The more Wyatt accepted the fever dream as another life with an entire world of experiences he'd lived through, the more frustrated he grew. So many things confused him. Already, he began working things out. If he'd really returned to the past, he first needed answers.

  Annabeth crossed her arms and frowned as she glared at him, stopping in place.

  He sighed and turned towards her. "I'm not lecturing you. I'm saying we need to be careful about how we deal with these things. Consider us part of a team now. I know you have good intentions with your investigations." He pointed at his eyes. “But I know a thing or two about what those investigations lead to. Now, we need to get going, or we’re going to be late to class.”

  Even though she didn’t seem very happy about what he said, she uncrossed her arms and started walking again.

  They walked along the path from the cafeteria to the building where they took Fundamentals of a Dungeon Diver. As they walked, they remained silent as both contemplated both old and new information.

  Wyatt didn’t like the amount of answers he lacked, because it meant he couldn't form any reliable plan of attack for the future. All he could focus on now was completing his classes to get his license so he could eventually buy a private Registry and get to the bottom of everything going on. He had a good and bad feeling about the results he might find.

  On top of that, preferably, he’d like to stay hidden from the Devils for as long as possible. Not dying was a pretty high priority on his list of things to do, and he doubted the Devils would feel the same way.

  They reached the door to the educational studies building, and Wyatt pulled it open and gestured for her to enter. Other students headed in the direction grumbled in annoyance as Annabeth stopped in the doorway and looked back at him.

  "I don’t like this dynamic. You seem to know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff—things I should know,” she grumbled, rolling her eyes at those making a big fuss. She lowered her voice and pulled him through the door, letting it shut on those behind them. "I find your situation quite fascinating, but you've got a tendency to push all the buttons that really frustrate me."

  "By design," he replied, grinning. "I knew someone like you before. I'm not a pawn to be jerked around in every which way without saying something. If anything, I’m more like the king, and you’re my queen.”

  “Eh?!” she nearly shouted.

  He turned and saw her red face. “I… didn’t mean it like that… I mean you have a unique skill set when it comes to your ability to be very powerful and decisive when you want to find the answer to something or believe in a cause,” he quickly amended, clearing his throat as she blushed even deeper. “Look, I can and will help you as long as you recognize that I’m acting with both of our best interests in mind. You will disagree with my choices—I totally expect that to happen often. But anything we do, any choices we make, we do so as partners. If you can't accept that, this whole thing will come to an end very fast, and I’ll make sure you don’t have access to the information to go searching for this stuff very quickly."

  "I do my own thing, and I won't let anybody tell me what I can or can't do," she growled, eyeing him with a familiar intensity. "This is very frustrating, Wyatt. I don't like wasting time, and you keep saying things that are common sense. It’s like you're trying to waste both of our time and effort."

  Wyatt smirked. "Here's what I'm talking about. For all your skepticism, you apply it to the wrong things. You trusted my word when I told you about the unregistered Gates and my situation. You're skeptical of my concerns when you don’t really understand anything going on. And I know you want to get to the bottom of all of this as fast as possible, but I’m not willing to let you recklessly rush ahead. Partners, understood?"

  A dangerous heat filled the limited space of the hallway.

  He put his hands up. "I'm not your enemy. Quite the opposite. I want us to be a team, not individuals acting with our own interests in mind. That gets people killed."

  "Why should I hold myself back?" she growled, almost incapable of stopping herself from venting her frustration. “If there are people out there, I have to know!”

  "Yes, why should you hold back from making yourself a target?" He shrugged. "The fact you haven't expended any of that ambient Ichor means you won't. You're just unhappy, because I'm telling you to be safe, purely concerned for your well-being. I’m not telling you not to go looking, just do so with me. Keep me involved, informed of any of your findings, and aware of anything that seems out of the ordinary. I know a lot about what’s going on, but I also don’t know a lot.” He thumbed behind them. “Anybody around us could be an enemy in disguise.”

  She looked behind them and scowled at the other students who looked back at them. "I take back what I said before. I don't like this situation. It’s annoying," she huffed. The light from her hair and eyes fizzled out. "So?"

  "What options do you have but to listen and be patient?"

  Her brows furrowed as she frowned. "Is that a threat? If I do something without your permission, you’re going to act against me out of some misguided concern for my well-being. How romantic," she said, scowling.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  "What did I just say?"

  "Sounds a lot like you just told me I don't have a choice but to trust you and to only act if you’re there to supervise. Doesn’t sound like much of a partnership to me. Just Wyatt being Mr. Overlord, micromanaging." She clenched her eyes and teeth. “This is so unlike you, it’s weird. There are so many small differences, even in how you walk. How you talk, the way you think, and the amount you know.”

