Fifteen minutes and one eyebrow-raising grocery store stop later, Ethan stood in front of the pristine exterior that marked Alex’s apartment. All that was standing between Ethan and a nice bath were two conversations. One of them would be embarrassing and the other one awkward, but he wasn’t sure which would be which.

Or, he could go back to the hotel rooftop and hope Amber wasn’t there, but he really didn’t want to have to explain to her that he still wasn’t a Protector. She already had a much lower opinion of him than Ethan would like, and his current corpse-like appearance was not going to improve his standing with her, so back to his place it was.

Ethan took a deep breath to steady himself before walking into the lobby. He began to sweat when he reached the elevator, ascending the thirty-five stories to Alex’s penthouse. He hadn’t been face to face with Raz for more than five minutes since the day he and Rainey went down into the mines, successfully managing to avoid him every day for the past three months, which was no easy task considering their rooms were across the hall from each other.

In the early days of his training, before he found that hotel rooftops were not particularly well guarded, Ethan would even go so far as to take showers right when he got home in the early hours of the morning before Raz was up, sleep during the day, and then leave with Alex for training just after Raz went to sleep at night, purposefully putting him on an opposite schedule of his former best friend.

At best, he owed Raz an apology, one Ethan hoped he’d reluctantly accept. At worst, Raz had every excuse to cut him out of his life completely, and then Ethan really would need Quinn to act as his PAL. Ethan felt like it was probably a little early to ask her to leave his job and join up with him, so he was going to have to make things work with Raz.

As if his conversation with Raz wasn’t going to be bad enough, Ethan also had to tell Alex he had been trying to find Sola on his own, without Raz’s help, and that he had wasted four days so far. He wasn’t sure which conversation was going to be worse, but at least Raz didn’t have the power to throw him into the sun if he got angry. Alex had become extremely well trained in exercising restraint with her immense strength, but everyone was prone to incidents.

The elevator doors opened, putting him face to face with Alex’s door. “Time to rip the bandaid off,” he muttered. He pushed Alex’s apartment door open and called out to them both.

“I’m back!”

Alex was fixing herself breakfast in the kitchen, but froze when she heard the door open. Realizing it was only the lowly Ethan, she dropped the knife back onto the plate and rushed over to greet him, her amber eyes instantly communicating her concern for Ethan’s disheveled state. This, in his mind, was a good sign.

“What the hell happened to you?” she asked, making a beeline for Ethan and looking him over with the same concern of a lioness looking over her cub.

“I kind of haven’t slept in four days,” Ethan told her. “I’ve been staking out the museum looking out for Sola. Oh, and Duclaw attacked me this morning.”

“Why didn’t you call?” Alex said, incredulously. “I would’ve helped you!”

“It happened so fast,” Ethan shook his head, “but I took care of him and made it out without a scratch.”

“If I see Duclaw out in the city, I’m going to-”

Alex accidentally crushed the metal travel mug she was drinking out of, displaying her disagreement and spilling coffee all over her floor.

“Damn it,” she growled, “I just had these replaced!”

Raz finally made an appearance, walking slowly out from his room. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Did you know about this?” Alex pointed at Ethan, specifically gesturing towards the burns visible on his arms.

Raz shrugged. “His heart rate was elevated, but it never stopped, so I assumed he was fine.”

“And you didn’t tell me what was going on?”

All Raz could do was hesitate, then shrug again, which was not enough of an answer for Alex. She pointed a finger angrily at Ethan, who flinched, then at Raz, whose shoulders slumped.

“You’re wasting time not talking to your PAL, and you’re only willing to speak up if he dies just because you two aren’t friendly?” Alex shook her head dismissively. She stormed over to the balcony.

“Where are you going?” Ethan asked, taking a step to follow her. Alex immediately shot him a threatening glance that stopped him in his tracks.

“Out,” she spat.

“Uh, right. Let me know if there’s anything I can do while you’re gone,” Ethan nodded quietly, not wanting to draw any more of Alex’s ire than he already had.

“Since you asked, fix this,” Alex gestured at the two of them. Raz’s eyes dropped to the floor. “Ethan, I don’t have a way to keep you here, but if you leave without resolving this, I will fly you back here and hold you both two inches away from each other by the collars of your shirts until you do. You two are going to work this out, now.”

She took a hard look at the two of them, pointing to the spilled coffee, then again at Ethan.

“And clean that up!”

Launching herself off the balcony, Alex took off towards Apex Tower, leaving Ethan, Raz, and an immediately awkward silence that filled the room.

Ethan wiped the coffee up, grimacing at his lackluster job. He never learned to clean hardwood, despite his earlier mistakes. He scrubbed and scrubbed, but the stain never seemed to lessen.

