The first step dropped heavily into the muck, sinking beneath Cal’s weight.

  Cold muck clenched Cal’s ankle, dense as cement, clutching at his boot as he jerked free.

  He swore and shifted his weight, planting his other foot wide. The boot pressed down; it sank too deeply, but the mud clung to the leather, affronted.

  Behind him, Jordan made a sound that was halfway laugh, halfway gag.

  “Tell me this is the scenic route,” Jordan said. “Because if this is the easy floor, I’m filing a complaint.”

  Cal glanced back. Jordan hovered, boots already blackened, eyes bright with that brittle optimism Cal knew—the one he wore when fear crept in.

  “No complaint box,” Cal said.

  “Sure there is.” Jordan lifted his chin toward the fog-choked trees. “The Tower. I will be screaming directly at it.”

  The air was a wall.

  The humid, heavy air made every breath feel like drinking. It carried the sour reek of stagnant water and rot. Beneath it, faint but clear, lay the metallic tang Cal now linked with Tower floors. Aether had a scent, if you paid attention.

  Fog lay in low bands across the swamp, thin at his shins, denser ahead. It gripped twisted trunks jutting from black water, bark sleek and dark. Pallid streamers dangled like soaked cloth. Reeds and grasses crowded shallow pools, their tips shivering with hidden insect weight.

  The forest had layered birdsong, leaves, and constant movement.

  Here, noise came in pulses: a distant croak, slow drips from unseen branches, the occasional splash as something broke the surface and vanished.

  Cal’s earth sense thrummed, setting his teeth on edge.

  On Floor 1, stone and soil gave him clean lines—where ground rose, sank, stress changed.

  Here, the signal came through water and rot. The mineral layer sat lower, scattered plates beneath channels of sludge and deep mud.

  Not nothing.

  Just blurry.

  Cal exhaled slowly and forced his shoulders to loosen. The shield pressed on his left forearm, biting into the stone bracer he’d shaped. His wrist throbbed, trapped and caged.

  “Swamp level,” he murmured. “Of course.”

  Jordan took another step and immediately sank to mid-shin.

  “Okay,” Jordan said, voice carefully light. “I take it back. There is a complaint box. It’s my mouth. And I’m opening it.”

  Cal almost smiled. Almost.

  He pulled his foot free of muck with a wet pop and set it down, testing.

  Each step became a negotiation.

  His eyes scanned for roots, rocks, anything that might break the dark water and the thicker mud. His earth sense searched for stone close enough to use as footing.

  After a dozen steps, he found a rhythm. Short strides. Center your weight. Don’t let either boot sink too long. Use roots, logs, and debris in the muck. Always.uck.

  The Tower had scattered just enough solid debris to allow crossings.

  A low rise loomed ahead through the fog. Waist-high at most, but dry—an island of packed soil and tangled roots jutting from the water.

  It might as well have been a fortress.

  “Okay,” Cal muttered. “Target acquired.”

  Jordan leaned forward like he could will it closer. “If you say we’re camping there, I’ll kiss you.”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “Loyal and disgusting.”

  The water ahead wasn’t just mud. Cal’s earth sense felt the mineral layer dip into a shallow bowl—a hollow of sludge and debris, firmer stone deeper than he liked.

  He could slog through it.

  Probably.

  He pictured boots vanishing to the knee. Losing balance here, with shield and bracer weighing him down, was a good way to drown slowly.

  His wrist throbbed inside the stone.

  “Right,” he said softly. “Time to see what you can actually do.”

  Jordan’s humor dimmed.

  “You sure?” Jordan asked. “You’re already… you know.” He nodded at Cal’s bracer.

  “I’m sure about nothing,” Cal said. “But I’m not risking a faceplant in that.”

  He moved to the edge, crouched, and set the shield’s rim in the mud for support. He lowered his right hand into the water, fingers splayed, feeling for something beneath the surface.

  Cold.

  His fingers vanished into dark sludge up to the knuckles before hitting resistance—not stone, just denser sediment.

  He closed his eyes.

