Angelo Lawrence's phone rang. This time, he let it go to four rings—not because he didn't want to talk to Councilwoman Myers, but simply because he could.

"I've deployed six GC reps and a B-Rank fighter to bring Delver Noelstra, his sister, and the team he's running with in for questioning," she said without any preamble.

The office felt surprisingly claustrophobic. Angelo stood up and walked to the window, where his favorite view waited for him. "Why?"

"Two reasons. First, Delver Noelstra and another member of his team haven't updated their delver registrations in almost three weeks—and there are glaring discrepancies between what they're currently capable of and what their builds suggest they can do."

"I told you Kade Noelstra was special. You need to leave him alone. All this will do is ruin your goodwill with him."

"Yes. You have said that. If it were just him, that'd be fine." Councilwoman Myers paused. "Jessica Gerald indisputably took images from inside our sixth-level database and is using them to help her brother go after Paragons."

Angelo didn't say anything. His mind raced. How had she figured out Paragons? They were one of the Governing Council's most highly-kept secrets; only A-Rank teams from the guilds even had access to Paragon-infested portals. The GC and guilds spent countless resources making sure that only the right teams encountered Paragon-occupied portals. It was almost more trouble to keep the secret than it was worth. Hundreds of people were involved in the multi-layered cover-up.

But this…kid…had not only identified that they existed, but realized that if they did, the Governing Council was keeping them hidden. And she'd figured out the rest from there. How? And why? But more importantly… "What are you going to do?"

"Right now? We're going to have a chat with Delver Noelstra, figure out what he's all about and how much he knows, and convince him that it's in his best interests to stop hunting Paragons. It's in everyone's best interests. You know what'll happen if information on them gets out, correct?"

"Yes."

"Then, we're going to remove Jessica Gerald's GC clearances. She's proven she can't be a trustworthy employee."

Angelo took a deep breath. Then he let it out slowly. "I disagree with this entire plan. I am on my way to the downtown Governing Council center. Please hold off on any irreversible action until I arrive."

Councilwoman Myers sighed. The phone was silent for almost five seconds—an eternity. Angelo cleared his throat. "Councilwoman Myers, you are reacting. To gain any advantage from this, you need to be proactive instead. Get inside your own cycle. Hold off for now. My team and I will be there in fifteen minutes."

"Your team?"

"Yes. My legal consultation team. We need to approach this in a way that blows up in our faces the least."

"Okay, Angelo," Councilwoman Myers said. "We're going ahead with bringing them in, but you can meet us there."

"Thank you, Harriet," Angelo said. He hung up and speed-dialed the head of the Roadrunners' legal division, then hovered his finger over a second button. After a moment, he pushed it. The phone rang twice. Three times. Then both his contacts picked up.

"I am sending Legal a brief. I need an opinion on it and a list of possible courses of action in the next ten minutes. Make it happen." Angelo sighed. "Deborah, please assemble an A-Rank team and be ready to deploy within half an hour. The target is a possible portal break somewhere in the downtown area. This is a drill, but it could very easily turn into a different kind of crisis. Be ready."

He hung up and started walking toward his helicopter.

We stepped out of the portal an hour later to not one familiar GC rep, but six I didn't recognize.

And a dude in a green graphic T-shirt.

And a B-Ranker in full armor.

Between the six delvers in Jeff's team, the other two teams, six representatives, the casual-looking dude, and an apologetic-looking Jessie, the basement laundry room was beyond packed. I stared at the crowd for a second."

"Jeff Carlson, please bring your team upstairs," the B-Ranker said. She wore the insignia of the Governing Council on her right arm, and two GC reps stood behind her. The others split into pairs and took the remaining two teams into different rooms. I followed the B-Ranker up the stairs.

Together, my team could probably take her—if we had a full set of resources. But we were tired and hurting. I was covered in half-healed cuts and bruises, and Jeff's armor was going to need a night to reset its condition. Ellen was out of Mana, and so was Yasmin. Only Karina looked ready to go, and she was too new to trust in a fight against the GC. So, instead of fighting, I helped Jessie to the elevator.

A single GC rep got in with us, while the B-Ranker and other rep took the stairs with the rest of the team. "Sorry," Jessie whispered once the door closed.

"For what?" I asked. "You didn't do anything wrong."

That was a lie. But with the rep here, we couldn't exactly have a conversation.

To my surprise, a limousine was waiting. The ten of us packed into the back, with the B-Ranker sitting as far in the rear as she could. Jeff opened his mouth. "What's go—"

"Not here," one of the reps said. "Your situation's complicated. We're just the delivery boys."

