Chapter 78: A yard stick

Rain didn’t sleep much Tuesday night.

He lay on his back in C-12 with the store window still open in the dark above him, and he did the math over and over, as if it might come out different.

Twenty-five hundred. Minus three twenty-seven. Twenty-one seventy-three.

He went through every option he had. It didn’t take long.

He opened the Sell function and held up the vambrace for a valuation.

[Hardened Ridgeback Plate Vambrace (Rank D): Valuation 95 Synthesis Credits]

Then the blade.

[Bonewretch-Bone Reinforced Blade (Rank D): Valuation 120 Synthesis Credits]

He closed the window. Selling both would get him barely a tenth of the way there, and leave him walking into a B-rank rift with his bare hands.

He checked his missions tab. Empty. It had been empty since the Husk Regent.

That left cores. Cores came from rifts, and the only rifts he could get into before Friday were the ones Corwin put him on. The last time Corwin’s crew had put him in one, he’d come out with a C-rank boss kill and nothing in the crate they’d sent him for. They hadn’t called since.

’So I wait,’ he thought. ’And if they don’t call, I walk into that testing annex on Friday and hope Nyra’s right about it only reading names.’

He turned over and looked at the wall. At some point he fell asleep.

---

The Daily Quest went fast in the cold. He was back in his room, still sweating through his shirt, when his phone buzzed on the desk.

**Corwin:** Run tonight. 9pm. River stop, Western Arch, last car.

**Corwin:** We’re coming in with you this time. Reeve’s orders.

**Corwin:** Don’t be late and don’t screw it up again.

Rain read it three times.

He sat down on the edge of his bed. He felt like laughing, and he didn’t.

’There it is.’

A run meant monsters. Monsters meant cores. He had storage nobody could see, and a Sell function that didn’t ask questions. He opened the store and looked at the timer.

[Listing Expires: 50:12:44]

Then he looked at the second line of Corwin’s message.

We’re coming in with you this time.

That part he didn’t like. Corwin, Petrov, and Dax had never once set foot in a rift with him. They sat in Reeve’s basement and waited for crates. If they were coming in, it was because the last run had come back empty and Reeve wanted someone watching the swap. That meant three C-ranks watching Rain’s hands all night.

His phone buzzed again.

**Peter:** did you get corwin’s text

**Peter:** they’re coming IN?? why are they coming in

**Rain:** Last run came back empty. They want to watch the swap.

**Peter:** oh good. great. love that

**Rain:** Stay near me tonight.

**Peter:** I was always going to stay near you

---

He thought about it through all of Rift Geography.

The lecturer was going through gate classifications, drawing diagrams on the board, and Rain copied them without seeing them. He kept thinking about Friday, and the week after Friday. About walking through a B-rank gate with Abby beside him.

He had never seen her fight.

He’d seen her stand in Tenski’s yard and hold a perfect stance. He’d seen her put Mumford on the gravel in the first week of class, quickly enough that he’d almost missed it. He’d heard her talk about Channeling as if it were the easiest thing in the world. But he’d never seen what she did when something was actually trying to kill her. And in two weeks, he was supposed to stand next to her while something tried to kill both of them.

’I don’t even know if I’ll keep up,’ he thought. ’I don’t know if I’m any good, or if I just keep getting lucky.’

The Husk Regent had nearly torn him apart, and he’d needed Holt and Fen to keep it busy so he could get in close. The Bone Widow had nearly killed him too. He’d walked out of both, but he’d walked out bleeding. He had no idea what a real B-rank looked like next to that.

Tonight, three C-ranks were going into a rift with him. He’d get to watch C-rank up close for the first time, with nobody beating him on the ground.

And if Abby was there too...

He stopped writing.

It was a terrible idea. She was two days from guild testing. Her mother read her records like a ledger. If anyone found her at an off-books harvest, she was finished.

But nobody on that crew knew her. They were second-years. She was a first-year who kept to herself and didn’t post anything. And Reeve’s whole operation ran on the fact that nobody looked twice at carriers.

’It’s her call,’ he thought. ’Not mine. I tell her everything, and she decides.’

The bell rang. He realized he’d drawn the same gate diagram three times.

---

He found her on the library steps at lunch, a sandwich in one hand and a thick folder of guild forms open across her knees. She was filling in a box with tiny, furious handwriting.

"If you’re here to tell me you lost your testing slip," she said without looking up, "I’m going to scream."

"Nobody gave me a testing slip."

"Then you’re fine." She turned a page. "What’s up?"

Rain sat down one step below her. A group of second-years went past at the bottom of the stairs, and he waited until they’d gone.

"I need to tell you some things," he said. "Then I need to ask you something. You can say no to that part."

She looked up. Something in his voice made her set the sandwich down on the folder.

"Okay. That’s a scary opening."

"You’ve seen the video. The C-rank."

"Everybody’s seen the video."

"That wasn’t the last rift I’ve been in."

She stared at him. "You’ve been in others? Since?"

"A couple."

"With who? You didn’t even have a party until a few weeks ago. You told me that yourself."

"I went in as a carrier." He kept his voice low. "There’s a crew of second-years with a probationary contract at Iron Vane. They have a quota to meet. They place carriers on independent clearing teams, small cheap crews that need extra hands. During the run, the carrier swaps a marked crate of the best cores for a fake one full of junk and walks the real one out. The second-years log the real cores as their own."

Abby didn’t say anything for a long moment.

"That’s theft," she said.

"Yeah."

"You’re stealing from independent crews. People like Nyra."

"I’ve never actually done the swap," Rain said. "The one time it was supposed to happen, the run went bad. The crew I was with walked into a C-rank boss room."