  “Stone Shape.”

  Pressure bloomed behind his breastbone, swelling outward on invisible paths. His channels, still tender from the Atrium, flared in complaint but held.

  He pushed the feeling down his arm, tracking it like a current.

  His earth sense sharpened. The swamp floor’s blur resolved: strata of silt and clay over harder mineral. He latched onto a firmer plate—a tabletop patch below his fingers.

  Up.

  The pressure surged forward, out through his palm.

  The sediment around his hand stiffened, then parted.

  Stone swelled from the muck—a pale shape in black water. It rose, shedding sludge. Rough edges climbed. Cal gritted his teeth and guided.

  Flat. Wide enough for one foot. Keep the thickness. Anchor it.

  The stone responded.

  It spread wider than it climbed, forming a squat, circular pad. The top flattened under his intent; the sides stayed lumpy, rooted to the submerged bed.

  His chest ached.

  A dull buzz started behind his eyes.

  He cut the flow.

  The new pad sat half a step in front, water lapping at its edges.

  Cal opened his eyes and drew in a slow breath.

  “Stepping stone,” he said. “Check.”

  Jordan stared as Cal had just pulled a whole car out of the swamp.

  “Okay,” Jordan said quietly. “That was… actually cool.”

  “Don’t let it go to my head,” Cal muttered, and immediately regretted the phrasing as the headache pulsed.

  He pushed to his feet. After wiping muck from his hand onto his pants—already ruined—he pressed his boot’s toe onto the new pad, testing its stability.

  Solid.

  He stepped on it.

  The difference was immediate. His earth sense liked this—clean tone after static. For a moment, standing there, he almost forgot the swamp.

  Almost.

  He extended his hand again, farther out. His channels flared in anticipation, or warning.

  “Stone Shape.”

  Pressure, flow, contact. Another firmer plate, another upward tug.

  The second pad rose faster—not because the stone was easier, but because his intent had a grip now. Short, wide, flat.

  The buzz behind his eyes sharpened.

  By the third pad—a crude, staggered path toward the island—his breath ran shallow. His right hand trembled as he pulled it free.

  “Okay,” he panted. “Lesson two: this is not free.”

  Jordan stepped onto the first pad behind him, testing it like he expected it to collapse out of spite.

  “See?” Jordan said. “You’re basically a construction worker with magic now.”

  “Shut up and watch your footing.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  They crossed.

  Each step onto the pads felt clean and sure, farther from the swamp’s pull. Between them was risk. Cal kept his strides short, weight low, shield forward in case he slipped.

  He hit the rise with a half-stumble. Boots found firmer ground. Mud squelched, but it held.

  Jordan followed and immediately dropped onto the dry patch, as if it were a bed.

  “I love this island,” Jordan said, staring up into the fog. “If anything tries to kill us, I’m claiming squatters’ rights.”

  Cal didn’t answer. He turned slowly, mapping the swamp with his earth senses. The swamp stretched in every direction. Patches of ground dotted the black water. Some small, some hosting twisted trees. Channels of deeper muck cut between, faint dips in his sense. Bedrock rippled like someone wrinkled the forest’s planes.

  He picked a direction that wasn’t quite random.

  The mineral layer rose slightly thicker that way, nearer the surface.

  “Walk by the ground, not the skyline,” he told himself—the only rule that mattered right now. Focus on what could hold him up.

  Jordan pushed himself up, wiped mud off his palms like it was a personal insult, and fell into step close behind Cal’s right shoulder.

  That was the thing Jordan did when it mattered.

  He joked until the moment got sharp.

  Then he stayed close.

  The Tower didn’t wait long to show them what else lived here.

  The first croak came from the left.

  Deep and resonant, it hit Cal’s chest as much as his ears. It rolled across water and muck, echoing strangely between trunks.

  Cal froze. Shield lifted another inch.

  Another croak answered from ahead, higher-pitched, followed by a faint splash.

  Cal’s earth sense caught small disturbances in the mineral layer—impacts, ripples. Something moved through the water toward them, displacing muck with practiced ease.

