Ellen spent the night in the hospital.

So did Yasmin and Raul. They'd all taken serious burns—the kind a healer could have dealt with on the spot, but that had set in after an hour. Short of a B-Ranker, those weren't getting healed.

Unlike Yasmin and Raul, though, Ellen spent the entire night awake and thinking.

That Paragon had been different. The shadow being she'd gotten her core from and the spider had been mindless, thoughtless beings—or at least, they hadn't been able to talk. But Yalagan was different. She hadn't had a chance to talk to Kade or Jeff about it, but it had been obvious: the Paragon had known Kade.

The hospital was quiet. She wasn't even hooked up to a monitor, so there was no rhythmic beeping or humming machine to make white noise. She was just covered in burn cream that itched and stunk like cheap scented lotion. Ellen had nothing but her thoughts to distract her.

The Paragon had mentioned the system. Was it the same one that had awakened in her and Kade? How was the system tied to the portals and paragons? And the god Yalagan had called for at the end…was that the God of Thunder Kade had met? Ellen didn't have any answers. She barely even knew which questions to start asking.

She'd grown up in a world of portals and monsters. Her earliest memories from the penthouse she'd lived in were of construction machines—cranes and dump trucks, excavators and cement mixers—building the 303 wall a mile from her window. Her father had made sure she got the best education, but it had been an education in what the world was like now, not in what had changed. It was, Ellen was realizing, woefully inadequate.

Ellen Traynor was built for a world of portals.

But that had a price. She'd never thought to consider what those changes meant, or where they'd come from. Only how she could take advantage of them—and how to get out of her situation.

Sunlight gradually snuck in through the blinds in Ellen's room. She'd thought the whole night away, but she hadn't found any answers.

Maybe Kade would know more.

And even if he didn't, Ellen wanted to visit him as soon as she got discharged.

I was at the GC gym in Peoria, running laps, when Ellen's message came in.

Ellen: We need to talk. That portal was different.

Ellen: Your place? An hour?

I had the time, so I finished my workout, rinsed off, and texted her back.

Kade: Yeah. I'm catching a bus back home. See you there in 30 to 40.

I knew what she wanted to talk about, and I also knew that her dad—and probably the Governing Council—had bugged her car, her phone, and whatever else they could get their hands on. But I also had a feeling they'd bugged my apartment while they were searching for the Wind Paragon's core. We couldn't have a conversation at my place. But it was a convenient place to meet up—especially with Jessie still at school.

Sure enough, I'd been home for less than five minutes when Ellen texted again.

Ellen: I'm parked. I'll meet you at the bus stop in 5.

I didn't bother texting back. My phone stayed on the kitchen counter, charging, along with a handwritten note to Jessie, letting her know I was out with Ellen and not to worry about me.

I'd deal with whatever teasing came from that later.

Ellen was standing there, waiting, when I walked back to the bus stop. She was in jeans and a tank top, with only her hip bag. She carried that thing everywhere. "So, I was thinking maybe we could try out a restaurant downtown. There's a place that does decent Italian, and it'd give us a good place to talk for a while. Private booths and everything. They're usually not busy on Wednesday afternoons, so we could grab lunch there? If that works for you, I mean."

"Sure," I said. "You left your phone in Deimos?"

"Yes. Yours is at home?"

"Uh huh." I stood next to her and we waited for the bus to show up, then to take us downtown to the Italian place. And I kept one eye on the guy in the T-shirt and baggy shorts who'd boarded just after us. We were being followed—which meant someone knew we'd left our bugged devices behind.

To my surprise—but not shock—Ellen greeted the maitre-de by name. "Miss Traynor, we didn't know you were coming. Your usual table is occupied, but we can—"

"No, Pierre, that's not necessary. Daddy won't be joining us today. And, between you and me, I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell him I was here. I'd like to keep this a little secret. A regular booth is fine with us."

"Understood, Miss Traynor," Pierre said. He led us to a room with a door that slid open and then shut behind us. Inside was a single table for two, a second door marked 'Staff Only,' and a selection of wine bottles in a rack on the wall. A mosaic of broken tiles depicting a chimera fighting a naked man with a sword and shield covered one wall, while the other had live vines and a fountain.

