The next morning dawned bright and early.

Alex woke with far less enthusiasm than such a morning deserved. She was still sore just about everywhere, and Jason's insistence on going out to dinner as a team to celebrate had robbed her of the ability to rest very well. At the very least, the Ochre Star heir had been insistent that there wouldn't be any more Surveys today. Instead, she'd be talking to reporters and sparring. Hopefully, more of the latter than the former.

She levered herself slowly and painfully out of bed. For a moment, she just sat on the side of the bed and ached, feeling every overstrained muscle. Then she forced herself to reach inside and focus, allowing herself to slip into a trance that felt all-too-familiar.

It took almost half an hour, but when she opened her eyes, the aches had faded and amber words were floating in front of her.

[Meditation increases to 2!]

[Recovery increases to 3!]

Alex nodded slowly and stood. Her limbs weren't burning with pain nearly as much, which was a pretty big relief.

Of course, she had every intention of changing that. With a self-mocking smirk, she turned and started looking for her running clothes. She had a few hours before the interviews were supposed to start, and she had no intention of wasting them.

Two sweat-soaked hours later, Alex hauled herself in for breakfast and a bath. Most of the Surveyors' cafeteria was empty, but a baffled cook gave her a plate full of pancakes and eggs and let her devour them in peace. She enjoyed the experience and then rushed back to her dorm room for a brief shower.

She found April waiting for her. The personal assistant looked vaguely distressed; she was looking at Alex with a familiar blend of impatience and incredulity that Alex remembered from school. Alex tried to brace herself as she approached. "April. How can I help you?"

April's eyes narrowed. "You are supposed to be in an interview in less than two hours. Where have you been?"

"Training." Alex raised an eyebrow. "Is there a problem with that?"

The assistant's voice lowered to a growl. "Yes. You're supposed to have been rehearsing your responses to the questions they are going to ask you. I thought that I sent you a schedule to follow."

Alex blinked. "When?"

"Yesterday." April shook her head. "I don't think you understand the importance of the situation, Ms. Morrison. If these interviews don't go well…"

She held up a hand, and the assistant paused. "Let me get a quick shower, and then I'll talk to you after that. We can go over the most important questions, and then I'll be prepared for the interview. All right?"

The assistant stared at her for a long moment, her jaw working soundlessly. "Fine. Go. Now."

Alex returned her stare for a long moment. Then she stepped past her and headed for the shower. All she had to do now was face down a few reporters. Surely it couldn't be as dangerous as facing a Grue, could it?

"Ms. Morrison, my name is Angela Fourier. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Alex shook the woman's hand. She forced a smile. "The pleasure is all mine."

They were standing in a small office that Ochre Star had set aside for the interviews. Apparently, the company had taken requests from a number of different journalists, in an attempt to provide 'transparency' during the transition of ownership for the portal. A good number of the journalists had latched onto Jason, obviously hoping to score some quotes from the company heir. Others had chosen to speak with the more experienced members of the contractors involved, or with a few of the support staff.

Unfortunately, more than a few had requested time with Alex. Fourier would be the fourth interview she'd had, and Alex was already getting impatient with the whole process. The previous journalists had wanted to talk more about the Scandal or the Revolution than about what she was currently doing; one slimy individual had repeatedly pressed her for details on her personal life until she informed him that the interview was over.

With that pattern established, she wasn't exactly looking forward to this interview either, but the contract compelled her to deal with it. She shrugged off her dislike of the situation and tried to focus on the fact that it would buy her another run through a C rank portal soon enough.

Fourier took a few moments to settle into her chair. She was an older woman, though not quite old enough to have grey in her hair. The journalist wore a pantsuit, something that at least came off as far more professional than the shabby clothes her last interviewer had worn. There was a careful precision to the way she set out her notebook and pen—old-fashioned, to Alex's eyes—and supplemented them with a phone obviously set to record.

When she was ready, the woman tapped her phone to start the recording and looked up. Her brown-eyed stare seemed familiar, somehow. "Ms. Morrison, I have a few questions about your time here at Ochre Star. Do you believe that the company has been able to make progress towards keeping the portal stable?"

Alex smiled. It wasn't exactly a surprising question, but she could at least answer this one well. "Yes. From what I've seen, they've been doing a fairly good job of things here."