  Jordan’s hand drifted toward his bar. “Please tell me it’s just a swamp bird.”

  Cal leaned back against a thick tree trunk at the island’s edge. Solid behind him beat the alternative.

  “I know you’re there,” Cal called softly, keeping his voice steady. Bluff, if necessary.

  The swamp answered.

  Shapes broke the surface a few yards away, pushing reeds aside.

  They were about Cal’s height, shorter maybe, but broad in the shoulders. Cabled muscle under green, glossy skin. Limbs ended in webbed hands and feet, each with hardened, blunt claws.

  Their heads were wrong—wide and flat, big, lidless eyes gleaming gray. Wide mouths split their faces, puckered skin at the edges. A frilled crest ran down the skull and spine, twitching as they moved. They wore little: plant-fiber belts, crude knives, pouches. Most carried long spears tipped with bone or stone.

  Three sloshed onto the island, water streaming down their legs. Two stayed half-submerged, eyes and spear points breaking the surface like dark buoys.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Cal’s brain supplied: frog people.

  Jordan’s brain supplied: survival humor.

  “Great,” Jordan muttered. “Frogs with weapons. This floor is officially sponsored by my nightmares.”

  The nearest amphibian hissed, throat sac bulging. A rapid series of clicks and croaks spilled out, too fast to parse.

  Another answered from the side.

  Coordinating.

  Of course they were.

  The front two advanced, spears leveled.

  Cal raised the shield and braced his feet, feeling anchor points under the island—roots, compact soil, a strip of bedrock left, thinner right.

  The first spear came fast and low. He dropped the shield edge and caught it. Wood skidded along stone-lipped metal with a jarring scrape.

  The second went high for his shoulder.

  He twisted, letting it glance off the upper curve.

  The impacts rattled his injured wrist even through the bracer. Pain flashed so bright it made his vision flicker.

  He needed an edge.

  “Stone Shape,” he snapped.

  He drove intent into the island beneath the shield’s rim.

  His channels screamed.

  The thin ring of rock he’d reinforced earlier answered, and the earth just under their feet gave him purchase.

  The shield’s lower rim thickened again—stone bulging along the metal edge into a jagged battering lip.

  Not neat. Not pretty.

  Usable.

  The next spear thrust met that edge.

  Stone bit into the shaft, scraping deep grooves. The amphibian hissed and yanked, but the spear stuck for a heartbeat.

  Cal shoved.

  The trapped spear dragged its wielder off-balance. It splashed onto the island, webbed feet scrambling.

  Cal slammed the shield into its chest.

  He felt ribs give.

  The amphibian staggered back, water and spittle flying.

  Cal followed with the baton.

  Metal cracked across the side of its head. The creature’s eyes rolled. It toppled into the muck with a splash.

  The others adjusted.

  One of the half-submerged ones lunged. Water exploded around it. Spear tip darted for Cal’s hip.

  Cal twisted and caught the strike on the shield’s edge. The stone lip chipped, spraying grit.

  Shock vibrated up his arm.

  The shield edge was stronger—but brittle. Fractures spiderwebbed through the hastily-shaped rock, faults waiting to fail.

  “Overbuilt it,” Cal grunted.

  He shifted angles, relying on intact metal, trying not to let the damaged stone take the next hit.

  That was when the swamp tried to make him pay for caring about his angels.

  A spear jabbed past the shield and caught his side—not deep, but enough to tear fabric and skin. Hot sting. Warm wetness.

  Cal hissed and stepped back.

  The amphibians pressed.

  Jordan moved.

  Not toward loot. Not toward the safest line.

  Toward Cal.

  He slid between Cal and the nearest spear like he was stepping onto a train track because someone else hadn’t seen the lights.

  “Hey,” Jordan said, voice bright with panic, pretending to be confident. “Ugly. You want a real fight?”

  Cal felt the aether shift before he saw anything.

  Jordan’s hand snapped up, palm out.

  The air in front of his fingers brightened.

  Not a glow that filled the room—something sharper. Focused.

