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‘Elaborate,’ said Garovel flatly.

‘I just had Roman mention that Hector looks super young for his level of strength, and... that he’s black.’

Garovel lost his composure again. ‘That’s NOT a little bit, Voreese! Hector’s probably the only black person in Capaporo, right now!’

‘Eh, I mean, that’s debatable, isn’t it? The Hun’Kui sort of count as black, right? Ashy gray tones ‘n whatnot.’

‘I can’t believe you.’

‘Hey, it’s not like Leo knows we’re coming. Or what you and I look like. As long as Hector stays out of sight, we can still get the jump on him.’

‘This means that if he DOES spot Hector, then Hector can no longer pretend to be someone else. Someone who, for example, is NOT connected to the Rainlords whom Leo is probably very upset about losing track of.’

‘Yeah, that would be a problem,’ said Voreese. ‘But on the bright side, Leo could be too scared to fight Hector now.’

‘Oh, sure, and he might also decide to give us a trillion fucking troas for no reason.’

In spite of everything, the party of three soon continued onward and entered the climate-controlled zone. Hector removed his cooling variant armor and decided not to remake it in its normal form. It would be too noisy, he felt, and considering everything that they had just learned, stealth seemed more important than ever. He did remake a few pieces of the armor, though, for modesty’s sake. Walking around half-naked wouldn’t have been very stealthy, either.

After a few more flights of stairs and several white-and-silver corridors, Voreese finally began to slow down.

‘Leo’s just up here to the left,’ she said.

Hector reached the apparent corner in question and took a breath to gather himself. He poked his head around for a peek.

Thankfully, the crowd wasn’t nearly as dense in this area, so it was easy to discern who Leo must have been. There was no one else around the man with dreadlocks as he sat on a bench in front of a glassy wall.

No. Not just a wall, Hector realized after a moment. A water tank. So big that it spanned that entire side of the chamber. Hector could just barely make out tall shadows in the water. Some type of plant, he was pretty sure.

He searched for Roman but couldn’t see him anywhere. Unless... that pitch black lump under Leo’s hand...

‘Is that Roman’s head?’ said Hector.

‘Yep,’ the reaper said privately.

Great.

This was also a very bad location for a fight, Hector thought. He’d been wondering where all the normal people down here were getting their water, and now he had his answer. No doubt, water was an extremely difficult commodity to come by in the Undercrust. The Hun’Sho and the Hun’Kui hadn’t seemed to need it much, if at all, but everyone in these climate-controlled zones obviously did.

So if that tank ended up damaged, somehow...

Hector didn’t even want to imagine how bad the collateral damage might be.