"Thanks mostly to the teams of contractors that they've been able to assemble." Fourier waited until Alex nodded before continuing. "Do you believe that their reliance on contractors is a weakness? I know that most companies prefer to rely on their own employees."

Luckily, April had coached her on this one already. "While they are depending on contractors like myself for now, they are mostly giving their own internal employees the chance to receive the training and experience they need to be ready for the responsibility in the future." Alex shrugged. "I actually appreciate that fact. Too many companies have a tendency to throw their Surveyors into situations they aren't exactly prepared for. It's good to see a company taking things more seriously."

Fourier's eyes sharpened slightly. She tilted her head to the side as her pen scribbled something on the page, but her eyes didn't leave Alex's face. "You would know something about companies like that, correct, Ms. Morrison?"

Alex blinked. Most of the other interviewers had simply swallowed that line and moved to other subjects. Part of her wanted to bring up Golden Swallow, but the Regulation lawyers in charge of her NDA would have roasted her alive for mentioning it. She fished for another thing to say instead. "I would say that it is a situation I've occasionally encountered, yes."

"Recently?" A flicker of amusement crossed Fourier's eyes, and Alex abruptly sensed a trap, the same way she felt when a Shifter was about to come up out of the ground.

She discarded her initial answer. "Why would you ask, Ms. Fourier?"

The reporter smiled. "It just seems like you've had an interesting career, even after your employment at Royal Purple." She glanced down at her notepad, though Alex was sure the woman had no need to consult any notes. "For example, your experiences at Emerald Bay. There have been reports that after your time there, the Surveyors working with the portal you left have been run a little ragged. We've had some reports of injuries as well. Do you have any comment on that situation?"

Alex grimaced despite herself. She looked away. "We did the best we could for Emerald Bay, and I'm sorry that the situation has gotten more difficult for them after we were… dismissed."

Fourier glanced down again. "That's right. You only performed a total of… two Surveys there, did you not? Did you believe that was enough time to finish your work there?"

"Emerald Bay felt we had completed our contract, yes." She tried to keep her voice calm, but a little bit of her resentment over that job still leaked through. "I would have preferred a bit more time to make sure, but the client felt otherwise."

The reporter made another note. "Even if it would have resulted in you missing the Gold Rush, at the Goldiron Foundation?"

Alex met Fourier's eyes with a firm look. "While we were lucky and grateful to work with Goldiron, I would not have rushed our work at Emerald Bay if we had been given the option to avoid it. The safety of the Surveyors involved is always my top priority."

A hint of skepticism showed in Fourier's eyes, but she continued in an even voice. "I suppose the Surveyors at the Gold Rush were fortunate you were there, given what happened. Many of the participants seem to think you either saved many of their lives, or caused the whole incident to begin with."

She shrugged. "They can believe what they want."

Fourier smiled. "I see." She looked down for another moment. "After the Gold Rush, you went to Brownhat, where the rest of your team is still located, correct?"

Alex nodded. "That's right."

The reporter shifted in her seat, leaning forward. "I'm curious, then. My sources indicate that Brownhat has sponsored something called a 'training mill', a Surveying strategy that necessarily involves heavy casualties among the participants. How do you explain your participation in such a program, given your stated desire to make things as safe for your fellow Surveyors as possible?"

For a moment, the question seemed to freeze the air in Alex's lungs. She forced herself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Her fingers flexed for just a moment as she considered her response. "Sometimes, the best thing you can do is fight hard in a bad situation. It's what we did at Brownhat, and what I will continue to do going forward."

Fourier studied her a moment. "Is that why you are here, instead of remaining at Brownhat?"

Alex shook her head. "No, actually. I just happened to reach C rank at an inconvenient time." She paused. "But I will say that no Surveyors died while I was training with them at Brownhat, and I have every confidence that the members of my team will help those trainees be more than ready to handle the challenges they'll face inside a portal."

"And is that your goal here at Ochre Star as well?" Fourier asked the question calmly. "Do you intend to stay until you are confident that the Surveyors here can handle the situation?"

She nodded slowly. "As long as Ochre Star remains happy with my work, yes. I see no reason why I would leave anytime soon."

Fourier nodded, making a few notes. When she looked up, her expression had suddenly grown far more serious. "You've stated several times that you prioritize the safety of Surveyors. If you were forced to choose between the protection of a fellow Surveyor and the stabilization of a portal, which would you decide to focus on first?"