The B-Ranker cleared her throat.

"Yes, Hannah, and girls."

Jeff tried again. This time, the B-Ranker spoke up. "Listen, you morons. We're not here making an arrest. We're bringing you in to headquarters at the request of someone on the council. We don't know what's going on any more than you do. We don't know what charges you're facing—if any—and we don't know your legal status, but someone on the council thinks you're a threat to Phoenix, or that what you're doing is a threat. Until they talk to you, you know as much as we do. After, you'll know a lot more. Just let us do our jobs, and don't make this shit worse for all of us than it already is."

I put a hand on Jeff's shoulder. "It's going to work out."

"How do you know?" Jeff asked. "If this screws you out of C-Rank—"

"Then I'll find another way, or you'll go without me," I said. Truthfully, I was less worried about losing C-Rank and more concerned about making it with the Governing Council's help. The last thing I needed was to be in debt to them, and for their leverage to pressure me into joining up with them.

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I needed my independence, and nothing short of the Portal Tyrants' offer was enough to compromise that.

The Governing Council's fiftieth-floor waiting room was luxurious. Under other circumstances, I'd be impressed by the fountains and plants, the full glass windows and roof, and the humidity—not to mention the view of the desert all the way to the mountains north of here. It felt like being in a jungle in the middle of the desert, and the ice water was a nice touch.

But Jessie was freaking out in her wheelchair. She looked like she desperately needed to say something, but couldn't. And Ellen was furious. She'd been texting someone for the last half-hour, but she wouldn't say who, and she wouldn't meet my eyes when I asked. It was probably her dad. Bob Traynor ran one of the most powerful corporations in the city, but for Ellen to be asking him for help…that was almost impossible. She must have thought we were in it, and in it deep.

The door on the far side of the long, immaculate room opened, and Jeff came out. "Kade, your turn with the principal," he said. Something in his voice sounded off, though. It was meant to be a joke, but it came across as false bravado. I raised an eyebrow as I stood and headed for the door. He raised the same one, and his head shook 'no' very slightly.

We'd played this game before. Jeff hadn't squealed.

I opened the door.

The office I stepped into had clean white walls with absolutely no photographs. A single degree hung on the right side, while a paper calendar covered a small square of the left. Behind a simple wooden desk, in an office chair that looked like it had seen better days, perched the most bird-of-prey-like woman I'd ever seen. Her brown eyes were almost piercing, and her hair was pulled back into the tightest bun possible. She stared at me. I couldn't look away for a few seconds.

She wasn't alone, either. A familiar figure stood near the diploma: the Light of Dawn. He stared, too. But he didn't say anything, and his aura was restrained.

"Delver Noelstra. Sit."

I swallowed. "Thank you, Councilwoman Myers."

"Your service record is surprisingly exemplary. A disastrous trap portal with Delver Carlson, several E and D-Rank portal clears, and three C-Ranks, not counting tonight's—although you did not kill tonight's boss. One incident in a D-Rank portal involving defending yourself against another delver's assault. A portal break where your actions were exemplary. And the S-Rank portal incident downtown."

"Thank you," I said again.

"The Light of Dawn says you've been recruited by several guilds, but you've declined all offers. Why?" Myers asked.

I shrugged. "By the time my build came online and I was someone guilds wanted, they couldn't offer me anything I couldn't get by myself." I should have sugarcoated it, but I was furious. Jessie needed to be at home, in bed, not here in her chair. And if Myers was going to waste time…sure, she had the power to end my career, exile me from Phoenix, or any number of other things. "Councilwoman Myers, you know what you want to ask. Why run through my record?"

She smiled. I winced. It took me only a second, but my danger sense didn't warn me about verbal traps, and I'd just walked into one. "What do you think Paragons are?"

I didn't say anything. There wasn't anything I could say. They knew Jessie had been in their files, and they knew everything I knew—or at least, they thought they did.

"Let me rephrase. How did you find out about them, and why are you hunting them?"

Crickets.

Councilwoman Myers sighed. "Look, Kade—I can call you Kade, right? We know you know what they are. We know your sister got sixth-level access temporarily through a careless mistake on my part. And since you're hunting Paragons at C-Rank instead of waiting until you should, you clearly need them. My first instinct is to fire your sister, have her arrested, and throw her in prison somewhere. Tucson, maybe. Revoke your delving license and kick you out of Phoenix. But some people—" she stared at the Light of Dawn, who nodded slightly, "—seem to think that's a bad idea. So instead, I'm going to tell you a story like the child you are."

