Jessie sat in a comfy chair, curled into a ball, her phone on speaker in her lap. No one else was around in the Desert Wind’s library—or the rest of the building, for that matter—and she could be as loud as she wanted. She couldn’t say what she wanted until she got off this stupid call, but it wasn’t like some GC rep was going to come down on her if she talked too loudly.

  “Yes, I understand that my guild members violated both direct orders to stand down and standing protocol about…Look, I know I sound sixteen. It’s because I’m sixteen. Yes, I’m aware that I’m young for the job.” Jessie wanted to swear, or yell, or just hang up. That would be a mistake, though; hanging up on the Guardians when they were neighbors would be a bad move, especially after what her brother had done. “Look, Vern—I can call you Vern, right? Great. Look, Guildmaster Kellen, have you talked to Kade? He usually has a good reason for doing stupid stuff.”

  She didn’t believe that for a minute.

  The man on the other end of the phone was furious, too. Jessie could feel his annoyance through the phone, almost like his aura was pushing out across the wires. She shivered, then refocused. “Ellen—Delver Traynor—has a car at the west gate. If you let her summon it, it’ll get them out of your hair. I’ll…yeah, yeah. Send the paperwork with them. We’ll make it right.”

  Jessie went quiet for a minute. A full minute. Then she nodded slowly. “Yep. Understood. Thanks, Guildmaster Kellen. And, uh, one more thing. I’m Guildmaster Gerald, not—uh, did you hang up on me? Rude.”

  The reality of being a guildmaster was that it wasn’t all fun and games. Jessie was doing similar work to her time as a GC rep, but with way more bureaucracy and consequences for not following it, and she was trying to translate the ‘ledger’ that wasn’t a ledger at all, and she was trying to keep up with her schoolwork. She didn’t have time for Kade and his friends to screw stuff up like this for her.

  The ledger’s translation was going well, to be fair.

  Not great. The language was symbological, so she had to come up with approximate meanings for everything. And the ‘different angles’ thing Dr. Teller had come up with was accurate, but ironically, turned every page into its own confusing puzzle. But Jessie had found common words and, using them as a base and with the help of her online friends, she’d started making progress.

  So far, she had one word down, one hundred percent. It translated to ‘Crone.’

  Or maybe ‘Grandmother,’ or ‘Old lady,’ or “that ancient bitch.’ Jessie wasn’t exactly sure. But probably ‘Crone.’

  Jessie was waiting for us when we got back to our headquarters.

  And she looked pissed. She obviously hadn’t moved from the chair she’d burrowed into in a few hours, and pain filled her eyes, but she still worked up the energy to punch my shoulder, even though it looked like it hurt her more than it could possibly hurt me. I winced anyway. “Ow.”

  The Guardians hadn’t treated us roughly—at least not once we’d surrendered—but it had still taken almost six hours to worm our way out of their custody. The whole time, they’d alternated between demanding an exhaustingly detailed report of both the monsters’ incursion and ours, threatening the Desert Wind guild with all sorts of sanctions and penalties, and ignoring us for an hour at a time. It was incredibly frustrating.

  I’d just been trying to help them out. We couldn’t have monsters—especially the Drillborer—loose in the fields. They’d agreed on that front, but also claimed that it was under control the moment I’d sent my message.

  That was a lie. If it had been under control, we’d have seen a Guardians team out there somewhere. Unless I was missing something, Guildmaster Kellen didn’t have a plan for an incursion like that.

  “You know I’m going to have to stay up for another three or four hours dealing with your paperwork, right?” Jessie mumbled from her chair. “I’m supposed to have a date tomorrow after school with Stephen, and this flare-up is not making that feel promising. You’re killing my social life, Kade!”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but Ellen’s hand clamped around mine, and I closed it, thought for a second, then tried again. “Sorry. We were just doing the right thing.”

  “Well—“

  Ellen cut my sister off quickly. “Kade and I would be happy to help with the paperwork so you can go to bed, Jessie. We can do most of it, and you can sign off on it in the morning, before school.”

  Jessie groaned from the chair as she slowly unfolded. I was already halfway across the room, wheeling her chair over, as she reached for her cane. She glared at me, then nodded and let me help her into it. “You’d better do a good job.”

  “Sure we will. Let’s get you ready for bed,” I said, then wheeled her toward the bathroom.

  When she was safely encased in her blankets and the door was shut, I rejoined Ellen in the library. “The others?”

  “Sophia’s handler picked her up,” Ellen said. “She’s fine. And Raul went to bed, too. That leaves Jeff and Yasmin. He went to the gym, and she’s…I’m not sure what she’s up to. Now, paperwork time.”

  We’d brought dozens of forms home. Most of them were complex legalese that Ellen had to explain as we read them, absolving the Guardians of responsibility, accepting the cost of damaged crops—which was ridiculously high—and most tellingly, a legally binding nondisclosure agreement regarding any of the green triangle’s proprietary agricultural techniques. The process of working through them took almost three hours, even with Ellen cutting through the annoying parts where she could.