Alex returned her stare in silence for a moment. She saw, in her mind's eye, Forsmith rushing into a spiraling vortex wreathed in lightning. "When a portal destabilizes, Ms. Fourier, who dies first?"

The question seemed to take the reporter off guard. She sat back in her chair, a frown creasing her face. "What do you mean?"

"You asked me an interesting hypothetical. I'm talking about what actually happens." Alex leaned forward, holding the woman's gaze. "When a portal goes bad, the first people to die are usually the nearest Surveyors. They go in, whether they want to or not, to try to at least slow things down. While everyone else evacuates, they go in and fight."

She leaned back again. "So I'm not going to make any apologies for trying to make sure that as many of them survive as I can. If I save a Surveyor, they might be there when we need them the most. So I'll keep saving them, so that they can save everyone else. If that's all right with you, of course."

Alex knew she shouldn't have added that last part, but she couldn't quite help it—and to be honest, it felt too good to ignore.

She saw Fourier's face flush with anger. Her professional mask had slipped, just for a moment. "So you believe that Surveyors are more important than non-Surveyors?"

Her fingers twitched again, just slightly. "I think that anyone who does their best to protect others deserves watching out for, Ms. Fourier, no matter what they're doing." She forced her fingers to relax and spread her arms slightly. "My father isn't a Surveyor. He's a firefighter. I'd want people to look out for him the same way I look out for my teammates."

Then she paused, as Zach's face flashed through her mind. She closed her eyes for just a moment. "And I've known plenty of people who have sacrificed an awful lot to save others. Surveyors and normals alike. Trying to divide things up does nothing to help any of them. All I do is save whoever I can… and remember the ones I can't. That's all I can ever do."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

When she opened her eyes, Fourier was still watching her closely. There was a long moment of silence, which only ended when Fourier looked down at her notes again. Her voice struggled to return to a calm neutrality. "Some people believe that focusing on Surveyors too much will result in more frequent Escalation Events or other problems. Do you have any response to that?"

Alex likewise struggled to bring herself back from the brink of her temper. She liked to think that she succeeded, though she didn't know if her friends or family would agree. "I think that I've never heard of an incident caused by anything like that, but I've seen plenty caused by reasons that had nothing to do with the safety of the people we are trusting to enter portals and fight monsters for us." Then she paused and forced another smile. "Not that I can discuss any of those details with you, of course."

Fourier nodded and made a few more notes. Then she smiled as well. "So, about your personal life, is there currently anyone special that you've been seeing?"

Taken off guard by the question, Alex sat back and blinked. It took her a moment to answer. "No, not really. I haven't had time for anything like that in… a long while." Zach's face flashed through her mind, followed quickly by Sam's. She shook her head to banish both of them. "Honestly, I'm just focused on doing the best job that I can here."

"Of course. So when it comes to what you've seen…"

The remainder of the interviews went well enough. Fourier's remaining time was spent on far less touchy subjects, and then the woman had stopped the recording, thanked Alex for her time, and left with notepad in hand. After Fourier, Alex had endured another three interviews that were far less confrontational, though she didn't enjoy them any more than she had Fourier. Once it was finally over, she escaped the building and made her way back to the portal facility, heading directly for the training gym.

She found most of the other contractors already there. The team of independents was gone; they'd apparently had the chance to go through the portal that day, so the rest of the gym had been left to the others.

Mahrez and the others from Blue Moon were already there as well. They had occupied one of the training circles, and were already cycling through it. Carter and Drew were facing off, their weapons flashing. The Seeker was at an obvious disadvantage, being restricted in how far away he could throw his javelins from, but he seemed more than capable of dodging most of the Warden's attacks. Magic flashed between the two of them, as occasional beams of sunlight snapped out to strike at the advancing Carter.

She watched them for a while, at least until Mahrez looked over at her and grinned. "Valkyrie! You survived the reporters today, then?"

"Just barely." Alex smiled back and walked over to join him. "Did you not have as many to deal with?"

The Spellsword shook his head. "Not really. Apparently, the journalists just aren't as interested in talking to old mercenaries like us." There was an extra bright flash from the circle, and Carter raised a plaintive yell over Drew's quiet laughter. Mahrez chuckled as the Seeker scored a few extra hits. "I figured our time would be better spent here."

