Should we go here?"
I looked at Seraphina. She was leaning over her desk, the blue light from her monitors reflecting in her eyes like moonlight on a frozen lake. The other two were huddled around the small conference area of our joint office, the air thick with the smell of Roonie’s overpriced espresso and the lingering, metallic tang of Hana's weaponized mana.
Seraphina didn’t answer immediately. She was pensive, her fingers tracing the edge of a dossier that looked like it had been through a shredder. She’d been digging through the guild’s private archives for the last hour, trying to cross-reference "Arslan" with the known black-market rings.
"The Association has files on three different illegal operations running through the docks," Seraphina said, sliding the documents across the mahogany. "But there’s nothing about an Arslan. No names, no aliases. It’s a ghost trail."
"If it is important in any way," I said, leaning back against the arm of the couch. "Being a low-ranked guinea pig is not going to help much. We’d spend twelve hours hauling mana stones and learning exactly nothing. We need to be inside their actual operations."
Roonie looked up from his tablet, his brow furrowing behind his glasses. "Are you suggesting we infiltrate their ranks directly? That’s a suicide mission for a D-Rank, Elara. Even an undercover one."
I sat down on the couch, the leather creaking under me. I could feel all their eyes follow my movement, waiting for the plan to click into place. My heart was thumping a steady, tactical beat.
"There are a few ways we can do it," I said. "We could offer to work as partners, or maybe bring them a new type of stone they’ve never seen. But what we really care about is how that man turned into a dungeon. Going into a regular hole in the ground isn't going to tell us how the rot lasted all the way into the city streets."
"So you suggest we enter as a spy?" Roonie asked.
I shrugged, my gaze drifting toward Hana. She was sitting in the corner, her expression as unreadable as a blank sheet of paper.
"Or... we can be more efficient and just infiltrate...?"
"Hana, if you can hear me clearly, raise your left hand."
On the small, high-definition screen mounted to the back of the car’s headrest, a hand appeared instantly. It was a sharp, quick movement.
The live feed from the smart glasses we’d tucked into Hana’s ponytail was crystal clear. The Reiswan District shipyard spread out on the screen, a cemetery of rusted shipping containers and skeletal cranes. The air outside the car probably smelled like salt and old oil, but inside, it was just the scent of Seraphina’s peppermint tea and the low hum of the heater.
Roonie was in the driver’s seat, his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. Seraphina and I were squeezed into the back, our shoulders brushing as we leaned toward the monitor. I could feel the cool resonance of her bond humming in my chest, a steady, icy comfort.
The image on the screen shifted. Hana was standing atop a blue shipping container, looking down at a ragtag group of hunters huddled near the pier.
In the center of the group was a man in a dirty canvas jacket. He was tapping his feet, looking at his watch every three seconds like it was a bomb about to go off. There were four other hunters standing in front of him, all of them looking nervous, their gear a mismatched mess of salvaged armor and cheap blades.
"Damn it," the man yelled, the audio from the glasses crackling. "Stupid brats. Probably got scared and tucked tail. I just hope that bitch doesn't go to the fucking police."
He clicked his tongue and gestured at the others. "Move it! We’re behind schedule!"
The hunters scrambled after him as he made his way to a rusted metal platform at the water’s edge. One by one, they jumped onto a ship idling at the dock. It was a creaky, fairly sized trawler that looked like it hadn't seen a coat of paint since the first cataclysm.
Hana didn’t hesitate. She stayed low, her body a blur of shadow as she followed them. With a large, effortless leap, she landed on the cabin roof of the ship. She flattened herself against the cold metal, staying out of the sightlines of the crew.
The motor turned over with a wet, chugging growl.
"Hana, is the signal still strong?" I whispered into the comms.
On the screen, a thumb went up.
Hana looked back once, watching the lights of the Reiswan District fade into a blur of orange and gray. The ship was picking up speed, cutting through the dark, choppy water of the bay.
Then she turned her head back to the front.
My breath hitched.
Floating in the middle of the dark, open ocean was a swirl of violet light. It wasn't attached to land or anchored to any structure. It was just hanging there, a jagged tear in the atmosphere that made the water beneath it churn in a violent, unnatural spiral.
The ship was heading straight for it.
A gate in the middle of the sea.
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