Letting out a curt sigh, he felt like a balloon about to burst, unable to stand the silence any longer. He left the stain as it was, then pulled the six pack out of the grocery bag he had brought in, popped the top off a beer, and silently offered it to Raz who glanced at the clock, shrugged, and accepted. Ethan opened his own, sitting on the couch next to Raz and feeling, for the first time, all the bruises on his shoulders and chest from where the bones landed on top of him. He groaned in discomfort, shifting weight off his right shoulder.

“What happened?” Raz asked. “You look like hell.”

“I’ve spent four nights staring at a closed museum in the cold watching my future slip away from me. Then, this morning, I got into a fight, but resolved that before it started, really. Oh, and I had a dinosaur skeleton dropped on me a few days ago and even though the doctor said my shoulder isn’t dislocated, I still think it is.”

Raz grimaced, taking a long sip, then laughed quietly. “Remember when you wanted to be a paleontologist?”

Ethan laughed. “Now I hate those guys. Like, you were all proud you found those bones in the mountains, so you put them on the ceiling, and what’d they do? Fall on top of me. You’re a danger, sir, and so is your work.”

“You know what’s weird? There’s not a lot of other jobs where, if you’re successful, your work ends up on a ceiling” Raz pointed out. “Michaelangelo, sure, he rocked it. I get it. But, like, accountants don’t put their spreadsheets on the ceiling, you know?”

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“True, but there are a lot of jobs where, if your work ends up on the ceiling, it’s a real issue. Like, things have gone catastrophically wrong.”

“Mm,” Raz nodded, “chefs, for sure. Can’t have that happen and expect to still be employed.”

“No doubt. Pilots, too, can’t have passengers end up on the ceiling.”

“This is why I don’t fly,” Raz shook his head. “That kind of stuff can just happen.”

“Oh, is that why?” Ethan laughed. “It’s not the whole ‘having no money to your name’ thing?”

“Rich coming from someone who was so broke he threw himself down a hole in the ground.”

Ethan tilted his beer. “Touché. Man, I missed this,” he said quietly, his tone serious. “These last three months have been so…lonely. Alex yells at me all the time.”

“As she should,” Raz pointed out, “if she’s too soft on you, you’ll die on your first day as a Protector.”

“I almost died today, and I’m not even a Protector,” Ethan laughed. “I got lucky that Duclaw happens to be a moron.”

“Luckily, you must’ve gotten better at controlling your powers. Alex has been updating me. In the beginning, she was so worried you were going to slam into a mountain.”

“The snowpack saved my life more than once,” he shook his head, shivering involuntarily. There was simply no amount of jackets that could keep you warm after being buried under several feet of snow. “Now, speaking about my powers…” Ethan gestured at his beer, and Raz opened his eyes wide.

“If you miss, she’s going to kill you. She just got her floors redone, and if she has to get a new couch I don’t think you’ll live to see it.”

“Come on,” Ethan laughed, “I stopped Sola and recovered a powerful object Apex purposefully put away for safekeeping. I’ve got some rope, right?”

Raz shook his head. “It’s your hanging. That said…try it.”

Ethan took a deep breath, then opened a portal just beneath the ceiling and another just underneath his beer. He turned his head upward, opening his mouth and slowly poured his beer into the first portal. He completely misjudged the distance, spilling beer all over the back of the couch, laughing as he dismissed both portals.

“I see why Sola was able to beat you up so easily,” Raz joked, “you can barely connect your portals.”

Ethan jumped up, getting a roll of paper towels and doing his best to clear the spots. When they didn’t come out, he sighed, then shrugged.

“Well, if she notices the couch is messed up, maybe she won’t care about the floors, right?”

Raz sighed, his disappointment in Ethan evident. “Is making a second, worse mistake better than just fixing the first one?” Raz asked.

Ethan froze. Is that all I’m doing? He asked himself, glancing back at Alex’s warped floorboards. The couch was beginning to stain.

Can’t do anything about the floor, but I can fix this before things get worse if I move quickly.

Ethan rushed over to Alex’s sink and pulled out her stain cleaner, flooded the wet stains on the couch, and blotted them. When he was satisfied they wouldn’t do any permanent damage, he walked over to the balcony, choosing his words carefully.

Just three months ago he stood in the exact same spot, promising himself powers, a way out of the mines. Now he had them, and, as Amber had reminded him, he could go anywhere. His hand vibrated gently, power waiting to be unleashed at his command.

This time, however, he knew he had to stay put. He shook his hand out, turned to face Raz, his face glum.

“I shouldn’t have pushed you, before I went down in the mines.”