  When she finally stood up and yawned, then headed for the stairs, it was a relief.

  It was also a relief when she walked past her floor and up the stairs to my suite.

  My phone’s buzzing woke me up.

  Ellen was already awake, stretching out on the floor. “Morning, sleepyhead,” she teased.

  I yawned and stretched dramatically. “Morning, early bird. What’s going on?”

  “Tournament second round match-ups,” Ellen said. “I’m up against some guy from the Iron Falcons. A striker. He should counter me, but I’m not convinced it’s over. I’ve beaten you plenty of times, right?”

  “Right.” I didn’t reach for my phone. Ellen knew everything already; she’d tell me what I needed to know. Besides, I already had my opponent. It’d be Marcus, the A-Rank striker. I was in for a tough time against him. “Who’s Jeff got?”

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  “Jeff’s got a Portal Tyrant. Kim Newcomb. She’s a mage, but I’m pretty sure she just lucked her way through the first round. He got lucky, though. Luke lost.”

  "He’ll do fine against the ma—wait, Luke Walker lost? How’s Sophia taking it?”

  Ellen snorted. “Thought that’d get you going. Yeah, he went up against a control mage. Someone like Ophelia. He didn’t even get a chance to use his Unique, just got controlled the whole time until Sarah Cullman called the fight out of boredom. Apparently, it took almost an hour. It’s the second biggest upset of the first round. Anyway, Ophelia’s through, up against an archer with a penetrating shot that might actually hurt her, and Carter’s in, too. He’s got Isaac, so I expect he’ll lose. The big headline matchup is Harold the Herald vs. Deborah Callahan, though. And I get the winner.”

  I waited for her to finish talking through the match-ups, my gut twisting. Then I waited for another few seconds as Ellen stretched out her calves against the wall. “What’s the big upset, then?”

  “Marcus lost. You have Andrew in the second round.”

  My stomach roiled. In a vacuum, fighting Andrew instead of Marcus was a blessing; I could almost certainly handle the man who’d tried to kill me, and I’d have plenty of reason to win that fight. But it wasn’t the fight I was mentally prepared for, and it wasn’t the fight I wanted. Worse, he had plenty of reason to win the fight, too. It wouldn’t stay professional, and I didn’t want another reason to go all-in like I’d had to with Logan Fritch.

  “You’re serious?” I asked. I slid out of bed, and Ellen looked at the window pointedly until I got dressed. “You’re serious about that, too?”

  “Yes, and yes. I have no idea what Andrew pulled, but he squeezed out a win while we were in custody yesterday. Apparently, Sarah had to split her healing almost evenly between the two of them. And you need to be decent, Kade.” Ellen sneaked a peek as I pulled my shirt on, then turned around. “There, that’s better. Let’s go talk to Jessie and—“

  “Just a second. Ellen, last night was—“

  “It was fun, and I’d love to do it again tomorrow night, but we promised Jessie we’d take care of this before she left. Now, are you coming down or not?”

  I sighed and headed for the stairs, with Ellen following behind me with smug satisfaction all over her face.

  Jessie was dressed in her chair, and looking almost as irritated as she had the night before. I waited while she and Ellen went over her paperwork, my sister growing more and more annoyed by the minute. After they’d gotten it all signed, Ellen sighed, “And yes, Jessie, you can take Deimos this afternoon. Just be careful, okay?”

  “I’m always careful. Besides, Deimos does all the work,” Jessie said. I snorted, and she glared at me. Then she was gone, heading for the car.

  “There. Now, match-ups. Do you know anything about this striker?” I asked. “Or about Jeff’s mage? I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on Andrew. It’s your two opponents that worry me.”

  Ellen stood at the door for a moment, fiddling with her phone. Then she nodded. “There. Done. Deimos will report where they take the car, but nothing else. The two of them need some privacy, right?”

  I nodded. “Sure. Jessie will tell me whatever I need to know, anyway. She’s good for that. Now, the match-ups?”

  “Let’s wait for Jeff,” Ellen said.

  “Come on,” I complained, but she didn’t budge, and after a moment, I nodded in defeat.

  “In the meantime, we should talk about last night—and about Dual Skill Advancement. I had fun, like I said, but I also think we can use our time together better.” Ellen blushed pink, but continued on. “We’re both pushing toward A-Rank now. That’s the last ‘easy’ rank out there. After that, it’s nothing but struggle to get to S-Rank, and even worse to progress at all past that. We need to be setting up our foundation for that push, and some of that is…”

  “Physical intimacy?”

  “No, Kade. Emotional connection. So, let’s talk about it. But let’s do it back in your room. I don’t want Yasmin or—god forbid, Jeff—walking in on our talk.”

  I let her take the lead, and we retreated to my guildmaster’s suite.

  “So…” I said.