Alex nodded. "You and me both." She looked around. "Where's Jason?"

Bess was the one who answered her. "Either still talking to reporters, or on some other business. His work keeps him pretty busy." She rolled her shoulders. "It's a bit hard to get him down here to practice sometimes."

There was another flash, but this time Carter roared in triumph. Alex looked over to see Drew rolling out of the ring, thrown by some colossal body-blow. The Seeker groaned for a moment, at least until Bess bathed him in a healing beam of light.

He levered himself up and glared back at his companion. "That was cheating."

"Cheaters are the ones who live, Drew!" Carter walked out of the ring with an obvious swagger, grinning ear to ear. "All right, who's next? Any other challengers, or do I get a rest?"

Mahrez stepped forward just as Alex was about to. "I think I'll take over the ring now, Carter. Go get a break." The Warden nodded easily, and Mahrez turned to look back at Alex. "Care to join me?"

Alex hesitated, suddenly suspicious of the offer. Mahrez and his mercenaries hadn't been anything but professional, however, and she could always use the practice. "Sure." She grabbed a practice axe and shield before following him into the ring.

The Spellsword was waving his practice sword around with a familiar air. He glanced at her. "Before we start, I hope that you didn't take yesterday personally. It was only business."

She blinked and then shook her head. "No, don't worry about it. I wanted you to head for the portal, anyway." Then she grinned. "Besides, you helped out at the end."

He gave her a nod of appreciation. "I'm glad to hear it. Sometimes, people can get rather upset about situations like that." Then Mahrez fell into a fighting stance, his blade angled towards her. "Now, let's see how well we match up against each other, Valkyrie."

Alex took her own stance, holding the weapons loosely in her grip. "Call me Alex. You've probably earned it." The mercenary paused, as if caught off guard.

Then he moved, and Alex jerked in surprise as he lunged across the ring at her. It was the kind of lunge that she'd wanted to make when she'd faced the Shifter; she recognized some fragment of the Leap Skill immediately, and her body reacted almost on its own. She'd practiced a million times against her mother, who made similar attacks, after all, and she wasn't about to let Mahrez get the better of her with it now.

Alex ducked low, using her shield to deflect the blade away from her. Mahrez bounced away off the shield, barely pushing her back, and grinned. "Good reflexes. I guess I knew that already."

She grinned back. "Well, let's see if I can surprise you."

Alex charged, her shield ready to hammer him back. Mahrez watched her approach, falling back into a fighting crouch.

Then, with a disconcerting suddenness, he wasn't there. Alex spent only a fraction of a second continuing her charge before she spun in place, just barely smashing aside Mahrez' blade before he caught her across the back. She sent a burst of wind at him for good measure, shoving him back across the ring.

The Spellsword grinned again. "Huh. I thought I had you that time. Fought someone with Time magic before?"

Alex nodded, starting to circle. "Yeah. Not as strong as yours, though. She had to wait until I was close."

He raised an eyebrow. "I see." As he circled as well, he continued in an even voice. "Then let's see if you've ever faced this before."

Mahrez came at her again, and Alex braced herself for another dodge. From the little she'd seen during the Survey, his abilities combined his Time magic with his swordwork. There had been a few times his sword had seemed to pass through a Grue's guard. She'd need to be ready to dodge in case he used it against her.

The Spellsword's charge was just a little slower than before, as if he'd given up the massive lunges that he'd started with. Alex stepped forward, intending to countercharge him if he was being cautious enough to let her.

Then he vanished between one blink and the next, and she threw herself to the side. His blade whistled through the spot where she'd been, and she just managed to bring her shield up soon enough to block the sudden lunge from the same direction. It pushed her back, but she came to a stop a long while before the edge of the circle.

Alex hacked at him, but he jerked backwards and avoided the swing. Then he swung at her again, a smile on his face.

She blocked it, but sure enough, the sword seemed to blink and appear on the inside of her guard. Alex instinctively twisted out of the way, letting it slash past her face at far too close a distance for comfort. He kicked at her leg, trying to knock her off balance, but she simply took the hit and slashed at him again, hoping to catch him in the midsection.

