearby any portals that have unusual spikes. We could check and see if that’s the case, and if it is…”

  “We’d be able to catch them at it.” Alex nodded, feeling a little more reassured. “Would we be able to stop them?”

  Sam rocked a little in his chair, his eyes still distant. “I think so. They wouldn’t risk turning it all the way on again, not after what happened last time. Not only that, I think this is one time we could get away with involving Regulation.” She gave him a skeptical look, but he rolled his eyes. “Say what you will about them, but they were all over Golden Swallow. The company got busted for enough to break them, and that was when they supposedly had permission. If it was off the books, like this thing would have to be…”

  She took in a deep breath and then let it out. “Okay. We don’t know if this is happening, but if we see any signs, we need to check on it. The last thing we need is another thing like Liliana running around.”

  Joanna grimaced. “Don’t remind me. Tomorrow’s going to be hard enough.”

  “Do we tell Abbott?” Clara met their eyes with a questioning expression. “We’re already telling him about Forsmith. Wouldn’t he be able to help us more?”

  Alex thought about it for a moment and then shook her head. “No. He might believe us about Golden Swallow, especially once he sees Liliana. For the rest…”

  “It’s a bit early for him to trust us.” Sam nodded. “If things get more serious, we’ll try to bring him in. Unless it seems like he’s behind it too, of course.”

  She gave him a sharp look, but Alex had to admit it was a wise precaution. They’d only known the C rank for a week, after all. Alex just wished it didn’t seem so much longer than that.

  The next day, they stood in front of the swirling portal, ready to begin a new Survey. All of them were exchanging nervous looks. Abbott, of course, seemed to be ignoring it. He gave Alex a serious nod, and then adjusted his grip on his axe.

  She nodded back, trying to seem confident. They were going to be entering the portal before anyone else that day. Part of it was probably because Abbott wanted to train his Skills the rest of the way back to maximum before he ushered any of the others through. It said a lot about his confidence in them as a team… or perhaps he just didn’t want anyone else to suffer for their poor decisions. Either way, it was going to be an early morning.

  Alex glanced back at where the other Surveyors were milling around the training area. She caught sight of Jester, who was chatting with some of the other C ranks. He’d apologized, in a voice dripping with insincerity, for what he’d said the day before. Alex had thought it smelled like an HR department had gotten involved, especially from the way his eyes had flashed when she accepted it. At the very least, she didn’t have to worry about whether he would deserve it if they ever came to blows.

  When she turned back, the others were already stepping through the portal. Squaring her shoulders, she joined them, striding forward through the light…

  [D Rank Surveyor Alex, Gatekeeper, Realmwalker]

  [Ascension Level: 7]

  [Role: Porter (Role Skills: None]

  [Role Level: 2]

  [Experience: 3220/3600]

  [Attributes: Strength -> 7, Speed -> 10, Life -> 4, Devotion -> 0, Control -> 0]

  [Current Skills: Combat Balance(19), Motion Trance(25), Combined Arms – Axe/Shield(20),

  Holy – Storm(21)]

  [Permanent Skills: Battle Maneuvers(26)]

  [Current Titles: Empress of War (Increases Skill grade of Melee, Combined Arms, Weapon Mastery, and Battle Maneuvers by five.),

  Aggression (Increases Skill grade of Melee, Weapon Mastery, Combined Arms, and Combat Balance Skills by five.),

  Fated Hero (Increases Skill grade of Dodging, Anticipate, Battle Maneuvers, and Inspect by five),

  Eternal Motion (Increases Skill grade of Recovery, Running, Marathoning, and Motion Trance by five.),

  Tireless (Increases Skill grade of Recovery Skills by three.),

  True Sentinel (Increases Skill grade of Deflect, Dodging, Blocking, Resist, Zeal, and Combat Balance by five.),

  Tranquil Flow (Increases Skill grade of Meditation, Focus, Recovery, Arcane, Sense, and Motion Trance by four.),

  Elite (Increases Skill grade of Combat Balance, Battle Maneuvers, Battle Mastery, and Battle Dance by five.),

  Lethality (Increases Skill grade of Melee, Weapon Mastery, and Combined Arms Skills by five.),

  Consecrated (Increases Skill grade of Holy by five.),

  Battle Prowess (Increases Skill grade of Battle Maneuvers, Rush Assault, and Heavy Assault by four.),

  War Momentum (Increases Skill grade of Combat Balance, Riposte, and Battle Dance by five.),

  Blitz Master (Increases Skill grade of Combined Arms, Lunge, and Charge by five)]

  The training against Abbott had definitely improved her rate of Skill increase. If she just had three days instead of two, half of her Skills might have already reached maximum. Then again, given their expanded limits, perhaps not.

  Alex shook her head and let the orange text fade away and be replaced by a familiar set of options.

  [Please select your intent]

  [Exploration]

  [Vengeance]

  [Patrol]

  [War]

  [Salvage]

  Explore was once again the order of the day, much as it was starting to irk her. She did occasionally wonder if something like Patrol would be simpler, but for all she knew it would assign her something like killing a Shifter. C rank portals weren’t as easy as D rank ones, after all.

  [Your intent is to Explore]

  [Quest Issued! Explore one of the following Areas: Grain Silos, General Store, Thicket Lake.]

  [Quest Issued! Explore one of the following Areas: Charging Station, Slaughterhouse, Water Tower.]

  [Hidden Quest Issued!]

  [Hidden Quest Issued!]

  At the very least, she knew how to get to two of the places. Maybe it would be easy enough to get to them that she’d finally get to see one of the more ‘complicated’ spots like Abbott kept promising.

  Consoling herself with that possibility, Alex once again let the light carry her to a place far from home…

  She stepped out into a farmland blessedly free of rain.

  The wind was cool, but it was less chilly and more refreshing. Heat was rising, enough that if the sky hadn’t been cloaked in clouds, she would have expected to be squinting in bright sunlight. As it was, even the stereotypical gloom of the other world seemed a bit less oppressive than usual.

  Alex joined the others around Abbott, who was examining the surrounding fields for dangers. He spent an additional few moments staring out into the terrain.

  Then he turned, and his expression was completely and utterly serious. “Well. I believe that you owe me an explanation, Valkyrie. What really happened to Forsmith?”

  Sam broke in before Alex could respond. “How about you tell us something in exchange? Seems like it would be fair.”

  Abbott glanced at Sam. He grimaced. “All right, fine. What do you want to know?”

  Alex took a step forward. “What do you know about what they were doing at Golden Swallow? You said you had heard rumors. What did they say?”

  He looked back at her, a hint of uncertainty flickering across his face. “Just that there was something more to it than a simple Escalation Event. That it wasn’t just a random spike.” Then Abbott paused, and his expression grew dark. “That there was someone responsible. For all of it.”

  “That’s all?” When Abbott nodded, Alex looked at the others. They nodded back as well, and she turned to look at him again. “And you haven’t heard of any connection between this company and Golden Swallow?”

  Abbott frowned. “A connection? No. Why would there be? They weren’t even a Greylight subsidiary.”

  Beyond his shoulder, there was a flicker of… something in the grain. Alex caught sight of it and grimaced. “Then come on. We’ll tell you what you want to know, and then maybe you can tell us something that we want to know. We might as well get to the Grain Silos while we talk.”