“No, you should not have,” Raz replied. “But you did.”

“And I’m sorry. But I couldn’t risk having you down there in the tunnels with me. We had no idea what was going to happen if we found a breach point.”

“I could’ve helped,” Raz said earnestly, folding his arms. “We’re supposed to be friends. No matter what happens, I should be there, to help you, just like when you saved me.”

Ethan shook his head. “We both know that I only had to save you because I caused that accident, Raz. And I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you, but I had to get us out of Stillrock. I couldn’t stay there anymore.”

“Well, I shouldn’t have let you almost die today even though I knew something was wrong, so we can call it even,” Raz told him.

Ethan laughed. “That was pretty messed up, but I handled it. Now, going forward…I don’t think that’s the last time I’m going to find myself fighting for my life, so I need your help if I want to survive.”

Raz clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m in. How’s the probation going?”

“Not well,” Ethan admitted, shaking his head. “I’m running out of time to find Sola, but I have a lead, courtesy of Duclaw. Is there any way you could potentially find out about a roving jewelry depot? Apparently the big stores in town all use it to house their excess inventory until they’re ready to transfer it to the regional stores. If I’m right, they probably send Apex its location just in case someone finds out where they are and attacks them.”

Raz nodded, walking over to the kitchen table and opening his laptop. “If it’s in Apex’s databases, I’ll find it, but it might take me some time.”

“We’re quickly running out of time, so bribe who you need to bribe,” Ethan told him.

“With what money?” Raz laughed. “Oh,” he said, more serious, “I was looking into Apex’s Protector and Altered database. Sola…isn’t in there at all. They have a searchable database that is supposed to include everyone who got powers since the Surge.”

Well, Ethan thought, rubbing the back of his neck, not exactly everyone.

Ethan clicked his tongue. “Well, knowing what Amory and I talked about, I would guess that they’re keeping her out of the database because…she’s new.”

“New?” Raz asked, his voice confused.

Ethan nodded. “So, you know how nobody new got powers for over a year?”

“How could I forget? You single handedly shut down the Stillrock mines and threw Apex into a tizzy. They just released new guidance on Protectors dealing with breach points, thanks to you. ”

“Right, glad to draw attention to this important issue,” Ethan said slowly, only mostly paying attention. “Well…what if I wasn’t the only one to gain powers after the Surge?”

Raz resumed tapping his knuckles on the table. Ethan was too nervous to be annoyed. “Then it’s possible that you not only cracked the code on getting powers for yourself, but…others, too. Like Sola. This is…oh, this could be awful.”

“I hate it when somebody smarter than me confirms my worst fears.”

Raz stood up, pacing around the living room carpet. “If there’s someone out there that can help people get powers, then they could, in theory, give enough people powers to overwhelm the Protectors and throw Ascension back into chaos. You’ve gotta find Sola,” Raz told him, his voice urgent. “If you accidentally released a ‘how-to’ manual about getting powers, that kind of information getting out could throw this city right back into chaos.”

“That’s exactly what Amroy was afraid of,” Ethan muttered, sighing. He laid down on the couch, shutting his eyes. “I’m on it, but, first, I really need a nap.”

Raz rolled his eyes, but before he had the chance to tell Ethan to get up, his phone rang. After a few murmurs of agreement, he turned to Ethan.

“Well, your nap is going to have to wait. A scientist at Apex named Quinn called over for you. She said it’s urgent.”

“Urgent?” Ethan’s heart fluttered as he shot up. This must have something to do with the stone we stopped Sola from stealing, he thought.

Raz noted the increase in his heart rate on his monitor on his laptop. He laughed, shaking his head.

“Damn heart monitor,” Ethan grumbled, glancing down at his Apex provided fitness watch. He darted down the hall and rushed into the bathroom to freshen up, dismayed by the dust on his face and in his hair.

“One mention of Quinn and your heart rate spikes like you just got thrown off a building. And I mean that literally, I have the data from last month when Alex threw you off the High Rise.”

Ignoring Raz, Ethan wiped his face off, threw on a fresh white mesh shirt, and tried to comb his fingers through his hair, molding it into something presentable. He sighed, dismayed, then walked back down the hall. It’ll have to do.

“Let me guess: blonde, roughly your height, way smarter than you?”

“Later,” Ethan growled, heading to the balcony.

Raz chuckled. “So?”

”Tell them I’ll be there,” Ethan said, trying not to sound too eager. He had never actually been to Apex Tower, the obsidian monolith located on the western edge of town. Smiling with relief, and practically giddy over the thought of sleeping in a real bed, he stepped through his portal and out towards the shadowed Apex Tower.