This time, Mahrez seemed to vanish just before her axe reached him. She blasted wind in all directions around her and heard him grunt behind her; another blind duck and twist let the sword sweep past over her head. When she spun around, she very nearly caught him across the gut, only for him to jump straight up and over her, spinning in midair before landing on the other side.

She pivoted again and found him circling her, his smile wider. "You're rather fun to fight, Alex."

"You jump around way too much, Mahrez." Alex couldn't help but grin back. "Those timestops are a pain, too."

"Well, one does what one can." His eyes hardened, and Alex jerked to the side. She used a burst of wind to push herself a little further out of position, and she sensed a flash of magic back where she'd been standing.

Alex caught a flash of surprise from him before she lunged at him, axe ready to strike. Mahrez backpedaled, catching her axe with his sword. He blocked the hit, but Alex tried to slide her axe down to hook the blade so that she could yank it out of his hands. When he spent a heartbeat avoiding the move, Alex shield-checked him instead, reveling in the first real hit she'd landed on him.

She followed it up with a flash of lightning, hoping to catch him while he was still tumbling backwards. Unfortunately, he seemed to twist in a way that her mind insisted was impossible, and caught the blast on his sword. It still sent him skidding a bit further back, but it wasn't the scorched-hair result that she wanted.

There was a whistle from outside the circle, and Carter chuckled loudly. "Looks like she's a live one!"

Mahrez didn't quite glance in their direction, but it looked like he wanted to. "I'm sure you'll find it out the hard way, Carter." His eyes narrowed as he stepped forward again, his movements careful and precise. "All right. Let's try that again."

He flowed towards her, and Alex charged to meet him. The wind whipped by as she accelerated towards the clash, yet she held some of her speed back. That way, when he blinked out of the way…

Her thoughts stuttered a little when he didn't avoid her. Instead, he lunged right at her and his sword seemed to split into three separate stabs. Alex tried to skid to a halt, but his own leap and her momentum were far too much to compensate for. She got her shield up to deflect two of the stabs, but the third shot past her guard and slammed into her shoulder.

The impact twisted her to the side, and she stumbled. Alex caught sight of the sword coming in from her left, and she ducked—only for the world to warp and she took an unseen blow from the opposite direction. As she staggered again, she caught Mahrez ducking in at her right side, sword descending toward her in an overhand blow.

She brought her axe up to intercept, only for the sword to pass straight through. Alex had just one moment to brace before Mahrez smashed her to the floor in a single hit.

For a long moment, she just lay there, staring up at the ceiling. Then Mahrez leaned over her and extended a hand. "Well done. You made me work hard for that."

Alex snorted, but she still took the offered hand. "Didn't feel like it."

As Mahrez pulled her back to her feet, there was a brief burst of healing from Bess. She gave the Traveler an appreciative nod and then turned back to see Mahrez watching her. "Do you want to try again?"

She nodded, her eyes already narrowing in concentration. "Yeah. Let's see if I can get you next time."

The Spellsword nodded and then took up a new position. They faced each other for a moment and then launched themselves at each other. Suddenly, the day was looking a lot better.

It took her a couple more fights before Alex remembered her mother's training. Mahrez' smile seemed to slip away a little more often as soon as she started to rely more on the Storm to keep him off balance and at a distance, rather than closing to melee range. By the time she needed to call for a rest, she'd already tipped the scales, just a little, in her favor, a fact that the Spellsword seemed a little bemused by.

She rested for a while, using Meditation to speed her recovery, and then threw herself back into the ring. This time she faced Carter, who presented his own difficulties. The Warden seemed to shrug off almost everything she did to him. Axe strikes and shield-checks were turned aside with a harsh laugh, but Carter seemed a lot more cautious around her once she started throwing lightning around. It helped that he didn't seem to be able to keep up with her ability to dodge, a fact that led to her lasting far longer than she had against Mahrez.

Bess had volunteered to go next, though she'd obviously expected not to provide much of a challenge. The Traveler did provide a surprising amount of difficulty, if only because she could call on far more magic than the other two. Alex was forced to dodge blasts of light or force her way through streams of energy, moving as quickly as she could to close the gap. Luckily, she seemed to take each time that Alex smashed her aside in stride, calling it a reminder of why she kept Carter around.