  “So, Dual Skill Advancement. We’re looking to push Shadowstorm Battery to C-Rank. That’ll be the first real block on its progression. We’re going to have to get our cores in sync—and that means getting our bodies and minds in sync, too. Last night was good for our bodies, right?”

  My face heated up. “Yes.”

  “Good. Most Dual Skill Advancement delvers work on body sync through exercise, too—yoga, gymnastics, similar things. But we can do that later. I don’t have any complaints about what we’ve been doing, as long as we do it more deliberately in the future.” Ellen was bright red. “Now, mental and emotional synchronization. You told me about your mom. Let me tell you about mine.”

  “You’re sure?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I mean, she’s not dead or anything. She’s just…disengaged. She lets Bob take the reins and just goes along, and she hates the spotlight. I think…”

  We were still there, and still talking about Ellen’s family, when Jeff texted me an hour later.

  Jeff: Just woke up. Luke lost!

  “One win down, two to go,” Carter said.

  He sat on the edge of his hotel bed, staring at his phone. Isaac. He had Isaac, of course. One of the most dangerous delvers below S-Rank, the striker had all but killed his Roadrunner opponent before the Spark of Life shut the fight down. And Carter was an archer. He was probably outmatched.

  But probably wasn’t a guarantee. Carter was already watching a video of the fight. If he could piece together a viable strategy, he could pull off an upset. Two of the heaviest hitters were already out, and rank only mattered so much in the Fallen Delvers Tournament. That was his hope: that he’d be able to leverage the weird portal’s power to neutralize the A-Rank striker, then the B-Rank mage Carter would almost certainly have to fight in the next round.

  Carter needed this win. He had an opportunity—a once-in-a-lifetime chance—to humiliate Deborah Callahan in a public setting, without risking her wrath more than he already was. He’d beat her as Caleb, then reveal his identity. With a public reveal like that, she wouldn’t be able to touch him or his people. And if she did, the GC would have to get involved. It wasn’t eliminating Deborah from the equation altogether, but it was close enough.

  Hopefully.

  Probably.

  Probably wasn’t a guarantee, but it was the best Carter could do.

  Deborah cursed her own stupidity.

  Carter Richards was Caleb Richter. She’d watched his fights three times just to be absolutely sure. And that meant she’d been outmaneuvered. She’d been tricked. She slammed a fist into a punching bag; it rocketed off its chain and slammed into the wall, only for her to pick it up, reconnect it, and hit it again.

  And now both he and Kade were safe. She couldn’t touch them while they were in the tournament—not unless she got to fight them in the sparring room, and then, she’d be bound by the same rules everyone else was. Carter was up against Isaac, though, and the striker was almost as likely to accidentally kill the archer as keep him alive. He might stop being a problem tomorrow! And if not…Ophelia would almost certainly remove him from the tournament.

  Which would be disappointing, because Deborah wanted that match-up with Carter Richards. She wanted it bad.

  Before that, though, she had to deal with a fight against Harold the Herald.

  It wasn’t ideal. She’d hoped the Traynor team’s archer would come up with a solution, but hope and expectation were two different things. She could probably beat him. It’d be tight—she had to admit that Harold was probably her equal, or at least close. But she could probably do it as she was.

  Probably wasn’t good enough, though. The moment she was out of the tournament, she’d be on the front lines with Angelo again. The Carlsbad break and monster rush was…well, the reports she’d seen weren’t good. Phoenix had already seen monsters that had made it through to its walls, and the portal’s boss hadn’t left its portal as far as she knew. When that happened, even Angelo wouldn’t be enough to stop it. They’d need everyone. So, the longer she was in the tournament, the longer Deborah had a viable reason to leave Angelo out to dry.

  She stripped down and headed for her bath. The water was ice-cold, made even worse by the literal ice she’d poured in. Deborah’s every reflex was to avoid it. She was a creature of Phoenix, after all, and she could count the number of freezes she’d experienced on both her hands.

  But probably wasn’t good enough. She needed certainty.

  Deborah shivered as she forced herself into the ice bath. Then she put her head under and breathed in. Her will fought with her body, and her will won. Frigid water rushed into her lungs, and she shuddered, splashing it across the tile. It wasn’t going to work. She was going to drown herself—or worse, have to explain this to a healer. She hadn’t intended to die, only to—

  Then, suddenly, it was warm and calm. An aura washed over her, and a golden portal opened at the bottom of her bath.

  Hello, readers!

  The third and final book in The Halcyon System came out a couple of days ago on Kindle and Audible. I was in the middle of a pretty brutal trip back from a cousin’s wedding, getting sick, and then it was Christmas, so I'm only getting to the promotional stuff now.

  I really enjoyed writing Guardian Rising, and it was a great learning experience as a book. I think Claire’s relationships with her father, friends, and James all take major turns in this book as she becomes something more and pushes herself to the limits of reality in an attempt to save it.

  If you’d give it a look, I’d appreciate it!

  Kindle:

  Audible: