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“Limited duty. Two weeks was sufficient.”

“Two weeks was what I said.”

“I decided two weeks was sufficient. It was my shoulder.” That ended the conversation.

Pike’s eyes went over the smaller breach, the tunnel walls, the Rift-residue from the creature, and the fact that Tor and Mirelle had gotten here before anyone else. He was working out what it meant. “You went in without waiting.”

“The tunnel alert was time-sensitive,” Tor said.

“You went in without backup.”

“Mirelle was with me.” Pike’s eyes cut to Mirelle, who held his gaze. She was not going to apologize for being in the tunnel.

“Ancient magical politics, unauthorized credentials, a Rift opening in a maintenance tunnel. Classic.” Pike’s gaze slid to Drayce. “If ancient magical politics kill me, I am haunting everyone. Individually. In order of how much paperwork they generated.”

“That would put me first.”

“Yes.”

“You’d start with me?”

“Obviously. You generate an extraordinary volume of paperwork and none of it is fun to read.”

Drayce was photographing the breach. Maelin was assessing the anchor damage. “The eastern anchor is damaged. Not gone. We have a window before it gets worse.”

“How long?”

“Hours. Not days.”

The breach held at its smaller size. The Lantern at Mirelle’s side had settled to a calm amber instead of the blazing gold-white of the boardwalk. The immediate threat was handled. The larger situation was still, emphatically, a situation. Tor’s eyes went to Mirelle. She studied the breach with the steady focus she’d built over the past weeks: not afraid, not performing calm, reading it. “Someone connected to the Council gave Selrick the suppression records.”

“Yes.”

“So, whoever that is knows we’re in this tunnel.” She turned to him. “The access was logged.”

Drayce, eyes on the breach: “She’s right.”

Tor’s eyes moved to the tunnel entrance. The anchor. Mirelle. “Then we move before they do.”

She nodded. The Lantern pulsed once, amber to gold.

Drayce, not turning from the breach: “Access log. The tunnel gate opened tonight on a clerk’s badge: Cade Fen, Reyne’s assistant. The same badge pulled the suppression records twice this month.” He glanced up. “It’s not proof, but it’s a place to start.”

“Reyne’s assistant.” Tor turned that over. “She’s the one who brought the suppression documents to the Council in the first place.”

“I know.” Drayce didn’t lift his head. “Either she didn’t know what he was doing with the access she gave him, or she did and decided burying the Council was worth the risk. I don’t know which yet. I intend to find out before I decide how much to trust her.”

“Pull him tonight.”

“Already moving.”

“Still haunting everyone. For the record.” Pike cut in.

“Noted.” Tor’s eyes moved over his team: Pike, Maelin, Drayce, and Mirelle, who had found the entrance before him and been right about the anchor and had her hand on his arm in a tunnel while a Rift breach was closing and had not once suggested she should be elsewhere. “Move.”

They began moving.

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