I stood in front of a mirror in the fanciest bathroom I'd ever set foot in. The shower and tub were separate, and in separate rooms from the sink and toilet. I stared at myself, and I didn't recognize who I saw.

A gray—Ellen insisted it was charcoal—suit jacket. Pants somewhere between khaki and brown, mismatched with the jacket in a way she said was cool. A button-up dress shirt and a thin, striped tie. Leather shoes that clicked softly against the floor when I walked. Everything fit perfectly; a few minutes with the tailor had locked in my measurements, and the alterations had been finished in just a couple of days. I felt like it should all match, but Ellen insisted that intentional mismatches of color, fabric, and texture were more visually interesting, and the tailor had agreed.

And now, with the whole thing on, I did too. I looked damn good.

Or at least I thought I did until Ellen walked up to me, pulled my tie off, and grabbed a different one—one that matched her dark pink dress. She tied it expertly, fingers flying through the knotting process, then tucked it into my jacket and raised an eyebrow. "That's acceptable for a first effort. If you're going to do more of these, we'll have to work on some stuff."

"Like what?" I asked. She smelled a little fruity, with a hint of something spicy underneath, and it was distracting.

"Like, uh…" Ellen waved an arm in the air. "General panache. Style. Class. Those aren't things an outfit can create, and you don't have that."

"I can fake it," I said.

"No, you can't."

"I can try." I offered an arm to Ellen. "Shall we?"

She rolled her eyes. Then she spent a few seconds adjusting my arm's position and hooked hers through it. "Yes. Let's go meet my dad. This'll be fun."

The clothes were only half of the preparations Ellen had put me through for this.

Understanding Bob was the other half.

And to do it, she'd given me a history lesson on the Traynor Corporation, its dozens of subsidiaries, and their various, widespread business deals. Those ranged from water treatment and farm equipment that the Guardians used for the Wickenberg Portal Break all the way to solar panels. She even told me I'd seen some of those on the Monster Eaters' cars. I'd thought they were armored, but she disagreed.

The current attempt at a merger was with Olverholz, a company out of San Diego—way out on the coast. Traynor Corporation wanted them for their work with portal metal weapons manufacturing. They were in the process of building guns, artillery, and armored vehicles out of the stuff without losing effectiveness against portal monsters. If they were successful, it'd completely change delving. Anyone could fight an E or D-Rank monster if they had a tank backing them up, and the tank actually did damage to the monsters inside.

And Overholz needed Traynor's funding. Portal metal didn't want to take the shape of a gun or cannon. They'd sunk most of their capital into solving that problem, and now that they had a working prototype, they were confronting a new problem—that ammunition costs were through the roof. Without a buyer, Overholz was on the verge of going out of business.

Ellen cleared her throat as we navigated her mansion's maze-like halls, heading for the ballroom. "Remember, Bob's got all the power here. This isn't a portal. We can't fight our way through this. So our mission is—"

"To introduce your low-class boyfriend to your father, learn what we can about the Traynor delving team, and enjoy our evening," I finished.

"Right." She paused, then looked embarrassed. "Sorry."

"About what?"

"Nothing. Never mind."

We turned a corner, descended a flight of stairs, and arrived at a tall, carved door; it reminded me of Queen Mother Yalerox's throne room entrance, but instead of images of conquest, the main feature was a gigantic, calligraphic 'T' in the center.

Ellen nodded. The door opened, and we stepped through.

A few dozen people stood around, flutes of something alcoholic in their hands. A violinist played music in the corner, but no one was dancing. According to Ellen, it wouldn't be that kind of party.

And, standing with three other men and two women in dresses that seemed like recolors of Ellen's, was a man whose face all but matched hers. His goatee and close-cut hair were graying, but his eyes were just as intense as Ellen's were when she fought. And that made sense; this was his battlefield, after all. The other five people formed a half-circle, all facing him, and their conversation was quiet enough that I couldn't hear it until Ellen led us over to him.