Up until just now, I hadn't really understood that Ellen was beyond rich and into wealthy. I'd known it, of course. She had a self-driving, AI-piloted sports car, and it was her third in just a few years. But there was a difference between knowing the Traynor family had money and experiencing Ellen when she used it to her advantage. She'd shifted the moment we walked into the restaurant. "Ellen—"

"Kade, leave it alone. I don't like trading on my name, but sometimes, it's the best way to be sure we have a place to talk where we won't be interrupted. This place is quiet, it's private, and unless you call, the wait staff leaves you alone." She pushed a button, and a moment later, a woman in black slacks and an even blacker shirt arrived with two menus, two wine glasses, and two glasses of water. I couldn't help but notice that there were no prices.

"Now," Ellen stood and walked to the wine rack. She picked a bottle of white and poured two glasses. "I've got a problem, and I think you can help me with it. What do you know about the system?"

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"So, the system," I said once bread and garlic butter had arrived. It tasted amazing, and I savored every bite, partially because it was so good, and partially because I didn't know how best to answer Ellen's question.

"I think the best place to start is the Portal Blitz," I said after a while. "Mom and Dad—my stepdad, I mean—told me about it. Then I learned more about it in school. Did you?"

"No. My education was more focused on how the world was and less on the history of the world before the Blitz," Ellen said. She hadn't touched any of the bread yet.

"Okay, so, the Portal Blitz was essentially four hours of disbelief as portals appeared, four weeks of chaos and terror when they started to break and the military couldn't fight what came out, and four months of hard, heavy fighting as the first delvers pushed in and shut down the portals, one by one."

"So, it took a month to get delvers? The system's not tied to the portals?"

"No. Yes. And kind of. It's hard to explain." I took another bite of bread, chewed, and thought. "It's weird that you know so much about portals, but none of the history, Ellen."

"Shut it, Kade. Bob only had me learn what I needed to know to be a tool." Ellen glared at the bread basket like the slices of seasoned, slightly-crunchy bread had personally offended her. "Remember?"

"Oh, right," I said. "Sorry. The first system awakenings started happening almost immediately. A regular person couldn't defend themselves against so much as a single goblin, of course. No matter how good at fighting you were, Earth weapons just didn't do anything. So, when the first scattered reports came in of people able to kill portal monsters, half of the world didn't believe them. The other half wanted to believe them too much. A lot of people died trying to get their systems to awaken."

Ellen went quiet. Then she nodded. "Okay, so system awakenings happened right away."

"Yeah, but it took a month for system-awakened people to realize they could enter portals."

"And the system itself?"

"What about it?" I asked.

"What is it?"

It was my turn to go quiet. "Six months ago, if you'd asked that, I would have told you that it's just magic. That there's no reasonable explanation for what it is—just like portals. There's no reason for them to exist on Earth. All the stuff I could access as an E-Ranker in the GC libraries said so. It's like a freak accident that connects our reality to thousands of others, or peels parts of theirs away and throws them at us.

"But I'm not so sure anymore, especially after yesterday. The God of Thunder—I need a better name for him…"

"Eugene," Ellen said.

I snorted. "Sure, why not? He'll love that. Eugene said that there's a greater multiverse, and he's a master of the Path I'm on. He's ten thousand years old, an SS-Plus, Fifth-Tier Paragon. But even so, he's part of the system. If it's bigger than Eugene, I doubt I'll ever know what the system is. But it means there's an explanation for it. Someone…or something…is calling the shots."

"I just wish I knew who or what," Ellen said. She sighed.

"Yeah, same here."

"It feels like we're not operating with all the information we need. Not just us, either. Jessie got pretty far into the GC's archives, and she didn't find anything on this, did she?"

"She wasn't looking for this," I said. "But I get what you're saying. The Governing Council knows about Paragons, but they haven't figured out the connection between them and the system, or how the system's connected to the portals. They just know that they are connected. That's not enough."

"But it's what we have, huh?"

"Yeah."

Ellen finally went for a piece of bread. It disappeared in three bites, and she reached for a second slice. When she'd finished her third, and we were out, I pointed at the menu. "What are you ordering?"

"I'm not sure yet. The Chicken Parm is usually pretty good, but I'm in the mood for something light. Maybe meatless. I'll think about it."