"A C-rank..." She leaned forward. "As a carrier? Rain, carriers don’t go into boss rooms."

"This one did."

"And you’re sitting here."

"We cleared it. The crew and me." He shrugged. "Barely."

She looked at him the way people look at a test answer that couldn’t possibly be right. He could see her wanting to ask how. He could also see her deciding that wasn’t the most important question yet.

"Why?" she asked. "Why would you work for people like that?"

"They made up a debt. Said I owed them fifty thousand credits for something I didn’t take. I let them think I’d work it off."

"Why would you let them..."

"Because somebody I care about was already stuck in it. Really stuck. And the only way I could keep an eye on him was to get stuck in it too."

He watched her eyes move past his shoulder toward the quad, then come back. He could tell she’d already guessed who. He could also tell she was choosing not to say it.

"Okay," she said slowly. "And what’s the part I can say no to?"

"There’s a run tonight. D-rank. The second-years are coming in with us this time, which they’ve never done."

"Rain."

"Come with me."

She stared at him. Then she laughed, short and disbelieving, and pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead.

"You’re serious."

"I want to see what a B-rank does in a real fight," he said. "Friday we get tested, and then you and I walk into a B-rank rift together. And I have no idea where I stand next to you. I’ve been fighting things that wanted to kill me, and I can’t tell if that makes me any good or just lucky. Tonight I get to watch three C-ranks. If you’re there too, I’ll know."

"So I’m a measuring stick."

"Yes."

"In an illegal harvesting run."

"Yes."

"Two days before my guild testing. Two weeks before the qualifier that decides whether I keep my whole career." She was ticking it off on her fingers. "If anyone sees me there. If anyone takes a picture. If one of those second-years recognizes my face from some guild event..."

"Would they?"

She opened her mouth and stopped.

"I’ve never been to a guild event my mother didn’t stand in front of me at," she said after a moment. "Nobody looks at me. They look at her."

"They’re second-years with a probationary contract at a different guild. They’ve never been anywhere near Red Dragon. You’d be a first name and a pair of hands. They don’t vet carriers. Anyone with a bound skill who signs a waiver gets in."

"And if it goes wrong?"

"Then you’d be the strongest person there."

"That’s not reassuring, that’s the problem." She picked up her pen and put it down again. "If I have to fight, they’ll see what I can do. And then everyone’s going to want to know who the carrier with a B-rank skill is."

"Then don’t fight unless you have to."

"And if I have to?"

"Then you have to. And we’ll deal with it after."

She looked down at the folder in her lap. It was half full of her handwriting. Forms about herself. Forms about her qualifications. Forms her mother had probably already read.

"Do you know what I did all weekend?" she said quietly.

"No."

"I sat in my mother’s office and filled these out while she took calls about me in the next room. About me. Like I wasn’t sitting right there. Every single one was someone telling her what they thought I could do." She tapped the folder. "I’ve done everything right for four years. Every drill. Every review. Every dinner I didn’t want to go to. And I’ve never once been in a fight that somebody else didn’t approve first."

Rain waited.

"Never," she said again. "Not once."

Then something changed in her face. The crease between her brows smoothed out. The corner of her mouth went up, slowly, until she was grinning at him. He’d never seen her look like that. It made her look younger, like someone who climbed things she wasn’t supposed to.

"What time?" she asked.

"Nine. The river stop in the Western Arch. Last car."

"I’ll wear something ugly." She snapped the folder shut and stood. "Here are my rules. I carry. I keep my head down. I hold back the whole way unless something’s actually about to kill somebody. You don’t get the show for free."

"Fair."

"It’s not, actually." She went down two steps, then turned back. "And afterward, you’re telling me how a carrier walks out of a C-rank boss room."

"Afterward," Rain said.

She pointed her pen at him and went down the rest of the steps.

---

The river stop was the last station before the line ran out of track. At five to nine, the platform had one flickering light, one bench with half its slats missing, and four people waiting.

Corwin stood under the light in his navy jacket, scrolling on his phone. Dax leaned against the pillar next to him, arms folded, his neck so thick his collar wouldn’t lie flat. Petrov hovered near the stairs as if he expected someone to come down them. Peter sat on the end of the broken bench in his green jacket, and stood up so fast when he saw Rain that the whole bench rocked.

Then he saw who was walking next to Rain, and his mouth fell open.

Abby had kept her word. She wore a grey work jacket two sizes too big, cargo trousers with a frayed cuff, and a black knit cap pulled down over her hair. Without the coat and the braid, she looked like any Western Arch first-year who’d heard there was money in carrying.

Rain caught Peter’s eye and shook his head once. Peter closed his mouth.

Corwin looked up from his phone. His eyes went to Abby and stayed there.

"Who’s that?"

"Abby," Rain said. "She needs credits. She’s got a bound skill and she’ll sign the waiver."

"I didn’t say bring anybody."

"Reeve takes anyone who signs. You’ve got a crate to swap and three of you watching. Three carriers is easier than two."

Corwin looked at Abby a little longer. She looked back at him with a bored, tired expression, the face of someone who’d come to lift boxes for money and didn’t care who he was.

"What’s your skill?" Corwin asked.

"Utility," Abby said. "It’s nothing. I’m good at lifting things."

Dax snorted. Petrov glanced at the stairs again.

"Fine," Corwin said. He put his phone away. "You carry. You keep your mouth shut. Fifty credits at the end if nothing goes wrong." He pointed at Rain. "She’s yours. She messes up, it goes on your number."

"Understood."

The train came screeching into the station.