Pete wasted no time in rushing Yeo over to the table and getting a bowl of soup before him. Part of Chance could hardly believe what was happening. It hadn’t really been all that long since they’d all left Gleam, but it felt like ages.

“Have you been safe?” Pete asked, lowering himself back into his chair. “You’ve picked up some scars, Yeo.”

Yeo looked down at himself, then shrugged. “Yeah. They look pretty cool, huh? I think they add to my appeal.”

“Was it rough for you?” Chance asked. “I wish we could have managed to grab you before we had to run from Gleam. We were in some pretty deep shit.”

“Nah, it was fine. I just spent a bunch of time training, really.” Yeo waved a hand dismissively and blew on a spoonful of soup before drinking it. He let out a satisfied sigh. “This food tastes way better than what I was eating, though. I officially hate field rations.”

Yeo devoured the rest of the meal in seconds, then leaned back in his chair and patted his stomach. “I hope you guys kept up on your training. I’m pretty impressive, so you might have fallen behind. I’m already–”

“Rank Three, right?” Bella grinned. “So are we. Sorry.”

“Oh, come on.” Yeo glared at Bella. “Stealing my thunder. I bet you were waiting to do that all the way until we got back. But, if I’m being honest with you, I almost missed it. I’ve just been bored out of my mind training.”

“I think we had more than enough excitement for all three of us,” Chance grumbled. “Count yourself lucky. Vex came after us.”

The easygoing grin on Yeo’s lips vanished in a heartbeat. “You’re kidding me. Seriously? What happened?”

“He died,” Chance replied. He was rewarded with the very satisfying sight of Yeo’s eyes going as wide as saucers. Yeo nearly hit his knee on the underside of the table in his haste to sit up and stare in shock.

“Bullshit,” Yeo said. “You killed him? At Rank 3?”

“Not really. He kind of killed himself.” Chance briefly explained Vex’s hunt and how the cultivator had met his end at the hands of a scroll. By the time he was finished, Yeo was glaring daggers at him.

“Of course you’d manage to stumble your way into a victory.” Yeo rolled his eyes. “You’re so lucky. That must have felt good, though. Especially for Bella.”

“You have absolutely no idea,” Bella said. “But I’m just glad to be back in one piece. I’m not even sure what I’ll do from here. I can’t remember a time when Vex wasn’t hanging over my head.”

“What else happened for you two? Did I miss anything cool other than Vex getting killed?”

“A lot,” Chance admitted with a sheepish laugh. “We destroyed a slaver sect and I accidentally made friends with Lin the Red Hand, among other things.”

“When Chance says other things, he means visiting an ancient realm and proceeding to refuse to take ninety percent of all the artifacts we found in it.” Bella gave Chance a good-natured prod in the side. “And then he sacrificed the artifacts we did manage to bring out. The only physical thing we have to show from the whole trip is a ring.”

Yeo let out a cackle. “You know, that’s the most Chance thing I’ve ever heard. Let me guess – he didn’t take the artifacts because he would have felt bad leaving nothing for other people?”

“Ding.”

Chance reddened as Yeo and Bella both started to laugh even harder. Even Pete couldn’t keep himself from joining in.

“Sorry, lad,” Pete said. “You’re certainly one of a kind.”

“I’ve missed this a lot. Things haven’t been right when we were apart – and Chance needs someone with a brain on his shoulders to be with him, or he’ll keep giving things away for free.”

“What’s that meant to mean?” Bella asked, crossing her arms.

“Oh, come on. You’ve got a soft spot for him. You’re only ever strict with me, grandma.”

Bella opened her mouth, then closed it again, settling for rolling her eyes. “That’s just because you deserve it. I can’t say I didn’t miss this – just don’t expect me to ever admit that again. I’m looking forward to doing normal missions once more.

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“Mee too.” Yeo flashed them a toothy smile. “Though I’d say the next step should probably be pretty small. Relax a bit, you know? Start with some really easy, laid back things.”

Bella tilted her head to the side. Chance was equally as taken aback. That was a strikingly easygoing suggestion. It wasn’t one that he’d expected to come from Yeo.

Maybe all the time he spent training actually made him mellow out a little? Odd. If anything, I would have thought that he’d be way more crazy now.

“That’s a good idea,” Bella said. “After we’ve all gotten some time to relax, we can go do some normal missions.”

“Exactly. We should probably start by making a name for ourselves again.” Yeo tapped a finger against his chin. “Why don’t we find a bunch of other Rank 3 teams and crush them in sparring matches, then make them work for us to form an empire of young Shikari teams?”

Chance and Bella stared at him.