"Hello, Daddy," she said.

The conversation stopped slowly. Bob Traynor raised a finger, and the woman who'd been talking finished her sentence, then the next one, before falling silent. Then he opened his arms, and Ellen slipped out of mine. She let him hug her, and the only people who noticed how stiffly she returned it were him and me.

"Eleanor, so good of you to join us. This is Gustavo Villanova, Talia Smith, and Rebecca Overholz. They're the board of the Overholz Company, and this whole gala is in their honor," Bob said. His eyes locked on mine, and I felt a lot like I did when Councilwoman Myers looked at me: like a mouse being watched by an eagle. "And who is this?"

"It's nice to meet you all," Ellen said. She offered a hand to each of them, and they shook. Then she turned to her father. "Daddy, this is Kade Noelstra. He and I delve together. He's C-Rank, and on track to his S-Rank, just like me."

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"Ah, you're the boy I've heard so much about," Bob said. His eyes panned across me, settled on my tie, and then flicked up to my eyes. Then his hand shot out, and I shook it. I'd half-expected him to play power games with his squeeze, but no—it was one pump, firm and quick. "I hope you're taking good care of Eleanor."

"She's mostly taking care of me at this point. I can't keep up with her," I said truthfully. "Hopefully, that'll change soon."

We made small talk—the Ellen-approved topics only, since a few were off-limits—for a minute or two before a waitress dressed in all black arrived with more drinks. Bob plucked three of them off the tray, handed one to me, and gave Ellen the second. "Eleanor, please show Gustavo, Talia, and Rebecca around. I think they'd expressed interest in my art collection. Anything in the open and semi-private gallery is fair game if they offer the right price."

Ellen nodded, then shot me an eyebrow-raised, serious look. "Of course, Daddy," she said. And then she was gone.

Bob looked me in the eye again. "Let's talk in the garden, Kade Noelstra."

The garden looked a lot like the one in Ellen's mental space. I tried not to look like I'd seen it before, stopping by the various signs that described the plants and fish and pondering the…ponds.

But after a minute, Bob Traynor cleared his throat. "Kade, what's your endgame?"

I blinked. "What?"

"Do you play chess?"

"Yes."

"Then what's your endgame? You've set the board a specific way, but you're relying on Eleanor, and she's not your piece. She's mine. I've put so much effort into her education and childhood. She owes me everything she has."

Ellen had told me everything about Bob, but I hadn't expected him to be so…up front…about who he was and how he thought. "I don't have an endgame, Mr. Traynor," I said semi-truthfully. "Not with regard to your daughter. We delve together, and she seems to like me enough to introduce me to her father. That's all."

"That's not all," Bob said. "Your presence in Eleanor's life is interfering with the Traynor Corporation's plans, and I'm sure she's told you all about those. So, since you don't have an endgame, how about this? I hand you money. Enough money to set you up for the rest of your life, and enough for your sister to live just as comfortably. In return, you bring my daughter back into the fold. The two of you quit the team you're on—it's a dead-end, and you know it. And instead, you join the Traynor guild's delving team. A simple transaction."

"I see." I stared at the pool. Its lights were on, shining yellow-white color all the way to the bottom of the diving well and illuminating the pair of full-sized lap lanes that ran the length of the garden wall. Even this late, it was blazingly hot outside, and even though both Ellen and the tailor had insisted that linen would help, I was still sweating.

"Think about it. You have time. I won't need Ellen until the rest of the team's B-Rank, and that won't be for another few weeks. They're growing fast," Bob said.

"And how are you going to deal with the core instability issue? That should be coming up soon," I asked.

Bob stared at me. "What core instability issue?"

"So, you've been cramming Laws into a bunch of delvers, and not one of them has mentioned their core getting strained? You're either getting incredibly lucky or they're not telling you something. Either way, here's what's going to happen. Sometime soon, your delvers are going to hit B-Rank—or they're going to try. Some of them will make it. Others will break their cores trying. You must be paying them well. Will you keep taking care of them when they lose their value, or will you—"

"Kade, how are you and Daddy doing out here?" Ellen asked. She walked next to me and maneuvered my arm so she could hook hers to it; the motion was so smooth and practiced that I didn't even realize what was happening until she was already attached.

