Paul Mite was riding with us.

He and Aelin were talking about identifying techniques and Rix had hovered close enough to listen better.

Justia was sitting next to her uncle and Ether was next to Aelin. That left me in the passenger seat next to Trent as he drove through the city streets.

Zeb was a small city compared to the ones that were seats of power for the Gods. Zeb barely had five thousand people, while Harror had over a hundred thousand. The size difference of the cities and traffic alone made them seem like completely different worlds.

I looked at the signs advertising Alard Clinics, a lot of different ones offering Farming trips into the Dungeon, and one for Adventure Games at the end of the year.

The Adventurer Games were a pretty big thing every year. Each of the Wards would send a team to a city within the host Ward. Captured monsters would be brought out of the dungeon to be fought by different teams at different tier levels. I had seen a little of the games sometimes at the Dispatchers Hub, but not everyone took off from Farming, and I’d been thankful for the work. There were also tournaments for the various school years, which I assumed we’d be participating in but I didn’t know how many teams went, so maybe the ArchBishop would keep our team home.

We were stuck in traffic, and I decided a conversation might help pass the time faster.

“Paul was one of your students?”

Trent looked over at me and chuckled. "No, he wasn’t even part of one of the years that I had. But he was a kid with spirit, so I gave him some pointers.”

“That seemed like a lot more than just a few pointers.”

“Well.” The older man laughed. "That’s all I thought it would be at the time, but he kept coming back to ask questions. Went on for almost a year. His teacher was not happy with me, and took it all the way to the ArchBishop, who wasn’t Mavery back then.” He chuckled. "I almost got fired for meddling, but it was almost time for the Adventure Games, so it was tabled until after the Games were over and I had to promise not to interfere anymore.”

“What happened?” I looked back at Paul. "Obviously you didn’t get fired.”

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“They won and not just won, they did it by a landslide. Paul had been taking his questions back to his whole team and the little tidbits I’d told him over the months came in handy.”

“The other teacher acknowledged you helped?”

Trent laughed. "The opposite. He claimed that proved his superiority as a teacher and demanded my termination or he was going to resign.”

“Ouch.”

“Exactly.” Trent smiled. "I didn’t bring a team to the games that year, so I had nothing for them to compare, so I was told to pack up my stuff.” He shrugged. "On my way out, I was told to come back in and after waiting for what felt like days, I was given a test?”

“A test?” I looked at him. "Like what?”

“Pen and paper.” He chuckled at my reaction. "I was in a magic-dampening room and told to answer them as best as I could.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t know it at the time, but Paul got the rest of his class to go with him to the ArchBishop. They told him all of the information that I’d given them that was different from what Elias had told them that was instrumental in them winning by such a large margin.”

“Let me guess, that was what was on the test?”

He nodded. "You would have thought that he’d have watched their game, but he got every one of them wrong.” Trent pointed his thumb back at Paul. "Their Shooter was Dacine Reace and that’s where he messed up.” When I didn’t show a reaction he continued. "Of Reace Armaments?”

The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I shrugged.

“Long story short, her Grandmother was Slece’s favorite attendant and her grandfather was very proud of his granddaughter.”

That name I knew. “A God got involved?”

Trent laughed. "Yes they did! The test was her idea, apparently.”

“What happened?”

“Elias got mad about it being obvious he hadn’t watched the games. Let it slip something like ‘Why should he care about the stupid kids' games while the real ones were going on?’.”

“He said that?”

“He did.” Trent shook his head. "Oscar Reace was on speaker and Elias didn’t know that Slece was in the room.”

“What happened?”

Trent shrugged. "I got to keep my job, and I can ‘meddle’ with any class any time I want.”

“What about Elias?” It was wild. "I’m assuming he got fired?”

“Nobody knows.” The old man shook his head. "He’s not been seen since that day, but you don’t cross a God and get off free.”

I scrunched my brow. "Why do you call Paul a horrible student?”

“That’s what Elias called him.” Trent smiled. "The insult became a badge of honor.” He leaned in. "A word of warning. Dacine is his wife.”

I got the message. No matter how good their relationship, Dacine Mite’s daughter was not someone we could afford to have on our team.