“That’s what you consider starting small?” Chance cut himself off as he saw a smirk slip across Yeo’s lips. They were getting played with – it hadn’t taken Yeo long to go right back to his normal self.

“What? Why not? It’s a good way to remind people who we are.”

“Very funny.” Bella rolled her eyes. “But, jokes aside, we might actually want to lay low for a little while, don’t you think? I’d imagine people aren’t going to look to kindly on us, even with the order for our heads lifted.”

Wood scraped against stone as Yeo pushed his chair back. He stood up, scrunching his nose and letting out a sigh. “God, you’re so responsible. It’s lame. You’re totally right, though. We probably don’t have very many allies right now. Taking some chill jobs and letting a month or two pass is a good idea.”

“When we’re ready, it would be nice to reconnect with Wren,” Chance suggested. “If it wasn’t for him, things might have turned out a lot worse for us. We should find Jade as – oh. We’ll have to introduce you to Jade. She was one of the Shikari chasing us, but we became friends.”

“I know.”

Chance blinked. “You do?”

“It’s kind of obvious. Half the people you meet end up as your friends,” Bella pointed out.

“That’s also true,” Yeo said, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “But that’s not how I knew. I’ve actually met Jade.”

“Seriously? She found you?” Chance asked. “We asked her to try and check up on you, but I was worried she wouldn’t be able to figure out where you were. That’s great! How is she doing?”

“Well, we got off to a bit of a rocky start, but everything smoothed out. She’s fine, as far as I know. We didn’t get too much time to talk since she met me while the Shikari were still hunting us,” Yeo said. He stretched his arms above his head. “She told me a bit about how you guys met and that she was on my side, but I haven’t spoken with her since.”

“It’s good to know she’s fine,” Chance said. “I was a little worried she might get blamed for Shae’s death.”

“She talked a bit about that, but it seems like the Shikari aren’t complete scumbags.” There was a slight note of bitterness in Yeo’s voice that Chance couldn’t blame himself for. For a protective force meant to be enforcing justice, the Shikari had completely failed them. “Either way, Jade is fine. She didn’t tell me where she lived, but I imagine we’ll run into her soon enough.”

Chance yawned. He was somewhat surprised to find just how tired he was, but it wasn’t hard to tell why. After weeks on weeks of tension and running, dropping his guard had hit him with a massive adrenaline drop.

“Sorry,” Chance said. “I think I’m pretty exhausted.”

“You’ll never hear me say it again, but so am I,” Yeo said. “You have no idea how many Shikari I had to fight over the past few weeks. Jade said she and Shae were the first to find you guys. If it wasn’t for everything else that had happened, I’d say you were lucky.”

Bella rolled her eyes and Yeo snickered. Chance just let out an amused sigh. He probably wasn’t going to get away from lucky jokes at any point in the near future.

“Perhaps it’s time to retire to bed, then,” Pete said. “I’ll handle cleaning up after dinner. You’ll all find that everything is as you left it – minus any holes in the walls from the fights. Please, rest. Tomorrow, you will need to determine what course of action you will set for the future. But that is tomorrow, and today is today.”

Words had never sounded wiser to Chance, and the others clearly felt the same way. They all pushed back from the table, thanking Pete and heading toward their rooms. It felt oddly surreal to be walking up the wooden stairs.

I didn’t realize quite how much I missed this. I can’t wait to hear more about what happened to Yeo, but not until tomorrow.

Chance yawned again, stopping as he drew up to his room. The door hung slightly askew, welcoming him inside. He paused to look over his shoulder.

“Goodnight, guys. We’ve got a lot more to talk about tomorrow, yeah?”

“You’ve got no idea,” Yeo said with a grin. “And you better get ready to spar. I’m going to be finding out just how much stronger you’ve gotten.”

“Count on it,” Chance said.

“Me too,” Bella added.

Yeo glanced at Bella in surprise. “Really?”

“Why not?”

“No reason, you’re welcome to it. I kind of expected you to roll your eyes or something. No real reason why.”

“Do you want me to? I can. Maybe you just missed it.”

Yeo held his hands up in defeat. “If I did, I imagine I’ll get over it soon enough. See you nerds tomorrow.”

He slipped into his room, giving them both a wink before closing the door. Chance quickly walked over to Bella’s room before she could step into it. He leaned in, giving her a quick kiss.

“It’s nice to be home.”

“Tell me about it.” Bella touched her cheek. “See you tomorrow.”

She waited until Chance had returned to his room to close the door. Even as Chance let his own door swing shut behind him, the only thing in his room that his eyes could pick up was the bed. It swam before him, beckoning with promises of sweet rest and relaxation.

He indulged it.