  A mark of radiant light stamped onto the swamp’s surface two steps in front of Jordan, hovering just above the water like a coin of sun caught mid-fall.

  Beacon.

  It didn’t explode.

  It didn’t burn.

  It just existed with authority.

  Every amphibian’s head jerked.

  Their eyes—those gray, lidless slabs—locked onto the light like it had hooked them by the skull.

  A chorus of croaks snapped through the fog.

  Then all of them surged toward Jordan.

  Cal’s gut dropped.

  “Jordan—”

  “I know,” Jordan cut in, still smiling like this was a joke he was telling at a bar instead of a swamp.

  Two spears came for Jordan at once.

  He didn’t have Cal’s shield.

  He had a bar and a body that still bled like anyone else.

  Jordan dodged the first thrust by inches and took the second on his bar, wood-and-metal shuddering from the impact.

  Cal didn’t think.

  He moved.

  Stone Shape wasn’t for art right now.

  It was for not letting his best friend get turned into a pincushion.

  Cal drove his palm down into the island.

  “Stone Shape.”

  Pressure flared. Pain answered.

  He grabbed the mineral layer under the amphibians’ feet and pulled.

  Stone surged up in jagged ribs between Jordan and the incoming spears—low, uneven, but enough to break clean lines.

  One spear struck the new rock and skittered.

  The amphibian stumbled.

  Jordan took that opening and slammed his bar into its throat sac. The creature gagged wetly and reeled.

  Another tried to circle.

  Cal pivoted, shield up, and caught the spear on the metal portion this time.

  He rammed forward, body weight behind it, forcing the amphibian back into the half-wall.

  Jordan’s Beacon still burned on the swamp surface, pulling attention like gravity.

  The amphibians kept trying to go around Cal to get to Jordan.

  Good.

  Let them.

  Cal’s baton did quieter work. Skulls. Hands. Knees.

  Jordan stayed loud.

  “Come on,” Jordan called, breathless now, grin stretched thin. “You can do better than that.”

  An amphibious creature lunged with a full-body tackle aimed at Jordan’s waist.

  Beacon dragged it in like a leash.

  Jordan twisted aside, grabbed a frilled crest with one hand, and used the creature’s momentum to sling it—hard—into Cal’s shield.

  Cal met it with a brutal shove.

  The amphibian hit, ribs crunching, and went limp before it hit the muck.

  The last one on the island made a chattering sound that might have been anger or fear.

  It backed toward the water, spear still up.

  Jordan’s Beacon flared once, like a heartbeat.

  The amphibian’s eyes snapped to it again.

  For a second, it seemed to forget how to retreat.

  Cal stepped in and cracked the baton across its wrist.

  The spear fell.

  Jordan immediately followed with a straight punch to the creature’s jaw—more emotion than technique.

  It toppled backward into the swamp with a splash.

  The two that had stayed half-submerged hesitated.

  Then one hissed and slid back under the water, leaving bubbles.

  The other followed.

  Silence rushed in like a held breath released.

  Cal’s arms shook.

  Not from fear.

  From the cost.

  His shield’s stone lip was a ruin—cracks everywhere, one section crumbled away entirely as he lowered it, chunks dropping into the mud.

  Jordan stood on the island’s edge, chest heaving, eyes too wide.

  His grin was gone.

  He looked at Cal as if he were confirming that something still existed.

  “You okay?” Jordan asked, voice finally honest.

  Cal swallowed. His side stung where the spear had kissed him. His head pounded.

  “I’m fine,” he lied.

  Jordan took one step closer and saw the blood darkening Cal’s shirt.

  “You’re not.”

  Cal exhaled through his teeth. “It’s not deep.”

  Jordan’s jaw tightened.

  Humor tried to crawl back in and died on the way up.

  “Beacon works,” Jordan said, quieter, like he was talking to himself as much as Cal. “It… works.”

  “It almost got you killed.”

  Jordan’s mouth twitched. “Yeah. But it didn’t.”

  Cal’s gaze locked onto him. “Don’t do that again unless you have to.”