Drew was the last one to face her, and the Seeker seemed to take their contests far more seriously than the others had. His javelins hit hard, nearly enough to knock her backwards, and he showed an annoying tendency to blind her right when she was trying to get close, but she still seemed to have the advantage in terms of chasing him down. A few large-scale bursts of wind that he couldn't manage to dodge helped out, allowing her to get close enough to limit his options and beat him down as a result.

Each fight helped her grow more used to them, and each rest helped her scale Meditation and Recovery that much higher. The veteran C ranks seemed to be a little perturbed as she continued to duel them, but she simply grinned and kept going.

By the time they called for a halt, nearly two hours after the start, Carter was shaking his head and chuckling. "See, this is the kind of spookiness I was expecting from the beginning. Who wants to fight the Messenger that never stays down?"

Bess snorted. She shook her head and channeled a bit of healing for the Warden. "No, thank you. I can only take getting knocked across the ring so much in one day."

Alex eyed the Traveler skeptically. "I'd say you guys gave about as good as you got. Even you managed to zap me quite a bit, Bess."

"Only because I switched to blasting half the ring." The Traveler paused to take a drink of water before shaking her head again. "For a new C rank, you are awful hard to hit, Valkyrie."

Drew grimaced. "Tell me about it." He gave her a dissatisfied look. "Did that B rank fall off the tiltrotor, or did she just jump out of frustration? I'm getting a little sick of seeing you dodge my javelins."

Despite herself, Alex let out a huff of laughter. "Just trying to keep up with you all."

"Well, you're doing far too good of a job. Stop it." Mahrez gave her a half-smile to say he wasn't entirely serious, but Alex got the impression that during their next sparring session, the kid gloves were definitely going to come off. "We do have a reputation to maintain, you know."

Carter let out a weary laugh. "I suppose she does too, Mahrez. Though now that I've seen the way she looks at an opponent, I'm not sure she'll have that much trouble with it."

Alex gave him a curious glance. "What do you mean?"

The Warden exchanged a look with Drew, who shrugged. "When you fight us, you get this look. It's a lot more spooky than anything else, actually. I don't think anyone who fights you is going to miss picking up on it."

Bess nodded vigorously. "Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about." The Traveler actually shivered for a moment. "It's like she's just been waiting for the opportunity to take you apart and find out what makes you tick. Just before she smashes you."

Drew gave the Traveler a serious nod. "A little poetic, but it fits." He looked back at Alex. "I'd love to know where you picked it up from, but given it's you, maybe we don't want the answer."

Feeling a little off balance, Alex shrugged. She didn't know quite what to say, at least until Mahrez grinned. "Don't worry Alex, we won't complain about you looking at us mean. It's just something different, is all."

Then he paused. "To be honest, the last time I ran across someone who looked like that was a former Regulation agent."

Carter gave Mahrez an incredulous look. "Really? One of those toothless guys?"

"It wasn't one of the new ones. An older version, from back in the day." Mahrez shrugged, watching Alex with fresh eyes. "Not that I expect you to run around slapping cuffs on people, though. At least give us a warning first."

Alex snorted and rolled her eyes. "I'll try." Chuckles rolled out from the other mercenaries, and she heaved a sigh. "So, what time are we going through the portal tomorrow?"

The Blue Moon Surveyors looked at one another for a moment. Drew was the one who answered. "Probably not tomorrow, Alex."

She frowned. "So when? The day after?"

"Try next week." Mahrez shook his head, a smile on his lips. "No wonder you've built up so much endurance. Have they really been throwing you in every other day?"

Alex blinked. She looked around and found the Surveyors all looking at her with surprise and pity. "I… I mean, sometimes it wasn't every other day." Their expressions shifted a little closer towards pity, and she decided not to mention the crunch at Red Blade Securities at all. "Won't the portal get unstable?"

"Not with an experienced team going in every day or so. With all of us knocking down a handful of Camps, it won't get out of control anytime soon." Mahrez gave the others a look. "Things might pick up in a bit, but they aren't looking for active salvage or suppression here, just maintenance until they get their teams off the ground."

Carter nodded. "Yeah, Alex. Kick back, relax, maybe get a bit more training in." Then he snorted. "Though I guess you have to go to that fancy party later this week. Glad our contracts don't include that."

She gave him an uncertain look and wondered what she was going to do with herself for an entire week without going through the portal. It was hard to picture, even as the others trailed out of the gym and headed for the cafeteria. Maybe a run would help her think of something.

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