I bristled. Tried to stand up. But a hand was on my shoulder, pushing me back down. Angelo spoke softly. "You made a decision, Mr. Noelstra. You decided you were determined enough to commit to being the best. The trial of determination is easy. The trial of responsibility is less so. Can you face it?"

For a moment, I wanted nothing more than to punch the Light of Dawn in the face. The fact that he could vaporize me didn't stop me. I didn't care about that. But I did care about Dad, and he'd said something similar to me after a particularly bad fight when I was in eighth grade.

So I sat down and glared at Councilwoman Myers, and Angelo's hand left my shoulder. It was only after he'd removed it that I realized just how warm it had been. He was like a nuclear reactor, even when doing nothing.

"Good choice." Councilwoman Myers steepled her hands. "Okay, Kade. Paragons. You're looking at them as a way to jump-start your Law progression. That's a big part of what they are. We need them."

"We all need them. Without Paragons, S-Rank is impossible to attain," Angelo said. "They are the biggest reason for the S-Rank bottleneck, but not the only one."

Myers nodded. "It's not just that, though. The Governing Council has been studying Paragons. We deployed a research team to the aftermath of the Serriola break in Italy, and another into the Archqueen of Madness's domain. Only the borders of it—any attempt to push further than half a kilometer inside her territory results in losing teams, and the cost of travel all but ate our budget those years—but close enough to understand what's going on.

"What's in the GC archives is true information. But it isn't the only information on Paragons. Their presence in our world is reality-warping—in any form. That includes their cores."

I tried to keep my expression neutral. A wind core sat in my nightstand's cupboard, and Ellen had a shadow core in her pocket.

"If that's the case, why conceal information about them? It seems like any team could run into one on accident," I said. "Maybe that's what happened with us."

"That's not what happened with Delver Carlson's team, and you know it." Myers's tone made it clear she didn't want to hear any bullshit. She glared at me. If she'd been even B-Rank, the energy would have been enough to strike me dead. As it was, I looked at the floor instinctively. "I'm writing Delver Noelstra into the Paragon database. Need-to-know clearance. His team, too. They already know too much; we may as well get them under oath. Delver Lawrence, The Light of Dawn, is my witness."

"Understood," Angelo Lawrence said.

"You have a choice to make, Delver Noelstra," Councilwoman Myers said. "So, here's the truth. The truth no one wants you to know. The Governing Council doesn't exist to manage portals. That's just what we tell everyone. The Governing Council exists to manage Paragons."

"The Serriola break did not happen out of nowhere. Neither did the Amazon one," Angelo Lawrence said. "Their localities were weakened by an abundance of Paragon cores to begin with. Your sister read that both portal breaks caused additional Paragon portals to appear near them. That information fails to mention that Paragon portals were already appearing in those areas before the big breaks."

"So, the two we've found so far…" I trailed off. The GC and the guilds knew about the S-Rank portal I'd come out of. But they didn't know about the God of Thunder. They couldn't. If they did, they'd be handling this a lot differently—assuming they were telling me the truth. The knowledge of the God of Thunder would lead to one of two reactions. Either they'd go after him and lose, or they'd panic and try to cut off all contact. That meant me. I wasn't ready to learn from him yet, but I also didn't want to lose access to that opportunity.

It felt increasingly likely I'd be relying on him very soon.

"What are my options?" I asked after a minute.

Councilwoman Myers smiled predatorily. I'd never felt more like a mouse staring down a hawk. Ever. "You can work with the Governing Council and help keep the Paragons a secret, or we can start legal proceedings. The Light of Dawn's legal team is prepared to defend you, but even so, I don't think you'd win.

"If you agree to cooperate, the Governing Council will make sure you get access to a single Paragon portal every month. You'll turn in your cores until you're ready to use them, use them inside the Governing Council's vaults, and not mention a word of this to anyone. That includes the rest of your team."

I clenched my teeth. My fist balled, and my face heated up. But I couldn't do anything. Councilwoman Myers and the Light of Dawn had a better board, and no matter how far ahead I looked, they'd find a way to checkmate me. If I said no, they had more than enough power to carry out their threat to arrest Jessie, kick me out of the city, and make this all disappear. If I tried to fight them, Angelo Lawrence could probably kill me without using a single skill. And if I said yes…

If I said yes, I'd lose out on Jeff's goal of getting us into the convoy. And I couldn't do that.

None of these options were acceptable.

"How much room do I have to negotiate? I can agree to work 'with' you in principle, but I have some needs of my own," I asked.

Councilwoman Myers smiled again, and I realized I'd walked into my third trap. Check and mate.

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