  "You’re wrong about me, Annabeth. I’m not trying to control you or micromanage the things you want to do. I’m just saying that, if my situation and the other things you’re looking into are connected, you could easily be targeted if you’re caught sticking your nose where someone else doesn’t think it belongs.”

  Annabeth looked like she’d tasted something sour as her face cramped, so he gave her some time to think without him constantly shoving his future self’s concern down her throat. They reached the end of the hall, turned left, ascended two flights of stairs to the third floor, and then crossed the hall, stopping at their classroom.

  He opened the door, and she walked in without a word or glance his way. She led their way up the stairs to the back of the room, a vantage point where they could see everything going on in the room, and sat.

  Without hesitation, he tapped the NaviDesk and brought up several illusory screens. NaviSys took his inputs and found what he wanted—another article, this one about the resources and conventional practice available to I.D.C. detectives. He then flipped them around for her so she could see the necessary information. “I asked you what your options are. Nothing else, and nothing more."

  "Whatever,” she grumbled, swiping away the offensive NaviWeb page, “that doesn't matter. None of those useless government organizations matter."

  “Read the article,” Wyatt ordered.

  She glared back at him for several seconds.

  “Read,” he repeated, glaring back at her.

  “Fine,” she grumbled, doing as he said. Her eyes trailed over the article for several seconds, widening when she reached the end. “Huh?”

  “Apt.” He flipped the screen back around and typed on the table again. Each stroke of his fingers caused an equal impact on the magical monitor as he perused the NaviWeb. “Here.”

  She flipped the screen back towards her and stared blankly as she read another article. “How do you even know?”

  “Call it a personal hobby.”

  He smiled as he read the “Help Wanted, I.D.C. Detectives in short supply, apply now for the chance of a lifetime!” job listing. The thing was on a government-associated site, and most people who broke various rules—like Annabeth and her deep web connection—avoided any sites by officials like the plague. The I.D.C. was especially known for scanning external visitors to their sites for criminal activity, which, even if petty and insignificant, hacking into the deep web without clearance qualified as.

  While she read the article, he hummed the familiar tune. The hymn from the shower replayed in his head as he watched her eyes shift through intrigue and denial, curiosity and rejection, hope and disappointment. The soothing, catchy melody calmed him down and made everything seem more manageable.

  Stuck in the past without a clue why, manageable. Having no clue when the Devils started their incursion from Riacore to Eyanora, manageable. Figuring out what the angel in his body might be, manageable. Taming his old heartthrob, manageable. Saving the world, possibly manageable.

  There were many things he needed to consider, but that didn’t mean he needed to do everything, all at once, right then, by himself.

  Wyatt focused on Annabeth, who seemed quite lost in a rabbit hole of perusing the related articles from his web access identification—something she wouldn’t risk had he not offered.

  When she finished, closing out all the sites with a perplexed look on her face, he said, “Without me, you won’t find what you’re looking for. In Riacore, Eyanora, or otherwise.”

  “That sounds like your ego is too big for your head,” she grumbled as she pulled up her previous search history of criminal activities and Double Awakenings.

  Rather than pay much attention to him, she almost entirely lost herself to the deep diving through the NaviWeb and focused on scrolling through different articles that may or may not be related to either topic.

  She gave him a quick look after noticing how quiet he’d been and sighed. “What?”

  "I asked you a question, and you didn’t respond with an answer. What are your options?” he asked again.

  “Already told you, that doesn’t matter.” She shrugged. “I won’t limit myself by being a government dog. A leash is only going to hold me back. And I’m not sure you noticed, but they only need people because of inept leadership.”

  “It does matter,” he said, tapping her NaviDesk to close the different articles she was actively sifting through. Doing so earned him a nice, hard glare from Annabeth. “To work as partners, we need to understand one another.”

  “No.” She tried to bring her recent search history back up, but he grabbed her wrist. Glaring at him, she hissed, “Let. Go. Now.”

  “No.” He held her wrist, careful to be gentle enough not to hurt her but firm enough she couldn’t bring up the NaviWeb again. “This is a process. You and I, Annabeth, need to talk about these things. We need to figure out all of this and how to approach these things without either of us getting caught and hunted for finding the answers to our questions.”

  “Wyatt… let go.”

  He let go. “At this moment, we need to talk more about the core principles behind communicating how we want to go about things and the expectations we have. I’ve done both of those things, pretty much without you saying a single thing to commit to making a rational, informed decision.”

  “You need to shut up for a second.” She rubbed her wrists and glared at him. “I’m having a few regrets already.”

  “Yeah, of course you are.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He groaned. “You are one frustrating woman, at times.”

  “What?” She eyed him like he’d grown a second head. “I think you’re talking about yourself.”