The county records office opened at eight. Adrian was there at eight-fifteen. The clerk behind the counter had the look of someone who had already answered too many stupid questions and it wasn’t even nine yet. She didn’t look up when he approached. “Property records for 421 Elm Street,” Adrian said. “Owner?” “Daniel Vale.” She typed. “What do you need?” “Everything you have. Purchase history, mortgage, transfers, liens.” She glanced up at him — briefly, the way people do when they’re deciding whether someone is worth the trouble — and then went back to her screen. “That’s a lot of paperwork. You paying for copies?” “Yes.” She slid a form across the counter. He filled it out. She took his money. Ten minutes later he was sitting at a metal table with a stack of documents in front of him and a fluorescent light buzzing overhead. He read them methodically, one by one. The original mortgage was unremarkable. Eight years old, standard terms, nothing Daniel couldn’t have handled

Daniel came home at seven. Adrian heard the front door open, heard the heavy footsteps in the hallway, heard the sigh as Daniel dropped his bag on the floor. He was in the living room, reading through the property records again, when Daniel appeared in the doorway. “You’re still up,” Daniel said. “Can’t sleep.” Daniel nodded. He looked exhausted — more than usual. The warehouse had been empty for months. Whatever he was doing there, it wasn’t work. “Your mother said you went to the records office,” Daniel said. “Yeah.” “Find anything?” Adrian set the papers down. “The debt was manipulated. The house was marked for development before we ever went into default.” Daniel’s expression didn’t change. But something in his posture shifted — a tightening, like he’d been expecting this and was waiting for the blow to land. “I know,” he said. Adrian looked at him. “You knew?” “I suspected.” Daniel crossed the room and sat down in the armchair across from Adrian. He rubbed his face w

Adrian returned to the storage facility before dawn. He had spent the night circulating his qi, drawing on Earth’s thin ambient energy to replenish what he had spent examining the photographs. It had taken hours to recover even a fraction of his reserves. The process was slow, tedious, and deeply unfamiliar — in his former universe, he could have restored his full strength in minutes by drawing on the dense spiritual energy that saturated the atmosphere. Here, he was drawing from a puddle when he was accustomed to an ocean. But he had recovered enough. The storage compound was silent. The single bulb overhead still flickered. The metal door of Unit 42 was still locked. Nothing had changed since yesterday. Adrian crouched in front of the filing cabinet and examined the formation on the drawer. It was small — barely visible to the naked eye, a faint tracery of qi embedded in the metal. A tripwire, designed to alert whoever placed it if the contents were disturbed. Crude by his sta

Adrian left the house before dawn. He had spent two full days recovering from the confrontation in the alley—two days of sitting alone in his room circulating his qi, drawing upon Earth's thin ambient energy to replenish what he had expended. It had been slow, tedious work. On Earth, his reserves refilled like a cup catching rain; in his former universe, he could have restored his full strength in mere minutes. Yet he had recovered enough. The meeting was set for eight o'clock. Adrian had arranged it through the same intermediary Voss had used previously—a phone number provided by the follower, where the voice on the other end had gone deathly quiet the moment Adrian identified himself. Voss had agreed to meet, though he had certainly not sounded pleased about it. Adrian walked through the city as the sun crested the horizon. The streets were quiet and the shops remained closed as ordinary citizens began their daily routines—commuting to work, buying coffee, and walking their dog