  Jordan held Cal’s eyes. The joke was gone now. Only the serious part.

  “I will always do it if I have to,” Jordan said.

  Cal hated how the words warmed something in his chest.

  He nodded once, sharp.

  “Lesson three,” Cal said, forcing his voice steady. “More stone isn’t always better stone.”

  Jordan looked at the broken edge of Cal’s shield. “You made it bite. That’s good.”

  “It bit, then it cracked.”

  “So… you made it bite once.” Jordan’s grin returned, smaller, more careful. “Progress.”

  Cal didn’t give him the satisfaction of a smile.

  They moved.

  The swamp didn’t neatly categorize threats.

  Sometimes they went twenty cautious minutes with nothing more than insects and distant croaks. Other times, the mire threw something at them every few yards.

  Cal tried to stay stingy with Stone Shape.

  One pad when a gap between islands turned into a deep, hungry bowl.

  A thin spine of stone along the underside of a rotten log so it wouldn’t snap under their weight.

  A short angled brace under a leaning trunk to turn it into a ramp to higher ground.

  Jordan stayed close, eyes scanning water more than trees.

  He didn’t have Cal’s earth sense.

  So he compensated with vigilance, and with the kind of commentary that made fear feel less sharp.

  “At least the bugs aren’t the size of my head,” Jordan murmured at one point, staring at a cloud of gnats.

  Cal stared back. “Don’t say that like it’s an option.”

  Jordan paused. “You’re right. That was me tempting fate. My bad.”

  They found three lurking shapes waiting just below the surface of a nearby pool—faint bulges under fog, water too still around them.

  Cal steered wide.

  Jordan stared after the pool and whispered, “Whatever that is, I hate it.”

  “Good,” Cal said. “Keep hating it from over here.”

  Then the swamp reminded Cal there were worse things than frog-spears.

  They were wading through shallower water—muck just below the knee—when something brushed Cal’s calf.

  Not a plant.

  Too smooth. Too deliberate.

  Cal jerked his leg up on instinct.

  A sinuous, silt-colored shape exploded out of the water, coils wrapping around his shin. A head like a blunt arrow lunged for his knee, jaws opening to reveal rows of backward-hooked teeth.

  Swamp serpent.

  Cal brought the shield down between them.

  The serpent hit metal instead of flesh. Teeth scraped with a hideous squeal.

  It twisted, constricting, trying to drag Cal’s leg down.

  His boot slipped. Muck surged around his other thigh.

  Cold water slopped over the top of his boot and into his pants.

  “Cal!” Jordan snapped.

  Jordan’s hand lifted—already moving, already committing.

  “Don’t—” Cal started.

  “Loyalty first,” Jordan said through clenched teeth.

  Beacon flared.

  This time Jordan stamped it on the serpent’s head.

  A radiant mark clung to slick scales like sunlight refusing to slide off.

  The serpent’s body jerked.

  Not from pain.

  From focus.

  Its head snapped toward Jordan instead of continuing to chew on the shield.

  It yanked, trying to turn its entire coiled mass.

  The sudden shift loosened pressure on Cal’s trapped leg—just a fraction.

  Cal used it.

  “Stone Shape,” he snarled.

  No finesse.

  He shoved intent down through both feet into the bed beneath.

  Pressure answered like yanking a valve open.

  Stone punched up out of the muck around his trapped leg—jagged rock encasing serpent coils and the lower half of his calf.

  The creature writhed, scales scraping raw mineral, pinned between new stone and Cal’s bracer-weighted body.

  Pain bounced back up Cal’s channels.

  His vision whited at the edges.

  Jordan stumbled back as the serpent’s marked head snapped for him.

  He didn’t have time to be graceful.

  He hooked the serpent’s jaw with his bar and shoved, levering its mouth away from his thigh.

  “Cal,” Jordan barked, voice cracking, “now would be a really good time to win.”

  Cal gritted his teeth, shifted his weight, and yanked his leg upward.

  The stone ring held.

  Scales tore.