"Okay. I pulled my wallet and set it on the table. "My treat, though."

Ellen shook her head quickly. "I think that's a bad idea, Kade. You'll regret the prices here."

"I've got money." It was true. I'd been getting C-Rank rewards for the last several portals.

She shook her head, this time more slowly. "Okay. Don't say I didn't warn you, though." She pushed the button, and we placed our orders.

"I just…I can't help but wonder about the system," she said. "It all feels so convenient that it'd show up at the same time as the portals."

"I agree," I said. "I think part of the problem is the cores."

"The boss cores?"

"Yeah. I can't quite explain it, but it feels like the cores and the system are both part of the same, uh, system. They're so powerful—and not just for merging skills. We need the Paragon cores, or at least I do, if I want to keep ranking up. And everyone needs cores for their air conditioning or powering the lights. It feels like they're a reward for everyone, and I…"

I didn't know what I wanted to say next. It wasn't that I didn't trust the cores. I obviously did. It was that it all felt like a…bribe? Maybe that was the wrong word. There was something there. And the existence of Eugene the God of Thunder seemed like it fit into it, but I didn't know how yet. As I stumbled around the end of my sentence, Ellen stared at me expectantly. But I didn't know how to continue. Luckily, I was saved by a chime that announced the Caesar salads.

"Okay," Ellen said as she dug in. "On to less serious matters. You're serious about paying, right?"

I nodded.

"So, what is this, then?" Ellen's cheeks reddened. That could have been the wine, but I doubted it. She seemed like she had experience with alcohol, the way she'd been nursing her glasses. "I mean, this isn't just a business meeting, right?"

"Uh, I guess not," I said. I shrugged. "You invited me here. What is it?"

I was saved from that, too. But this time, it was from a GC message. Ellen got one at the same time. She stared at me until I reached for my phone.

So far, Ellen's lunch with Kade had gone pretty much how she expected it to. He'd been helpful in her quest to understand the system—even if all he'd said was that no one had anything more than theories. And his idea that there was a connection between Paragons and the system made sense to her.

But she'd been trying to get him to realize that while, yeah, this was a business lunch, she sort of wanted it to be more than that. Ellen was blunt about a lot of stuff. When she delved portals, she wasn't afraid to speak up about what she knew, her opinions about Bob were pretty much in the open, and she'd made it clear what she thought about the delvers who just worked out and flexed without really getting stronger through portals.

When it came to Kade, though, Ellen was on the fence.

He was so cool. And so stupid. Ellen had been trying—subtly, of course—to move past friendship with him. But he just didn't get it. The hints were all there, especially the fact that she hadn't made a big deal out of letting him pay for the several-hundred-dollar meal they were about to eat. And all the times she'd slept at his place hadn't just been because it was convenient. She didn't want to be more in anyone's debt than she had to be…but for Kade, she'd let it happen.

And now, on the cusp of having a real, serious conversation with him, they'd been interrupted by a GC message.

"I guess we'd better take a look," she said sullenly.

"Yep," Kade said.

Governing Council Private Message:

Sender: Councilwoman Harriet Myers

WARNING: Confidential

Status: Urgent

Delver Traynor,

A Governing Council team comprised of assorted D and C-Rankers has gone missing in a portal near your team's area of operation. This team entered a portal two hours ago on a routine training clear to boost a healer to C-Rank. The GC rep responding to it allowed the team to enter before other representatives could confirm it was a Paragon portal.

Once inside, the team was separated, and one member managed to make it out before the portal was rendered inescapable by a powerful monster. Access from the outside remains possible, but Delver Hailee Smith lost two toes in her escape. Due to its nature as a Paragon portal and pseudo-trap portal, only teams deemed both strong enough to clear it and with pre-existing knowledge of Paragons are being considered to clear it and rescue the team inside.

The following delvers are trapped inside this portal, and their status is unknown: Dan Trent, D-Rank, Tank April Schmalz, C-Rank, Striker Douglas Turnstile, C-Rank, Fighter Arturo Iglesia, D-Rank, Support Sophia Walker, D-Rank, Healer

If a team meeting Governing Council requirements cannot rescue them, their loss is considered acceptable.

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