"We're doing wonderfully, Eleanor," Bob said. "We were having a talk, man to man."

Ellen's arm tightened on mine for a moment. "Great. Your guests want to discuss one of the sculptures. A Canova, I think."

"I'll join them in a moment. But first, Kade and I were discussing his future, Eleanor. He hasn't outright rejected my offer."

She tensed again, and I interrupted. "Mr. Traynor, your offer's a good one, but I've got my own team, and we're doing just fine. Ellen's on that—"

"Eleanor."

"—Ellen is on that team. If she decides to switch, then I'll consider your offer again, but I'm with her for the long haul. Now, there's a dance floor in your ballroom, right? Your daughter told me she'd teach me to dance, and I'd like to take her up on the offer."

I steered Ellen away from Bob as he stared at me. The moment we were out of earshot, Ellen leaned in and whispered, "Kade, what are you doing?"

"I'm not sure," I responded. "I'm out of my depth, but I learned a few things from that conversation. I'll tell you about them later. For now, how do I dance?"

"You don't at an event like this. No one does. It's not considered appropriate, and it hasn't been for years."

"And do you care?"

Ellen paused. Then she leaned into me. "I won't if we can get one more drink before we dance."

By the time Ellen got Kade into Deimos, flopped into the driver's seat, and punched in the coordinates for Phoenix's southern gate, she was sweaty, her feet hurt from dancing—first in her heels, and then in her stockings—and she'd had a little more to drink than she was used to.

So had Kade. That was why she was driving—or letting Deimos drive—him home instead of letting him sneak out and continuing to attend Bob's reception.

That, and he said he'd learned something about the Traynor team, and she wanted to know what it was.

Kade had given her a heart attack when he'd slipped off with Bob, and then again when she'd rejoined the conversation in the middle of him explaining core breaks. She'd felt compelled to interrupt, then equally compelled to break decorum and join her boyfriend on the dance floor. That was going to cause Bob problems—no one danced at a corporate welcoming reception—but she didn't care anymore. She'd had two too many glasses of expensive, imported French champagne to care.

As the pulsing drum and bass filled the car, Ellen reached across the console and grabbed Kade's hand. He returned the grip. A minute later, they were making out as the car rocketed toward the gate, then continuing after passing the security checkpoint.

They didn't stop until, somewhat disheveled and with Kade missing his tie, the car rolled to a halt in the desert, and the two of them got out. And Ellen enjoyed every second of it.

But it was time for business. "What did you learn?"

Kade coughed. Then he looked her in the eye. "We were talking about the Traynor team. You know how they've been gaining ranks at a breakneck pace, right? With corporate money, that's not a surprise. They're at C-Rank now, closing in on B-Rank, and they're growing faster than you or me."

"Yeah, I know." Ellen's eyes narrowed, then flicked down to the desert's packed, dry dirt. "It's a lot of pressure, especially with Jeff stuck behind the bottleneck. At some point, we are going to have to find new teammates."

"Uh-huh. It'll happen soon. But for now, uh, the Traynor team. They're moving up fast." Kade unfocused for a moment. "Ellen, you're really beautiful tonight."

"Thanks. The Traynor team? Focus, Kade."

"Right. Bob acted like he didn't know about the core-breaking problem with growing too fast, but it's…I mean, it's not common knowledge, but it's not unheard of, either. Is your father the kind of guy who'd skip out on research?"

Ellen nodded. "He absolutely wouldn't look into it. But I get what you're saying. He'd hire four or five experts to iron out all the details. Which means…"

Kade looked her in the eye, his gaze blazing with anger. "Which means he knows that the Traynor delving team is on a collision course with core breaks. He's planning on them dying or losing their cores."

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