  The serpent’s body stretched, then parted with a wet, tearing sound.

  The lower half flopped uselessly in the muck.

  The upper half, Beacon still blazing on its head, thrashed once more toward Jordan—then went slack.

  Cal staggered back onto a root cluster, panting.

  His whole right side trembled.

  The rock ring around his lower calf held for a breath longer, then fractured and crumbled into chunks that sank back into the swamp.

  His head felt stuffed with static.

  Jordan stood over the dead serpent like he was daring it to disagree.

  Then his shoulders dropped.

  He looked down at Cal’s leg, then up at Cal’s face.

  “You still have your leg,” Jordan said.

  “Yeah,” Cal managed. “Thanks.”

  Jordan’s laugh came out rough. “Anytime.”

  Something wet latched onto Cal’s forearm.

  He looked down and saw a leech the size of his thumb wriggling under the torn edge of his sleeve.

  “Absolutely not,” he said.

  He scraped it off with the back edge of his baton, flicking it into the water. Two more clung to his other arm. Several dots marked his boots.

  Jordan made a noise of disgust so sincere it almost sounded like a prayer.

  Cal cleared the worst of them and blew out a breath that tasted like copper and swamp.

  “Could brute-force the floor with this,” he muttered, mostly to convince himself he wasn’t thinking it. “Raise walls, make a bridge, turn it all to stone.”

  His body answered with nausea rolling from chest to gut.

  He hunched over, one hand on his thigh, and waited for it to pass.

  “It’d kill me before the monsters did,” he finished hoarsely.

  After that, he got stingy.

  Stone Shape became a tool with a cost.

  So did Beacon.

  Jordan didn’t throw it casually after that.

  Cal saw him glance at the invisible mark on the serpent’s head after the fight, like he was trying to understand the shape of the thing he’d just done.

  Then he looked at Cal again and made the decision Cal had come to recognize.

  If it kept Cal breathing, Jordan would pay whatever it cost.

  They pushed on.

  They fought more with baton, shield, and makeshift iron bar.

  When another pair of amphibians tried to ambush them from opposite sides of a narrow channel, Cal didn’t reshape the entire bank. He used one quick Stone Shape pulse to thicken the shield lip where it had crumbled, then relied on footwork.

  Catch the spear on the reinforced rim. Step into the hollow he’d felt earlier. Let the overextended attacker slip. Baton into exposed joints.

  Jordan used Beacon once—just once.

  He slapped the radiant mark onto a half-submerged log ten feet away.

  Every spear and lidless eye snapped to it.

  The amphibians surged toward the log like it had offended their ancestors.

  Cal used the opening to crush the nearer one’s knee with his baton and drive the other back with his shield.

  Beacon faded.

  Jordan didn’t look proud.

  He looked relieved.

  Cal’s earth sense became as important as his eyes.

  He mapped depressions and ridges, avoiding places where the mineral layer dropped into hungry holes. He learned amphibians preferred deeper channels; their footfalls sent different ripples through the bed.

  Every time his chest twinged with Stone Shape’s telltale pressure, he asked himself before letting it move:

  Is there another way?

  Sometimes there wasn’t.

  When a sudden sinkhole tried to open under his leading foot, he flared the ability without thinking, hardening slurry into a firm step just long enough to push off.

  The cost was sharp pain along his ribs and another notch added to the headache that had become his companion.

  By the time the swamp’s light began to shift, he had used Stone Shape more times than he could easily count—but each use had been measured.

  The Tower had designed the forest to teach him how to move and fight without help.

  The swamp, he was starting to suspect, was here to teach him how and when to use power.

  The change in light was subtle.

  There was no sky to watch, no sun to track. But the gray glow filtering through fog and hanging growths softened. Shadows thickened between trunks. The croaks and splashes shifted from sharp to slow.

  The swamp had a night cycle.

  Cal’s legs ached from hours of bracing and wading. His shoulders burned from the constant weight of the shield and the drag of the stone bracer. His head pounded deep behind his eyes.

