I left Leora at the Laffey and headed toward the university.

  She had her hands full with steel and steam and an engineer who did not believe in magic. I had questions that could not be answered in a boiler room.

  Not least of which was where Jamnagar was.

  The System had given me a name.

  It had not given me context.

  I walked through the French Quarter instead of cutting around it. I needed to see it.

  Signs of the battle were everywhere.

  Chalk sigils drawn by nervous hands across doorways. The smell of standing water still lingered in places where pumps had not fully caught up. It was still better off than the lower wards.

  Flooding lingered out there. Rot and salt and things that moved where they should not.

  This city had nearly torn itself apart.

  A man swept glass from his storefront as I passed. He looked up and nodded once. Not reverence. Recognition of another human being.

  My squad and I were the highest leveled people in the western hemisphere.

  The System had confirmed that much.

  If something broke loose here, we were the ones expected to close it.

  If something broke loose somewhere else, we might be the only ones capable of doing anything about it.

  I passed a hand-lettered sign tacked to a post.

  GUILD REGISTRATION – CONTI STREET

  Someone had added below it in smaller script:

  UNDEAD BOUNTIES POSTED DAILY

  Good.

  The Adventurers Guild needed to be more than a hall and a name.

  It needed to offer structure.

  Quests to clear flooded blocks. Patrol routes through unstable neighborhoods. Verified undead nests marked and rewarded. We were an organized response.

  If people could earn experience hunting what was already stalking their streets, then maybe the next breach would not catch them at level one.

  I turned onto the university grounds.

  Tulane’s buildings had fared better than most. High ground helped. Brick and stone instead of wood.

  Students moved in small clusters. Some carried books. Some carried rifles.

  That was the new normal.

  I climbed the steps of the main library and pushed through the heavy doors.

  The air inside smelled of paper and dust and something steady.

  I paused for a moment beneath the high ceiling.

  I had fought monsters.

  I had sealed a prison.

  I had spoken to generals and senators.

  And I did not know where Jamnagar was.

  That bothered me more than it should have.

  I crossed to the reference desk.

  “Map room still intact?” I asked.

  The librarian adjusted her glasses and studied me.

  “For now,” she said. “Second floor. Geography.”

  I nodded and headed for the stairs.

  I had so much to prepare and so little time.

  Congress would call eventually. The anchors would strain again. The System would not wait for committee schedules.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  The second floor was quieter.

  The Geography room sat at the end of a long corridor lined with glass-fronted cabinets. The sign on the door was crooked, one corner hanging loose. Someone had nailed it back after whatever rattled the building two weeks ago.

  Inside, the air was cooler.

  Tall shelves held atlases thick as bricks. Rolled maps stood upright in wooden bins. A large globe sat in the corner, slightly tilted, as if someone had spun it and never bothered to stop it.

  I closed the door behind me.

  For a moment, the room felt untouched by the world outside.

  I did not go to the maps first.

  I went to the encyclopedias.

  A full set of Encyclopaedia Britannica stood along the wall. Leather spines. Gold lettering worn from years of use.

  I ran my finger along the shelf.

  J.

  I pulled the volume free and set it on the table. The book landed with a weight that felt honest.

  I flipped through the thin pages carefully.

  Jackson.

  Jakarta.

  Jamaica.

  Jamnagar.

  There.

  Jamnagar: City in western India, in the Kathiawar Peninsula, formerly capital of the princely state of Nawanagar…

  India.

  I stopped and read the entry again, slower.

  Western India. Gujarat region. Coastal. Arabian Sea.

  Population listed. Trade history. Salt production. Oil refinery mention.

  There would be nothing about a Regional adventurers guild Hall.

  Nothing about anchors.

  Just a city.

  I leaned back in the chair.

  India.

  Eight thousand miles from Louisiana.

  The System had not chosen a small town in Mississippi. It had not flagged New York or London.

  It had flagged Jamnagar.

  I stood and moved to the map cabinets.

  India was three drawers down.

  I slid one open and pulled out a large folded sheet. The paper crackled as I spread it across the table.

  The subcontinent filled the page.

  Mountains to the north. Rivers branching like veins. Coastline long and exposed.

  I traced the western edge until I found the peninsula.

  Jamnagar sat near the coast.

  A port.

  Ports mattered.

  Trade mattered.

  Movement mattered.

  Regional Hall: Jamnagar Status: Active Tier: III

  I rested both hands on the table and stared at the inked lines.

  If there was a Hall there, then someone was operating under my authority.

  I felt a flicker of frustration.

  I was the Warden Prime and I did not know the geography of my own jurisdiction.

  I closed the encyclopedia gently and folded the map back along its original creases.

  If I was going to contain monsters, reinforce anchors, and argue with Congress, I needed more than muscle and instinct.

  I needed context.

  I needed history.

  And I needed to understand why a city in western India was marked as active while I was still sitting at zero Authority.

  I slid the encyclopedia back into place.

  Jamnagar. India.

  Now I knew where.

  The question was why there.

  The System did not tag locations for no reason. It measured. It categorized. It assigned.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and pulled up my Guild notifications.

  I had skimmed them the first time. There had been too much noise then. Too many fires to put out.

  “Show Regional Hall data,” I said quietly.

  Text formed.

  Regional Hall: Jamnagar Status: Active Tier: III Guild Leader: Jam Sahib Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji Communication: Restricted Warden Prime Authority Insufficient

  I opened my eyes.

  Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji.

  Jam Sahib.

  I said it under my breath once to fix it in memory.

  If the System had attached Guild Leader to that name, then this was not some dockworker who had stumbled into power.

  This was someone established.

  I pulled the D volume of the encyclopedia back off the shelf.

  The pages whispered as I flipped.

  Digvijaysinhji…

  There.

  Maharaja of Nawanagar. Educated in Britain. Naval training. Reigned during the years leading into the Second World War.

  I read slowly.

  In 1939 and 1940 he had offered refuge to Polish children displaced by the German invasion. Hundreds of them. Provided shelter. Schooling. Protection.

  He had taken them in when larger nations hesitated.

  I sat back.

  The System rewarded stabilization.

  Sheltering refugees from collapse counted.

  He had governed through pressure without letting his territory fracture.

  That counted.

  I opened my interface again.

  “Define Tier III Regional Hall.”

  Processing…

  Tier III: Established Governance Node Requires sustained stabilization actions across multiple population sectors Independent Guild Structure Autonomous Administrative Authority

  Autonomous.

  So he was not subordinate to me.

  We were parallel.

  I rested my hands on the open book.

  The System had not chosen randomly.

  It had selected a man who, when the world had begun to burn, had chosen order over fear.

  I could respect that.

  But respect did not erase the fact that he had Authority I did not yet possess.

  Prime Authority Available: 0.

  I looked down at the printed page again.

  Jam Sahib Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji — Maharaja.

  Now Guild Leader.

  If the prison world theory was right, then men like him were the bars of the cage.

  Which meant I was not alone in holding it shut.

  That should have been comforting.

  It wasn’t.

  It meant responsibility was distributed.

  And distributed responsibility required coordination.

  I closed the encyclopedia carefully.

  India.

  A coastal ruler with a history of sheltering the displaced.

  And somewhere eight thousand miles away, a Tier III Hall was active while I was still learning the rules.

  If I wanted answers, I would have to earn them.

  Authority did not come from asking.

  It came from stabilizing.

  I pushed back from the table and headed for the door.

  There was work to do.