  He needed a place that wasn’t actively trying to pull him apart.

  They found it in a small rise clustered with stunted trees.

  The island was no bigger than Cal’s family living room, but it sat a good foot above the surrounding water. Gnarled roots twisted over its surface, forming natural steps and hollows. Moss clung to bark in damp patches.

  Cal circled, testing. The mineral layer rose close here, reading as a solid reassuring lump under the roots. No hollow pockets. No obvious sinkholes.

  Good enough.

  Jordan climbed up behind him and let out a long exhale.

  “Okay,” Jordan said. “I’m officially declaring this ground. Mine. Ours. Whatever. I’m not moving.”

  “We’re still breathing,” Cal said.

  “That’s why I’m not moving,” Jordan replied, and for once it wasn’t a joke.

  Cal set the shield down against a trunk. His arm sighed with relief inside the stone bracer.

  He hadn’t sat yet.

  First, he worked.

  “Just a little,” he told himself. “Not a fortress. A perch.”

  He knelt and placed his right hand on a root, fingers splayed.

  “Stone Shape.”

  Pressure rose, familiar and unwelcome.

  He guided it carefully, like pouring water into a narrow mold.

  He didn’t drag new mass from the depths. He coaxed the existing mineral beneath the root up in a thin sheet.

  A low ring of stone grew along the outer curve of his chosen spot, no higher than his calf. A crude half-wall.

  Another wedge pushed up near the trunk, forming a brace for his back.

  When he cut the flow, his hands shook.

  The headache spiked hard once, then settled back into its grind.

  “Seat and splash guard,” Cal muttered. “Luxury accommodations.”

  Jordan peered at it. “Look at you. Interior design. Next, you’re going to start charging rent.”

  Cal shot him a look.

  Jordan held up both hands. “Too soon. Sorry.”

  Cal eased himself down into the nook, back to the trunk, legs stretched along the root. The low stone lip would make it harder for anything in the water to reach him without making noise first.

  Jordan sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders almost touched, then immediately pretended it was an accident and shifted half an inch away like it mattered.

  Cal looped the rope loosely around his waist and the trunk, a quick slipknot he could undo one-handed. Falling asleep and sliding into the swamp ranked high on his list of bad ways to go.

  He propped the shield over his thighs, angled so he could grab the handle quickly.

  The stone bracer throbbed dully around his wrist, sore but contained.

  Now, finally, he let himself feel tired.

  The adrenaline crashes, the steady drain of aether, the constant micro-adjustments to keep from sinking—it all flooded in at once.

  His eyelids felt weighted.

  Somewhere in the distance, something gave a long mournful call that might have been a bird.

  Or might have eaten birds.

  “This isn’t a game,” Cal whispered into the thick air. “Every bit you spend, you pay for.”

  Jordan’s voice came soft in the dark beside him.

  “Yeah,” Jordan said. “But you’re not paying alone.”

  Cal’s throat tightened.

  He thought of the Atrium’s warnings. Fragile channels. Strain. Damage.

  He thought of how easy it would be to lean on Stone Shape every time the swamp got difficult. Raise walls. Bridges. Crush anything that moved.

  He imagined collapsing halfway through that plan, nerves fried, body upright only because the Tower hadn’t decided it was time to reclaim him.

  “I can’t just throw power at problems,” Cal said softly. “I have to be smarter.”

  Jordan didn’t joke.

  For once, he didn’t try to smooth the fear over with humor.

  “Good,” he said. “Be smart. And if something tries to drag you under, I’ll make it look at me instead.”

  Cal turned his head slightly. “Don’t say it like it’s romantic.”

  Jordan’s laugh was quiet and shaky. “It’s not romantic. It’s practical.”

  The swamp breathed around them.

  Cal let the sounds fade into a muddy buzz and focused on solidity under his back, the steady quiet hum of earth beneath all that water and rot.

  Sleep came in cautious, shallow stretches.

  The Tower watched.

  And somewhere, in its buried math, it noted which of its new climbers had learned the first rule of aether:

  Spend only what you can afford to lose.